Finally Drinktec
In September, after a long break, one of the most important trade fairs in the beverage industry is finally coming up again: Drinktec in Munich. Of course, we won’t miss this and will take part in the event with our beautiful booth. But we don’t only want to convince with the barrels at our booth, which are really a real eye-catcher. In addition to the sense of sight and touch, we would also like to appeal to the visitors’ sense of taste in order to bring the subject of barrel aging closer to them. What better way to introduce the subject of barrel aging than with a beautiful product, aged in one of our barrels? That’s exactly why we brewed a delicious beer for our customers that was allowed to age in a barrel for a few months.
Beer-tastic beginning
In this blog post, I’d like to take you along a bit in the creation process for our trade show beer. Let’s go back a few months. To be more precise, the keyword trade fair beer came up for the first time in December 2021 during my job interview at the Eder company. I have been working in sales at Eder since February 2022. The job interview and a first meeting with Markus Eder took place last December. When I told Markus Eder that I brew beer on the side and have my own beer brand, he said enthusiastically, “Wow! That’s great! Then brew us our trade show beer.” Then in March of this year, Markus Eder approached me again to inquire about my ideas for the beer. Since I am a Gypsy brewer without my own brewery, I needed an ally with brewing equipment who would support me in my endeavor. Without thinking too much, I immediately came up with Andreas Dietrich, a brewmaster at Brauquadrat Mannheim and CraftCell Heidelberg. I had known Andi for some time, since I brew my beer at CraftCell and he is always there to give me advice and support. So I invited Andi to the company for the beginning of April to introduce him to Markus Eder and to discuss initial ideas.
Find the right beer!
The most important questions to be clarified were which style of beer to brew and which barrel to put the beer on. We agreed right from the start that we would like a fruity beer with a high drinkability and a light malt body. Since light colored beers in particular quickly lose their aroma during barrel aging, we had to choose a beer style that has a relatively high alcohol content. Light, hoppy, fruity and strong? Imperial IPA! And for those of you who are now wondering: what the hell is an Imperial IPA!!! Here’s a quick description:
An IPA is an India Pale Ale. A heavily hopped, top fermented beer with moderate to high bittering units, a golden yellow color and very subtle malt body. According to the stories, the English also wanted to drink their Pale Ale in the colony of India. Due to the long sea route, however, the Pale Ale had to be made more durable and this was possible with more hops as well as a higher alcohol content. The English in India were then supposed to dilute the beer with water so that it was not so strong. They didn’t do that, but drank the beer undiluted and that’s how the India Pale Ale is said to have been created. So an India Pale Ale (IPA) is a stronger version of the classic English Pale Ale and an Imperial IPA is the stronger version of an IPA. According to the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP), an Imperial IPA has the following characteristic features:
Imperial IPA is fruity hoppy, usually cold hopped with often light malt notes in the background. The color spectrum ranges from amber gold to copper reddish. This beer style usually has an alcohol content of 7.5%-10.0%.
Beer seeking barrel
High alcohol and fruity notes? Just what we were looking for! So the question of which beer style to brew was solved. The next step was to decide on the right barrel. So Andi and I went to our warehouse to decide on a pre-aged wooden barrel. To make the decision easier, we smelled the barrels to find the right aroma for a fruity beer. We liked a rum barrel from Martinique best. The rum harmonizes with the fruity-hoppy aromas of the beer without coming too strongly to the fore. Light wood aromas add to the tropical freshness of the beer. Pure Caribbean feeling! This barrel should be it.
Let's brew it!
On 28.04.2022 it was then so far: Brewing day! At 8 a.m. Jonas Eder and I set off in the direction of Heidelberg to brew our beer with Andi at CraftCell. First we had to grind the malt. Several sacks full of regional malt had to be milled. While we were running the malt through the grist mill, the water was heated in the brewhouse. At a water temperature of 67 degrees celcius, we finally started mashing. Mashing means that the milled malt was poured into the brewhouse with the heated water. Do not forget to stir or there will be lumps!
After the mashing in the rests were driven, so that the sugar from the malt dissolves. About an hour later it was then time to lauter. The liquid was separated from the solid. Finally, the liquid part was brought to the boil and the solid part, the so-called spent grains, was drained and disposed of. Treber can also be used well as feed for animals and as fertilizer. Now the hops came into play. We have specially selected the fruity Hallertauer Mittelfrüh and Wai Iti so that our beer tastes tropically fruity. The hops were added at different points in the wort boil to preserve the flavors optimally. After the wort boil, our work was as good as done. The brewer makes the wort, the yeast makes the beer. The hot wort was now finally cooled down and pumped into the fermentation tank. When it reached room temperature, the yeast could be added to the beer. And now it is time to wait until the yeast has done its work. When the main fermentation in the fermentation tank is complete, it’s time to go: Off into the barrel! In the 190l Martinique rum barrel the beer now remains until the end of August. In between, of course, it is tasted from time to time to see how the beer develops in the barrel. At the end of August, the beer is returned to the fermentation tank and carbonated to obtain a refreshing, effervescent beer. Finally, the beer is bottled and labeled.
More about this in the next article on the subject of trade fair beer!
Cheers,