Hoppy Easter!

It's not just the Easter Bunny that hops.


Lots of talk in the brewing world at the moment seems to be centering on hop varieties. The focus (in craft beer) is moving away from the traditional English, Czech and German hops, and towards the "new world" plants from America, Australia and New Zealand.


What is a hop, what is it used for and what does it do?

Humulus lupulus is a species of Humulus in the Canabaceae family. In other words, it's the female climbing plant that is related to Cannabis plant. I wouldn't advise smoking it though, it's much better used in beer.They can be used in tea and soft drinks, and can also be used medicinally to send you to sleep, but of the approx 150,000 metric tonnes of hops that are produced worldwide each year, nearly all of it ends up as the vital ingredient in providing bitterness and aroma in beer.


Hops first started being cultivated in the Hallertau region of Germany. Their hops are still used to this day - even in our very own local beer Saku (sharp intakes of breath as people actually realise that Saku contains a) something so historic and b) hops). It wasn't til a couple of hundred years later that hops were used in brewing. Beer before that was flavoured with herbs and spices to give it a bit of bite. This combination of herbs was called gruit and contained various ingredients with fantastically silly Harry Potteresque names like mugwort, yarrow, horehound and my own personal favourite; henbane. Quite why the hens didn't like this particular plant I don't know. One interesting fact about actual hops, is that it is extremely toxic to dogs, causing them to get hypothermia which in nearly all cases results in death. I bet Brewdog didn't know about that.

It was these mildly narcotic ingredients, along with various other theories, that led to the decline in the use of gruit and the switch over to hops. Some beers still use herbs and spices instead of hops, most notably the unhopped beer Sahti from our neighbours in Finland, and others have used traditional recipes to create new beers. Gruut Brewery based in Ghent, Belgium produce some fantastic tasting beers. These are available to buy from Drink Shop. http://www.gruut.be/En_Beginpagina.aspx

Hops are used in brewing because of their many benefits. They balance the sweetness of the malt with bitterness, they give off lots of different flavours and aromas, and they also act as a preservative. It's this last one that finally made brewers switch from gruit to hops - they found that their beers lasted longer using the latter.


Which incidentally is how IPA was invented. In the early 1800's beers were generally sweet and dark without much hops (read porter, stout etc). When the British troops based in India called out to the brewers back home for some beer, they waited in anticipation for it to arrive two or so month later (no Easy Jet back then). It arrived off the boat, and with mouths drooling with anticipation, was immediately racked, tapped and poured into eager glasses. They weren't very happy with the result. Due to the boat getting knocked about over the high seas, the beer getting blasted by high and then low temperatures, shook up, rolled about and generally not treated with the full care it deserved, when it did finally arrive in India, it was pretty much undrinkable. Although I BET they still drunk it. The brewers scratched their heads, and came up with the notion that hops, as a preservative could keep the beer fresh if there was enough in it. They also decided to brew the beer paler, and in a less conditioned state than the previous brews. This meant that along with the increased amount of hops, it would also be preserved by the amount of yeast in the barrel that would condition the beer along the way. The beer arrived in perfect order, and although it was much dryer than the usual brews, everyone loved it. Huzzah!! India Pale Ale, or IPA for short, was born.

Look at a glass of beer which is high in hops. Then look at the head. It's going to have a big creamy one. 

 Bumper sticker for my car. #1 "IPA drinkers like good head".

The idea is that you use two different types of hops, I won't go into it fully (if you want to know more - read my blog "leaves a bitter taste in your mouth"), one type of hops you add at the beginning of the boil and keep them in there for a couple of hours. These give the beer bitterness. The other type of hops is used for aroma and taste only - and that is added literally right at the end of the boiling process, or "dry hopped" where whole hop cones or pellets are added to the container and don't get boiled at all. Think of it as a soup. If you added parsley or coriander at the beginning with all the vegetables, you'd get very little flavour. If you added the chopped herbs towards the end, or actually in your soup bowl, then you'll get the benefit of these flavours and aromas without them all disappearing out of the window in a cloud of steam.


So what flavours do hops give off? Traditionally, hops from the UK give off earthy, spicy tastes and aromas. Those from Germany, Czech Republic and other Eastern European countries, give off spiced citrus and grassy aromas and flavours. The new wave of American and Southern Hemisphere hops are now bringing tropical fruits and very fresh grapefruit/mango like aromas with a soft but long lasting bitterness.


