Oct 9, 2024
Brut IPA (RIP), crisply carbonated and very dry, aspired to be a refreshing oasis away from popular, huge, heavy and/or rich IPA styles, like, say, New England and even West Coast IPAs with more classic malt styling. When it came down to competing for hearts and mouths, Brut’s fatal flaw was probably its overly thin body, which — though normal for its aggressively dry construct — was not an easy vehicle for launching hop flavor and aroma, and often had less than satisfying mouthfeel.
Joe Mongan —Florida homebrew club founder, hop head, pan-IPA enthusiast — thinks crossing a Brut IPA with an element of the Milkshake IPA is the answer. More specifically, he thinks balancing lactose into an otherwise Brut construct could give rise to a whole new style, one that still registers high on the easy-drinking scale, carries flavor and aroma better, and gives satisfying body.
He brought the results of his test brews to Devon Kreps, owner and Head Brewer at Florida’s 7venth Sun Brewery, who invited him to collaborate on another version, tailored for her big rig. By all accounts the resulting brew, called False Readings, was a hit:
“When I tried Joe’s beer, I got a well-balanced sweetness, low bitterness, and nice citrus character. Approaching a very dry base with lactose gave the beer back body, but it was still a refreshing, hoppy, citrusy beer. Knowing what was going on with it definitely got me thinking when I tried it. I’ve been in this industry for a couple of decades now. Sometimes you feel like you’ve tried everything. Then something grabs your interest. Anytime you’re dipping into a new genre, especially one that evolves a new flavor from a process, it’s intriguing.”
Foundations
Joe starts with a high adjunct grist — anywhere up to 30% corn and rice. He keeps the malts simple. The malt offers yeast good nutrition, among other things, so it sets things in motion for healthy fermentation. The corn and rice set the scene for an arable wortscape (there are arguably other ancillary benefits, too — but more on that later). Next, he adds glucoamylase enzyme, also called amyloglucosidase, to break down starches into component glucose, which is easily digestible by yeast. This is doing the work that fewer malt enzymes from the adjunct-laden malt bill aren’t there to do, and probably doing even more, to dry things out. Both elements have the effect of leaving the beer light in color, and with a very dry backbone.
Joe then balances some sugar back in: Lactose, this time, which is unfermentable by beer yeast. It tastes significantly less sweet to us than malt sugars do, but adds a similar amount of body. That means more can be added for a nice thickening effect without also making the beer overly sweet.
The hop profile: Joe doesn’t think there are limits to what kind of hops brewers could experiment with, though low bitterness seemed to play nicely with the version he and Devon cooked up. They went with a tilt toward tropical and citrus notes, and supported those with esters from a tropically ester-expressive yeast strain, too.
Joe selected a kveik strain to maximize versatility in fermentation temperature for Florida’s heat.
Interestingly, aroma and flavor contributed by yeast esters can be perceived as adding to the overall sweetness of beer. If an ultra clean profile is what brewers are looking for, they will often use a very neutral yeast strain. However, if other elements of the beer’s perceived sweetness can be stripped down, and metered back in another way, as they are in this style, yeast esters can easily be considered in the balance. They can be used to support and amplify the beer’s hop profile.
More on sweetness and sensory
Though too much sweetness can be cloying, if there’s very little, even when a beer is loaded with other flavor and aroma compounds, our perception of them can stay frustratingly quiet. That’s in part thanks to certain idiosyncrasies of the human sensory system. Sweetness makes flavor and aroma pop simply because of how we’re wired to taste (and smell). Sweetness is our strongest sense. We have more receptors and pathways devoted to sensing it, so we just get more sensory information delivered to our brains in total when sweetness is involved, meaning sweetness ups our perception of other flavors and aromas in combination (and sugars specifically are a particularly satisfying source of sweetness to us — though certainly not the only source).
All of that is why, when something is very dry, like a Brut IPA is — and not substantial in body either — other flavors simply don’t register well (remember: flavor is made up of the combination of taste, aroma and some elements of mouthfeel. and flavors are synchronistic with sweetness).
A relationship between Joe’s style, Brut and Cold IPA?
Joe’s is arguably not the first new style to be finishing the end of Brut’s sentences. In a way, a very popular new style, the Cold IPA, kind of revisited what Brut was about, too: it uses adjuncts to keep the beer light in color, and to set things up for being dry. And it features hop profile, especially via minimizing pronounced malt character. Differently, Cold IPA achieves its stylistic refreshingness in part with very clean yeast, and low ale-fermentation temperatures, which restrains additional functional elements of malts. Joe’s style manages the same goal, just with other dials — using enzyme, for example, which then leaves breathing room for achieving a similar profile, but with normal ale fermentation temps and expressive yeast character.
Why do its fresh, hoppy qualities seem to be holding strong? I asked Omega Yeast’s Dr. Laura Burns.
Shoutout to the FAN
It’s been a year since Devon and Joe brewed False Readings. They opened some cans recently to see how it was aging, “Usually, with hoppy beers and shelf life, every day that passes, the clock is ticking. But in this case, the beer was basically as good as it was the day it was canned. There are still no oxidative type qualities, even after this long” Devon says. “For something to be this old and still very bright-tasting and citrusy, that’s a cool bonus. We were curious about it, actually.”
Why do its fresh, hoppy qualities seem to be holding strong? I asked Omega Yeast’s Dr. Laura Burns:
Dr. Burns thinks low Free Amino Nitrogen (FAN) levels might have something to do with it. Proteins are largely chains of amino acids, and amino acids are a crucial source of nitrogen for yeast. Free Amino Nitrogen (Nitrogen derived from Amino sources) is essential for yeast’s growth and multiplication, as well as all of its other metabolic processes, which contribute significantly to flavor compounds in wort.
