Eis That Beer

Eis Beer: Pronounced as if it were ‘Ice Beer’.

Eis beer is a concentrated version of a regular beer and this concentration is carried out by freezing the beer for a few hours and then letting it thaw out. The beer is not allowed to thaw out completely as some of the ice crystals are discarded. On tasting various Eis beers, it has been noted that it has a much more smoother as compared to its non-Eis versions. Freezing the beer also removes some of the hops bitterness and tannins. Alcohol does not freeze but water does and the loss of water increases the alcohol concentration of the beer.

I intentionally brewed 10 liters of my Wheat Stout so I could Eis 2 liters of it. Once the fermentation was complete, I measured out 2 liters of the beer and put it in the freezer just before I went to bed. The next day I put the ice block on a strainer and allowed it to thaw for some time. The ice block almost immediately collapsed because the alcohol had not frozen and this left some smaller blocks of ice in the strainer that I left to continue thawing for some time. 

After about half an hour, the remaining ice blocks has lost most of its color and I got about 1.5 liters of beer. I primed with a much lesser amount of sugar than I usually prime with, bottled it and then pushed it to the back of my cupboard.

The reason I did that was because I have no intention of opening the beer in a month’s time. Instead I plan on opening it after ageing it for 6 months at the minimum. I prefer ageing bigger beers because the inherent alcohol note in an un-aged big beer is sharp, harsh and heady which ruins the drinking experience. Its like drinking a peaty, smoky scotch with a seafood platter and having that smoke and peat linger on throughout your meal thus overwhelming the delicate flavors of the seafood.

Eis beers are not available as widely as the other commercial craft beers are because of the sheer cost of brewing it. Initially, things seem fine, but if you observe closely the beers do carry a higher cost. I lost half a liter when I Eis-ed the stout. So that’s half a liter of hop bitterness (irrespective of how small it is), half a liter of water, half a liter worth of base, specialty and roasted malts and half a liter worth of fermentation. Half a liter isn’t much, but imagine the costs when a commercial brewery loses the aforementioned items because they don’t brewing small batches. And that loss causes the per serving cost of the Eis beer to shoot up. Which is why this beer makes perfect sense for a home brewer. You tend not to lose a lot if you plan properly and the only thing you need to worry about is trying to keep your hands off of the beer for a while.

The ageing process brings out the beer’s flavors, the alcohol mellows out slightly (but trust me, its very much there), and some of the hop bitterness fades away, all of which makes for a smoother drinking experience. I have not found a source anywhere on the internet that says a beer will lose the flavor and aroma compounds, so Eis-ing an IPA would make for an interesting beer. Of course, I wouldn’t age an Eis IPA since the dry hop flavor and aroma would simply cease to exist after 6 months of ageing.

Lastly, a simple piece of advice for folks who Eis their beers: share it.

Brew Day: Amber Wheat IPA

I’ve only had one Wheat IPA so far. At Toit in Indiranagar. Referencing their website, Toit states that the grain bill contains Munich, Wheat and Caramel malts and it is dry hopped with Chinook and Citra. It was a fairly opaque, cloudy and dark brown colored beer. And it made for one good IPA too.

With quite a bit of wheat malt on my hands and inspired by Toit’s offering, I decided to brew a Wheat IPA too. I have had a few nice, worthy IPAs and I’ve brewed some too but never one with wheat in the grain bill. So this was a bit of a challenge. With the grains at home, I decided to stick to the basics since this is my first Wheat IPA. My grain bill was just Pale Ale and Wheat, with a bit of dark caramel malts to deepen the color. This was done because my plan was to brew an Amber Wheat IPA.

My initial recipe had Aromatic malt too. But on later introspection, I decided to chuck Aromatic malt from the grain bill since I feared this would give the beer a bit of a stronger malty backbone and hide the wheat. I had some yeast starter left over from my other Wheat beers, Wheat Stout and Watermelon Wheat and that is what I used.

Once I finalized the grain bill, my next challenge was to zero in on the hops. IPAs are probably the more expensive beers brewed around the world due to the hops used in them and I may not be wrong in stating that the West Coast IPAs and the Imperial IPAs would be among the more expensive IPAs brewed. With that in mind, I decided on two hop additions during the boil to bring the IBUs to around 40. Of course, setting IBUs and maintaining it is easy for most beers. For an IPA the challenge is choosing which hops to dry hop with.