Who grows hops? The market is mostly dominated by the Germans and the US in terms of hectares, but look at Ethiopia and China in there. There is a school of thought that the Ethiopian hops "Gesho" in not in actual fact a hop at all, but more related to the buckthorn family. This is a chart from 2009. The figures have now changed, with Germany leading the market in 2011, and the US in second place. The "rest of the world" segment has increased too. There has been a huge demand for New Zealand and Australian hops - so much so, that one of the new "en vogue" hops, "Nelson Sauvin" has been totally sold out.

Here's what hop production in the USA looks like.

Over supply is affecting the industry due to a shift in varieties sought by brewers. Average prices are falling as growers near the end of long term contracts written at the start of the acreage run up. With the rise of craft brewing calling for different types of hops (hops that don't demand as much space due to the fact that the beer volumes aren't in the same league as the multinational brewers), these depleted acres should in time begin to fill up. Just over 10 years ago it was predicted that craft brewing would never gain more than 2% of the market, now it's predicted that it will reach 10% in a couple of years.


Know your hops: what are the names of some of the hops that are used in the top producing countries?


USA: Amarillo, Bravo, Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, Citra, Comet, Liberty, Magnum, Nugget, Simcoe,, Tomahawk.
Warrior, Willamette, Zeus
England: Bramling, Challenger, First Gold, Fuggles, Goldings, Northdown, Styrian,Target.
Germany: Hallertauer, Merkur, Opal, Perle, Saphir, Tradition.
Australia: Galaxy, Pride of Ringwood, Stella, 
New Zealand: Green Bullet, Motueka, Nelson Sauvin, Wai-iti


There are also four hops known as noble hops. These are hops which are low in bitterness and high in aroma. They are:
Germany: Hallertau, Spalt, Tettnang
Czech: Saaz,

As mentioned, different hops give off different tastes aromas. Here are some beers with the hops used explained:




USA: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Uses two hops - Magnum and Cascade. You'll get all the aromas of the hop in this beer - pine, cedar, citrus, plus some tropical fruits in the flavour. And lots of bitterness. Think of a forest in Oregon where this hop was first developed. Lots of Mikkeller use American hops too.
ENGLAND: Meantime IPA. Uses Fuggles and Goldings. Lots of English hops give this spicy orange peel flavours.
GERMANY: Hacker Pschorr Munich Gold: Hallertau Magnum. Soft herbal hops flavours with a spiced finish. Saku Originaal also use this hops.
AUSTRALIA: Little Creatures Pale Ale. Uses Galaxy and Cascade. Lots of flavours from both of the hops - grapefruit from the Australian Galaxy, coupled with tropical fruit and resin from the American Cascade. 
NEW ZEALAND: Punk IPA. Chinook, Simcoe, Nelson Sauvin, Ahtanum. Uses American and New Zealand hops, and it's the Nelson Sauvin that really shines through, with tastes of mango and passion fruit.
NOBLE: Pilsner Urquell. Classic Czech Pilsner hops Saaz are used to give the beer a citrus and spicy taste.

Many people, when they try some of the beers using American or New Zealand hops for the first time are simply blown away from the aroma which hits them on opening, and the flavour when first tasted. People are generally used to very little hops in beer, or bittering hops in beer. America is top of the charts, but in actual fact, it's the alpha hops which impart bitterness, not the aroma hops that make up most of their hop production. Although it's not always apparent, Bud and the other big boys use hops too. German hops are very soft and blend well into lagers - so they don't really taste huge either. So that's almost 80% of the market gone just with these two. In actual fact, unless you actively seek out craft beer, you're not really going to stumble upon a beer that uses Galaxy, Bravo or Nelson Sauvin. And when you do - you'll certainly know about it!  I absolutely love it when I am introducing a person or group to a heavily hopped aromatic beer for the first time. The look of shear confusion turning into delight as the tropical fruits and mango aromas hit their nose is wonderful. 


A friend of mine, and fellow beer geek also has similar feelings. He is slowly working through his friends converting them into craft beer hop heads. He told me a story about one of his friends who is now a Punk IPA fan. His friend said that no matter how bad a day he is having, all he has to do is put his nose into a glass of Punk IPA and he can't help smiling. I thought it was a great story, and to my suprise, the very next day when I was selling Mikkeller American Dream into a customer, they said the exact same thing. They said that each time you put your face to the glass, it was difficult to drink because of the huge smile on your face. If only you could bottle that feeling....oh wait.  