“FAN is arguably as important to the yeast as sugars are. Without nitrogen, fermentation will not occur,” she says.“Wine and ciders, made from grapes and apples, not grain, can have a FAN deficit naturally. So, extra nutrients are added that contain FAN to ensure healthy, complete, speedy fermentations. All-malt beers don’t have that problem. FAN is abundant in barley. It is protein-rich. Brewers can rely solely on barley for the full yeast-nutrient package.”
Brewing yeast basically grew up attuned to barley after all.
“Adjunct additions like rice and corn lower the total FAN potential in wort because they also contain very little protein.” Laura says. Rice and corn are mostly starch, a.k.a. carbs, which, when broken down, has a lot of energy for them, but it’s not fully nutritious for their growing bodies and metabolic processes, not like barley is.
Just as you can have too little FAN, you can also have too much. Not necessarily from the perspective of yeast’s survival as an organism, mind you, but for how delicious we think the beer they make is.“Too much FAN,” Dr. Burns adds“risks leaving unutilized portions hanging around in the finished beer, which then can degrade and contribute to staling.”
And staling is exactly what Devon noticed was NOT going on in False Readings.
So, what’s next?
Devon already has ideas for some fun experimentation. “We’ve only done it with the one hop combination so far. And I’d like to consider different malts [and yeast], too. I’d also love to play around with adding some fruit to it, to really boost some of the characteristics that we’ve gotten already,” she says.“I’m talking about just a little bit of zest — something citrusy to accentuate what’s already really great there.”
For Devon and Joe, that could bring even more Florida identity to it. Joe hopes his style catches on. He’s curious what others would do with it. Devon is on board. She is excited to get another version on the menu by the end of the year:“It’s always hard to tell what will take off with people. But this is worth trying. It is fun. It’s good for hot weather — we’ve got plenty of that in Florida. Whether it takes off generally I guess depends on a lot of factors — what brewers are excited about, how they interpret it, how people receive it. We’d love to hear about it if anyone tries it out!”
Their partnership on this has been an invigorating expression of all that is great about craft — community, passion, creativity, curiosity. That’s something that fills the glass even after the last sip.
Try it out
What do you think? Could it bring all the (proverbial) boys to your yard? If so, be sure to tell us about it (recipe below).
False Readings at 7venth Sun
Vital Statistics
- OG 13.4 °P
- FG 1.6 °P
- ABV 6.3%
- IBU 39.4
- SRM 3.1
- Size 15 bbl
Raw Ingredients
Yeast
- OYL-090
Espe Kveik
Malt & Adjunct
- Canada2-row
660 lb - Flaked Corn
100 lb - Flaked Rice
100 lb
Other
- Amyloglucosidase (Amylo 300)
1 kg - Lactose
50 lb
-
Hops
- Citra
33 lb - Simcoe
11 lb - Mosaic
22 lb
Water Add'n (Started w/RO)
- CaCl2
400 g - Gypsum
250 g - Phos
400 mL
Process
by Joe Mongan and Devon Kreps
We brewed a Brut IPA recipe and added the enzyme to the mash with 2‑row, flaked rice and corn, mashing in at 140 °F for 60 minutes, then a 30 minute vorlauf (with enzymatic activity still in progress), followed by a 60 minute kettle boil, adding the lactose 15 minutes before end of boil. No bittering addition, so Citra and Simcoe were added at 10 minutes before EOB (2 lb each, Citra and Simcoe) and at Whirlpool after flame out (9 lb each, Citra and Simcoe). The wort was chilled and transferred to the fermentor, where it was pitched with Espe Kveik (OYL-090). The finished wort was about 1.6 °P and the beer was dry hopped 2 degrees above final gravity with 22 lb Citra and 22 lb Mosaic.
A few other things worth noting…
1. Even less sweet-tasting sugars, and those that are largely unfermentable by beer yeast, are caloric to us. This isn’t a light beer in that sense.
2. Lactose intolerance v. lactose allergy: some people can’t break down milk sugars, which results in gnarly digestive problems, a.k.a. lactose intolerance. This is different from an allergy to milk proteins, which is called a milk allergy. Unlike lactose intolerance (the only-digestive one), milk allergy causes an immune system response — histamines, throat swelling, etc. Though pharmaceutical sources of milk sugar may not contain milk proteins, lactose that is derived from milk can still contain trace amounts of milk protein, and is considered an allergen. Labeling beer for allergies is optional according to the TTB. When you do, there are requirements (see slides 45 – 46).
3. Just as there are sugars (like, starches, which are made of sugars) that we don’t taste as sweet, there are also sweeteners that are not made of sugars. We can’t taste the sweetness of some starches, even when they are made of sugars that we can taste on their own — like maltodextrin, which is made entirely of glucose — but because of the way the glucose molecules are bonded together when in starches, they don’t fit into our taste receptors, so it’s like the proverbial tree falling in the forest. Maltodextrin is not easily fermented. Some people use Maltodextrin as a thickener instead of lactose to avoid allergy or intolerance, and/or when it’s more readily available. It comes from corn.
Sweeteners that are not made of sugars could be both artificial sweeteners like aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, or alternative natural sources of sweetness, like stevia, xylitol, etc. Interestingly, people tend to find sweetness that’s not from sugar less pleasing, meaning, less emotionally(!) satisfying. Fascinating! This scientific article is an extraordinarily interesting introduction to the subject.
4. Milk sugars come from dairy, so they’re not technically vegan.