And that brought around some confusion. A fellow brewer gave me some Simcoe which I decided to use straight away. But I preferred 2 hops as part of the dry hopping regimen. Browsing through my hops (which isn’t a lot), I found some Cascade that I could use. The reason I stuck to two hops during the dry hop regimen was to keep things simple and not over complicate flavors and aroma in the IPA. There are IPAs out there with a lot more hops added during dry hopping but I guess simplicity has its charm.

Amber Wheat IPA (Tasting notes here)

Specifics

Batch size (litres): 8 litres
Type: All Grain

IBU: 40

SRM: 15

OG: 1.056

Grains and Sugars

900 grams Pale Ale
900 grams Wheat Malt
50 grams Crystal 120
50 grams Crystal 80
10 grams Roasted Barley

Hops
5 grams Aurora @ 45 min.

4 grams Northern Brewer @ 30 min.
7 grams Cascade, Dry hop, 5 days.
7 grams Simcoe, Dry hop, 5 days.

Yeast

Fermentis WB-06 Wheat Beer Yeast

Schedules

Mash at 66°C for 60 minutes

Sparged at 80°C for 30 minutes

Boiled for 45 minutes.

Tasting Day: Mad Hopper IPA #1

Recipe and Brewday here.

Technically it has been over two and a half months since I brewed the Mad Hopper IPA #1 and I first tasted it a few weeks ago. 

I then had another bottle a few days ago and I have to say that the IPA’s characteristics have changed since I last tasted it. It seems to have matured a bit, the piney, citrus aromas stand out and it is very well carbonated.

The beer pours with a cloudy amber hue and immediately forms a thick white head. The head sticks around for a bit initially and then settles into a half finger thick head foam. What I will state (and may even end up overstating it) is the aromas. The aroma was very noticeable when I popped open the bottle and when I poured the beer. It is a very pleasant citrus, grassy and piney aroma that didn’t overwhelm me. In fact, the aroma makes for a very pleasant drinking IPA but this is not a session IPA either. The amber color is largely from the caramelization of the malt extract since it was boiled for an hour.

This is a medium bodied beer and it tends to linger on the palate longer than most of my current beers which are light bodied. The bitterness is on the lower side for IPAs but then as a home brewer, I think I have the liberty to keep it that way. The head stuck around for some time as I slowly finished the beer but there was no lacing throughout the beer.

I plan on brewing more of these IPAs but the recipe will change based on what hops I have at home. All in all, this is a very comfortable, aromatic, hoppy beer that can be liked by most hop heads.

Brew Day: Watermelon Wheat

The folks who mass produce beer (or horse piss) may never understand craft beer and its drinkers. There is a world far beyond diluted, pale yellow, consistently boring lagers that the big brewers know about but don’t venture into it. With their large brewing equipment it should be easy to go craft, but the one single aspect of higher brewing cost holds them back.

Perhaps not in India, but in other parts of the world, big brewers regularly air their ads that feature bubbly yellow liquids in glasses, in the hands of consumers and regularly talk about the innovative brewing they continue to do. Innovation indeed!!

I was once a so called ‘horse piss’ drinker, but the switch to craft beer was simply a better choice. And the choices are endless: IPAs, blonde ales, barley wines, stouts, pale ales, wheat beers, rye beers etc.

So when there’s very little innovation in mass produced beer, they simply cannot draw craft beer drinkers back to their watered down beers. The reason I said this much about the big brewers and their 'innovation' is because of a twitter post by Anheuser-Busch that seem to insult craft beer, or in this case 21st Amendment’s Watermelon Wheat. If you can’t beat them, harry them. Of course, this wasn’t taken lying down by craft beer drinkers and they responded. Anheuser-Busch may have actually given publicity to 21st Amendment’s Watermelon Wheat.

This is one post that made me think of brewing a watermelon wheat since I had some wheat at home. The issue I faced was with the amount of watermelon to be added to the beer in the secondary. I spoke to another brewer who made a watermelon Hefeweizen and he stated that about 100ml of watermelon puree per liter of beer gives the finished product a faint amount of watermelon flavor. I haven’t tasted his watermelon Hefe and therefore I do not know what it tastes like but I decided to go ahead with the same calculations.

The bitterness and gravity of the beer is intentionally low to allow the watermelon to shine, although slightly and not overwhelm the beer. With the addition of the watermelon puree, the SRM is expected to change a bit and move to a slightly darker shade of yellow but it wont shift to red, reddish or orange. I will post my findings once I bottle the beer.