Bumper sticker for my car #2: "Craft beer drinkers do it with a smile on their face".

Here's a great example of what I am talking about. It's a beer that could be just like any other beer. If it wasn't for the hops.


It's a beer that when you open the bottle, you are immediately hit with the aroma of tropical fruits, grassy sweetness, and sharp malts. It's a beer that when you taste it, a multitude of flavours wash over your tongue. Sugary caramel at first, passion fruit at second, tangy hops third, and then finally the bitter dryness of pine cones at the finish. And of course this is a beer you spill all down your shirt because you are smiling too much.


I'll whisper it very very quietly. This beer is a Lager. That's right - a Lager as in, not an ale. To be more precise, it's a Pilsner. But what makes it a different from your regular Pilsner, is that the hops used are American. Simcoe, Centennial and Amarillo are the magic ingredients in transforming a classic Pilsner into a wonderful beer. So good in fact, that Ratebeer.com rate it as the worlds best premium lager.


What is it? What is it? I can hear you ask. The answer is what we've all been striving for:
The American Dream.


Mikkeller "The American Dream". Denmark (although brewed at the De Proefbrouwerij, Belgium). 4.6% ABV. Ratebeer rating: 96

It hits you as soon as you open the bottle - the aroma of fresh hops. It's as if someone has opened a mango factory in the middle of a pine forest. Mikkeller have been very careful to not call this a lager in huge flashing lights. It's described in Danish, as a Pilsner brewed with water, hops, barley and yeast. Interestingly, unlike many of their other beers, it doesn't list which hops they use. Maybe it's because they don't want to scare any lager drinkers. To be honest, when they first offered it to me, I said I wasn't interested. Estonia is full of lager, and I want to bring more ale here. Trust me, Tore from Mikkeller said. I took a punt, and when I had my first sip, I was literally speechless. I also had beer all down the front of my shirt.  When I'm describing it, or selling it in to a few of the places in Tallinn I think are worthy enough, I don't call it a lager. I just describe it as a wonderful refreshing beer made with American hops. 

You can tell by the colour that this is not an ordinary Pilsner. Its a murky, hazy apricot gold with a very large thick head. It's also got very little carbonation. Certainly not the fizz you'd get with a commercial lager.

When you taste it, you also realise it's not an ordinary Pilsner. I've already described the tastes you get from this beer in the opening description - but really, you just don't expect this beer to taste like this. Especially at 4.6%. I'd describe it as a sort of easy drinking Punk IPA. Of course for your regular lager drinker, this would be as challenging as it comes, but for a seasoned hop drinker, it's a very good, very well balanced beer.

Mouthfeel is great - how can it not be with that massive head? The head stays all the way to the end of the glass too. Interestingly, Mikkeller describe this as an "easy drinking summer beer to be drunk straight from the bottle". Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to drink from a glass. BUT, if I was hanging out on the beach, or someones lawn at a bbq, and they brought a chill bag full of this stuff, I wouldn't object. Even if it was ice cold.  

So as Brewdog say "Think about everything you know about lager, and then forget it in an instant" (ironically, this was their tagline for 77Lager, which they've now forgotten about because they think it's too boring). This is a truly lovely drink, and a champion of what can be done with hops if you choose the correct varieties. 

We've got some cases of Brewdogs "IPA is dead" arriving next month. These are 4 packs of 4 beers each containing just one single hop. It was Mikkeller who first came up with the single hop series, and I really believe its the way forward. Wine does it, and it really does help the customer. Imagine, just as you do when looking for a wine, that you can browse the beer section and decide which beer to choose on it's hop variety. Same with a bar. Walk in and ask the bartender "I'd like a glass of Nelson Sauvin please". Actually - come do drink bar and do just that, I'd like to think that my staff know a thing or two about beer. Even if they don't, it might be amusing to see what they give you :)

As Easter is upon us, I feel it's only right that you crack open a few beers and raise a toast to the man who gave his life so we can enjoy ours. I can't help but think that if he had turned water into IPA instead of wine, those nasty Romans might have put him on a pedestal instead of a cross.

