The Macro Twang

[goatherder]

I was at a mates place last night. He spoiled me rotten with a fabulous selection of beer in the fridge. Duvel, Hofbrau, Boddingtons and a lager called Kokanee which I hadn't tried before.

Anyhow, he had a few sneaky bluetongues in the back of the fridge. I had tried bluetongue before and hadn't liked it much. I thought I would give it another shot.

The first thing that hit me was "this tastes like macro"

Hahn Premium, Crown, Boags, Cascade and the major state megaswills all have this same awful macro twang. The "cold filtered" swill tends to have it more than the others. It doesn't seem to be in the Euro macros though.

I'm curious to know what is the ingredient or technique that makes this signature taste?

..mainly so I know what to avoid when I'm brewing.

 

[Stuster]

Pride of Ringwood hops. Have a look at this recent thread on it. Some love it, some hate it. It seems you are not a fan.

 

[goatherder]

That was one of my first guesses, but Coopers doesn't suffer from it according to my tastebuds, and I understand Coopers use POR in Pale and Sparkling.

 

[MHB]

I recon its the 30-40% sugar they all have in common the good old sugar twang. It cant be the POR, Carlton only use hop extract, if you tour their brewery you will get a surprise when you look at the flowchart, apparently hops are added after fermentation.

MHB

 

[Guest Lurker]

Depends on what you are tasting, but to me its not the hops and its not the sugar. I taste 2 nasty things in those beers. One is a residual sweetness despite the thin body. I put this down to the mega/macro breweries using malt designed to be highly dextrinous, so that they can dilute back with sugar. But to me highly dextrinous malt plus sugar does not equate to the taste of pure, less dextrinous malt. The other is esters. I taste banana ester really strongly in Tooheys extra dry, and other esters to some extent in other megalagers. I dont know if its the case, but suspect the mega breweries do a high gravity ferment to get more beer through the same sized system, then dilute back, and the esters come from that. Anyway, thats what I taste in the mega and macro brews, that make them stand apart from the micro brews.

 

[barfridge]

guest_lurker: the depth of your palette never ceases to amaze me. No wonder you steer clear of wheat beers

 

[Stuster]

Yeah. Mighty palate, GL. Wow. All the megalagers taste so similar to me. I'm amazed.

Sounds spot on to me about the high gravity wort, though MHB could be partly right too. According to Mosher they do that in the US megabreweries, though he says that those who have tasted it report ambrosia. :unsure:

 

[Mr Bond]

Depends on what you are tasting, but to me its not the hops and its not the sugar. I taste 2 nasty things in those beers. One is a residual sweetness despite the thin body. I put this down to the mega/macro breweries using malt designed to be highly dextrinous, so that they can dilute back with sugar. But to me highly dextrinous malt plus sugar does not equate to the taste of pure, less dextrinous malt. The other is esters. I taste banana ester really strongly in Tooheys extra dry, and other esters to some extent in other megalagers. I dont know if its the case, but suspect the mega breweries do a high gravity ferment to get more beer through the same sized system, then dilute back, and the esters come from that. Anyway, thats what I taste in the mega and macro brews, that make them stand apart from the micro brews.

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I think you have hit the proverbial nail "right on the head",my man.Couldn't agree more.