Watermelon Wheat (Tasting notes here)

Specifics

Batch size (litres): 8 litres
Type: All Grain

IBU: 12

SRM: 3.5

OG: 1.048

Grains and Sugars

910 grams Pilsner
730 grams Wheat Malt

Hops

2 grams Aurora @ 45 min.

Other Additions

Add 800 ml of fresh watermelon puree to the beer in secondary after a week of fermentation for 3 days.

Yeast

Fermentis WB-06 Wheat Beer Yeast

Schedules

Mash at 65.5°C for 60 minutes

Sparged at 80°C for 30 minutes

Boiled for 45 minutes.

Brew Day: Wheat Stout

I have professed my love for simple wheat beers but I am hopeless in getting to make an all grain Hefeweizen. I have WB-06 yeast at home, but some of my wheat beers have turned out to be awful. I can drink them but I just couldn’t share them with anyone. While those beers were simple wheat ales, and with a Summer Wheat Ale bottled up, I have jotted down a stout recipe with 50% wheat in the mash.

While we’re on the topic of stouts, the later bottles of the Foreign Extra Stout that I brewed had a certain pronounced roasted flavor to it. This flavor may be very welcome in a stout and there are people who appreciate a hearty roasted flavor, it did make the drinking difficult for me. I later googled to find that Black Patent Malt or Black Malt contributes quite a bit to this dark, roasted characteristic. I’m not stating that this is bad; I’m just stating a personal opinion and the opinion is that I would prefer to have a stout without a heavy roasted note to it.

With the grains available with me, I could have easily made an all-grain, low ABV stout with Pale Ale malt, but decided to lower the quantity of Pale Ale in the grain bill and add wheat to the mash along with a few dark grains minus the Black Malt. I haven’t had a wheat stout before so I do not how this would turn out until I drink it a few weeks later. The only wheat beer that I have had that was slightly different from the regular Hefes and Wits was the Wheat IPA at Toit. And it was good. Perfect bitterness, moderate to heavy hop aroma and a thick, chilled, slightly opaque beer.

For now this would be a slightly lower in strength than the Foreign Extra Stout. I had initially planned on brewing just 8 liters but then I bumped it up to 10 liters as I wanted to make an Eis Stout with 2 liters of the beer and then age it a couple of months. I will have a separate post for those interested in making Eis beers.

Wheat Stout (Tasting notes here)

Specifics

Batch size (litres): 10 litres
Type: All Grain

IBU: 38

SRM: 35

OG: 1.056

Grains and Sugars

1 kg Pale Ale
1 kg Wheat Malt
150 grams Crystal 120
150 grams Roasted Barley
150 grams Chocolate malt

Hops

15 grams Northern Brewer @ 45 min.

Yeast

Fermentis WB-06 Wheat Beer Yeast

Schedules

Mash at 65.5°C for 60 minutes

Sparged at 80°C for 30 minutes

Boiled for 45 minutes.

Tasting Day: Super Simple Cream Ale

Recipe and Brewday here.

After close to 4 weeks of carbonation, I opened a bottle of Cream Ale.

The hiss as I opened the bottle instantly told me that the beer had carbonated well. Even though I poured very slowly, a finger and half thick foamy white head formed instantly and this took time to settle down to a quarter-inch thick head. I swirled the glass around and the head formed again with a quarter-inch thick white foam.

The clean golden yellow, or sunshine yellow beer reminded me of the Palest Pale Ale I brewed a few months back. This, being a simple Cream Ale, was supposed to have no stand out aromas but I got a distinct lemon or citrus aroma which wasn’t expected because only one hop addition was carried out in total, that too for bitterness. On inhaling deeper, I could smell a faint sour note.

When bottling this, I was left with a half glass of beer that I drank. At the time, what I smelt was very different than what I tasted and it was no surprise today either. As is the case with most beers I brew, I took a fairly long sip. It was light bodied and I noticed almost instantly that there was a faint tartness to it but the beer was crisp and therefore very refreshing too. At 4% ABV, the beer was very drinkable and I finished off a bottle in no time.

My only gripe with this beer, and it is a small gripe, is the bitterness. While I targeted under 20 IBUs, the bitterness sticks out slightly more than I wanted. Maybe next time I’ll keep it lower.