Bumper sticker for my car #3 "Jesus should have made beer".

Hoppy Easter!

The cost of going organic.

Right, let me set the record straight! I am NOT against Estonian beers! Point taken that I generally focus on imported beers, and point taken that Saku/A Le Coq focus on beers that make them more money because more people drink them than anything else. However, my point is that if I just reviewed beers that are all the same, then my reviews would be.........all the same!

I've pointed out before that Estonian beer is pretty much driven by two brewers. I don't need to say who they are. And like all brewers, they are focussed on market share. They need it, they want it. they want to keep it. And in order to do this, they must produce beer exactly like their nearest competitior. Now, in Estonia, seeing as the market is almost 50/50, that means almost 100% of the beer tastes exactly the same. They produce a fruit beer, then They produce a fruit beer. They produce a wheat beer, then They produce a wheat beer. And so it continues. The good thing about this is: They produce a shit beer, then They produce a shit beer. What happens then is that both sets of  "loyal"  customers complain and threaten to start drinking something alternative like Stella Artois instead, and Saku/A Le Coq then decide that they need to produce something which will get their bedmates back onto their pillow.

What pleases me about Estonian beer drinkers is that they are always willing to try something new out. I guess thats the same reason why Estonian guys always have a different good looking girl on their arm each month.

I used to be in charge of deciding what beer was sold in all of the Rimi stores. When I had put some new beers (not neccessarily import beers - I was playing the game back then), on the shelves, it always pleased me that a large amount of shoppers baskets contained these new beers. Estonians like to try something new. Maybe it's because of years of communist regime, but really I think it's because Estonians buy new things because they want to say they don't like them.

It's the same in Drink Bar/Shop. If we've got something new, then I am almost certain that it will sell very well, simply because it's new. Ok -  maybe a bit is down to the marketing on Facebook etc, but I don't promote beers that I am not proud of, and I don't import beer that I don't think the Estonian market will
drink.


Of course this promotes change and drives customer expectation. If there is a lack of new products on the market, then the customer gets restless and demands something more. And the new product is going to be judged on previous products. If the product before it was good, then the bar is raised and the new product has to be of similar or preferably higher quality. If the product was bad, then the new product better be good, because the guns will be out before it's even hit the shelves.


Which brings me to a new product that Estonian brewer A Le Coq have released. Not only is it a new product, but it's a first to market for the producer - an organic beer. This is a brave move in my opinion, because organic products are very fashionable at the moment, and in most people eyes - because you can't actually see anything different, many people think its just a way of being current and in touch with the environment, while at the same time being able to charge a lot more for your product.  It's even more difficult with beer, because in essence, the producer is saying that their beer is healthy beer. So what makes a beer organic?

Beer is made from four main ingredients: Malted barley, hops, water and yeast. The first two of these ingredients are grown across the world, and it's actually these two that dictate the price of beer (if you don't include the Government taxes). If hops and barley are plentiful, then everyone can have access to the ingredients they need to make beer. If hops and barley are in short supply, then it becomes a case of supply and demand, with prices rising because of this. Last year, the UK had it's worst barley harvest in forty years due to the lack of rain. The barley failed to grow in the drought, leaving many of them unsuitable for harvest. Fertilisers were used in some cases, but the knock on effect is that fertilisers produce too much nitrogen in the barley, which means that there is too much protein in the sugar resulting in longer brewing times and erractic germination/fermentation. 


It's not just the UK either. Global production of barley was 43% down on last year. Hops too has it's problems. If the weather is too dry, the hops reacts the same way as the barley and simply can't grow. If the weather is too wet, the hops is very succeptible to rotting, and if the weather is too cold, then the hop vine will refuse to flower. And it's the flower that the brewers use. 2007 was a very dark year for hop and barley growers. Many couldn't produce the quantity of hops they wanted, which meant that not all the brewers got their quota. In worse case scenarios, the hop producer went out of business. Not only does this have an effect on price, but also taste. Brewers that had been using a specific type of hops in their beer, had to change their recipes because the hop wasn't available. This in turn affected sales, because the consumer noticed the difference. Another scary thing is that the big brewers - AB for example, cut out their risk by buying up all of the next years crop in advance. They can afford to do it, but that leaves little behind for the smaller producers, who have to fight over what is left and pay through the nose for it.

Simply put, if there isn't some intervention or help in growing these crops, then they are not going to make it. Fertilisers, and other steroids are needed to give the crops a boost in times of bad weather to ensure the farmers meet their quotas. And of course, many of these chemicals are not natural, which means they can't be certified organic.


To be certified organic, you have to use farmers who are signed up to producing hops and barley without the use of chemicals. Water too can be softened using a variety of chemicals, so if you want to produce organic beer, then the water you use in the production must also be chemical free. The yeast used in the beer is not allowed to have been used in the production of any non organic beer previously. This yeast has to be seperated from the other yeast. It's not a fun guy to be with (see what I did there?).


All of this increases expense due to a lot of factors. Yield and time being the two main causes. If you're not using fertilisers to boost growth, then it's going to take a lot longer to grow. You won't produce as much as your neighbour who is using chemicals either. And don't forget the constant fight against disease and pests. I grew some hops a couple of years ago and maintained the fact that I wanted them to be organic. I didn't use fertlisers, but used organic materials instead (fish bones), but when I had an attack of green aphids, I automatically reached for the bug spray. Fortunately I checked the ingredients before I pulled the trigger, and found out I couldn't use it if I wanted to be organic. Instead I had to resort to picking them off by hand, or use a sugar and water solution which only seemed to make the aphids more hyperactive than dead. Imagining doing this on an industrial scale?

So now you know why it's only a small quantity of beers that call themselves organic. It's hard enough producing quality beer, but very hard producing something that pushes the cost up and production scale down.


The UK has been on the organic trail for about ten years. If first started off with health foods, then premium foods - mostly meat, then just about everything including beer became organic. When I first started working for Rimi, I suggested that we should devote a small section of each category to organic produce. I was met with looks of bewilderment and questions asking what benefit if would bring to the store. Six years later and there are still very few organic products in the main retailers, and the market is still very much in it's infancy. Dedicated organic stores are growing the category, and provide wines that have been produced organically. I'm guessing that A Le Coq saw a potential gap in the market and decided to fill it.


You can get organic beers in Estonia - Shepherd Neame (Whitstable Bay organic ale), Fullers (Organic Honeydew Ale) and a few German beers are available. As is organic cider, with Westons offering both organic apple and perry. This is the first time an Estonian beer has been produced that has been fully certified as organic.

The CEO of A. Le Coq, Tarmo Noop, says that the popularity of organic products is increasing all over the world. "There are increasingly more consumers and companies that want to do something for the environment and preferring organic products is an option," said Noop when explaining the reasons why the brewery decided to launch this new beer. "As a leading Estonian brewery, we feel responsible for the development of the beer market and believe we also have to introduce the concept of organic products in the beer segment," he added. The brewery also wants its new product to be a beer that offers something new and unique that no other local brewery has done yet and to show that an organic product does not have to be expensive and something that cannot be bought in ordinary shops.
Noop explained that the malt and hops used to make Organic Beer are grown according to organic farming standards, and that the production of organic beer is highly regulated. "We have made the necessary changes in our production process and passed a thorough inspection carried out by the Veterinary and Food Board," said Noop. "As a result of this, we were issued with a special certificate for the production of organic beer"

They buy their malt from Finland and their hops from Germany. It's described as a light tasting lager, with some "oomph" from well balanced hops and a toasty flavour from the beer yeast. I suspect that the last comment might be a typo. Toasted is not one of the flavour profiles I've ever come across when describing yeast. 

So, let's see what it's like.

The bottle is actually quite nice. Organic products seem to have to carry an air about them - nothing too flashy, quite basic and reserved, but looking reassuringly expensive and, well, organic. On the label is a picture of some barley - although it's not the type of barley that is used in brewing (brewing barley is generally two row barley or 6 row barley - which have a lot more husks than the one on the A Le Coq label), but what do designers know? I actually think it looks more like wheat than barley. Maybe this barley gives a yeasty taste...

On opening, there is not the "oomph" of hops I was expecting. In fact, I couldn't really detect any hops at all. There is a faint yeasty, bread smell and quite a strong smell of sweetcorn. This sweetcorn smell is due to dimethylsulfide. I could go into this in more detail, but I suggest you have a read of this if you are interested   http://www.picobrewery.com/askarchive/dms.htm 

It looks nice. A pale straw colour with a decent sized head. It's pretty fizzy too.

So what does it taste like? Does it taste organic I hear you ask? To be honest, organic beer doesn't really taste or look any different from other beers. Because yeast gives off it's own flavours, as does hops - you aren't really going to notice anything different. Certain other organic items are different and you can tell. Eggs are a good example. Look at the yolk of an organic egg compared to a regular egg. Happy chickens lay much more yellow yolks. But at least you can be happy drinking this beer safe in the knowledge that all the aphids on the hops were removed by hand. Probably.

The taste is quite different from other A Le Coq lagers. It's certainly dry, but this dryness comes across as quite metallic. It's not a dry, bitterness you asscociate with hops, but more like heavy metals. It's quite sweet too, but the finish is of an overall, quite unpleasant metallic dryness. Strangely, it also tastes quite greasy, and my mouth was left feeling like I had just eaten a bag of cold French fries. Again, it sounds like I am saying it's bad - it's not great, but I'm very happy there is at least some flavour from the hop.

It's quite a smooth beer, and the carbonisation that we there on opening quickly settles down. The head stayed for most of the drink, making it quite easy to drink combined with the  4.5% abv.

Overall I'd say there is more hop profile than usual, but unfortunately it's all hop bitterness and no hop aroma. In my opinion, it tastes as though it's been overboiled, resulting in the DMS profile giving a skunky dogfood aroma and metallic taste. The finish leaves a stale beer taste in your mouth, and while you expect that the morning after, you don't expect it during the actual drinking. Not a bad beer, but nothing out of the ordinary.

I think it's great that A Le Coq have taken the bold decision to step out of the mainstream and into a niche market. Unfortunately, it's almost as if they are trying to do mainstream niche. It only cost me .98€ a bottle from the store.  This beer is only going to appeal to those who actually care about the organic concept. Other regular drinkers don't care if the aphids were struck off the hop with a nuclear bomb, as long as their beer tastes the same and costs the same. In this respect, A Le Coq should have gone fully organic and charged a premium price. Make the beer unfiltered, keep it unpasteurised and sell it as a "live" beer. Number it, make it collectible. This way, you are really bigging up the process of making beer, and promoting the fact that beer is special, and if produced with the minimum amount of process as possible, it can be treated, stored and matured the same as wine. You've also got to ask yourself, if other organic products are more expensive than their non organic versions, how did A Le Coq do this so cheaply?

As much as I applaud their efforts, I still can't help but think that this is just another way of trying to outdo Saku. It's not a suprise that this week, Saku have announced that they too will be producing a new beer. Not an organic one, but a beer that is named after their founder. It's a historical beer.

Same old story I am afraid.

What temperature should you serve your beer?

Looking out of my window, I can see a chill in the air that is much colder than any fridge or freezer. It's -28c and too cold to go out, so I'll probably put the fire on, settle down in front of the TV with a couple of cold beers and watch the rugby. Cold beer - when it's already cold outside?!


You don't drink beer like you do a soup - to warm you up if it's cold outside. You generally drink beer for two reasons: refreshment and taste. The key to getting both of these correct is temperature.


The key flavour in beer is bitterness which is brought about by the hops contained in the liquid. Hops are used for many things when making beer - they add flavour, they add aroma and they also help to keep the beer fresh by having an antibiotic effect on micro organisms within the beer.


It's a female hop "cone" that is used in brewing, because just like female human beings, they contain nice smelling perfumes and essential oils.

The effect of hops on the finished beer varies by type and use, though there are two main hop types: bittering and aroma. Bittering hops have higher concentrations of alpha acids, and are responsible for the large majority of the bitter flavor of a beer. Bittering hops are boiled for a longer period of time, typically 60–90 minutes, and as they often have inferior aromatic properties, the aromas evaporate off during the boil.

Aroma hops are typically added to the brew later to prevent the evaporation of the essential oils, to impart "hop taste" and hop aroma". Aroma hops are often added after the finished brew has cooled and while the beer ferments, a technique known as "dry hopping", which contributes to the hop aroma. In cask beer, whole hop cones are sometimes added to the barrel (or cask) and slowly make their way to the bottom while the beer is fermenting. In other words, the less chance the aromas have of going up the chimney in the form of steam, the more chance they have to fragrance the beer.

Flavors and aromas are described appreciatively using terms which include "grassy", "floral", "citrus", "spicy", "piney," "lemony," and "earthy". Many pale lagers have fairly low hop influence, while lagers marketed as Pilsner or brewed in the Czech Republic may have noticeable noble hop aroma. Certain ales (particularly the highly-hopped style known as India Pale Ale, or IPA) can have high levels of hop bitterness. Dark beers have reasonably high amounts of hops too, but sometimes these aromatics are masked by the smoke and roasted flavours of the malt.

So what's all this got to do with temperature? Essential oils are nullified the colder they get. I always use a good example when talking to people about temperature and taste. Get a bottle of aftershave or perfume, and put it in the fridge overnight. In the morning, take it out and smell it. It won't smell of much. The coldness makes the oils solidify and therefore stops them giving off their aromas (they are too busy shivering to do anything else). Now imagine if this was a bottle of beer. The essential oils in the beer act much the same way as the oils in the perfume. You take the beer from the fridge, open it and nothing much leaps out.

Of course, some beers are meant to be this way. Imagine you are on a beach during  a hot summers day. All that lounging about watching the local womens volleyball team perform has given you a raging...thirst. You retire to the beach bar where Alfonso hands you a bottle of Corona that has been sitting in the sun all day long. One swig of this and you have to weigh up the advantages of volleyball team/bad beer over good beach bar/no bikini clad maidens. Corona (and I'll explain the reason why I chose this beer in a minute) and other beers of this genre are drunk primarily for refreshment. You are on a beach, you're thirsty and you want to slake that thirst. You don't want a beer that is packed full of chewy flavours, because to appreciate those flavours you want to slow down and enjoy each one.

It's all about how the hops perform under what temperature they are at. If you want less flavours, you know now what a fridge does to it. It'll take away all but the strongest aromas of hops, leaving you with a cooling, slightly carbonated liquid that is easy to drink. Put that same beer in the sun for a couple of hours, and you're left with a drink having flavours that you're not supposed to taste. In fact, it's very doubtful that any aroma hops have been put into that particular beer, so the beer is in big danger of getting oxidized, which means the sun will bake these beta acids giving them a taste and aroma which is called "sun struck", or more fun "skunky". It's the reason many highly hopped beers are in dark brown or green bottles - it protects them from the sun.

The guys at Corona have taken their dedication to brewing for refreshment to such a scale that they don't add any aroma hops at all and only a very minimal amount of bittering hops into the brew. They don't want to produce a beer full of flavour, because they know in the whole, that the customer also feels this way. Sol do it too. Think about the colour of their bottle. See what I mean?

Mantra #1: If your thirsty and want refreshment, put it in the fridge.

Now the other side of the coin. It's cold outside (the weather has changed and so have the volleyball team) and you feel like having a beer that you can take your time over, taste the different levels of flavours and generally enjoy the beer and the occasion for drinking it. You ask Alfonso for a bottle of IPA and he takes it out of the fridge, pours it into a frozen glass and slides it across the bar. You put it to your lips (the glass sticks to them) and the liquid pours into your mouth filling it with flavours of....coldness. That's all. The whole reason you ordered an IPA is that you want the aromas to sing to you, the bitterness to fill your mouth and suck your cheeks in. You want to be able to taste the malt, the caramel the slightly roasted flavours, but because in this game of rock scissors paper, cold wins over everything.

In an ideal world, that bottle would have been happily sitting in a cellar with temperatures of about 10-14 degrees. This sort of temperature is cool enough to make the beer refreshing, but not cold enough to mask all those lovely alpha and beta acids of the hop oils. Unfortunately we don't live in an ideal world. One of the main reasons that bottles are in the fridge is so that they can be marketed to the customer. Pubs just don't have any space to have two sets of beers - one cold, one at room temperature. And of course, if the marketing works correctly and a customer looks at the bottle of IPA and thinks that they'll try that for the first time, they are often left disappointed because the beer is being served incorrectly. More often than not, the consumer is unaware of the huge difference temperature makes, and walks away thinking IPA's are just like any normal beer.

Mantra #2: If you're drinking for taste, take it out of the fridge.

Be a geek like me. Order two beers at the same time, and tell the barstaff to keep it unopened and out of the fridge. By the time you've finished your first, the second will be  at almost the correct temperature. You can also ask if they have any not in the fridge. Be careful here though, as in most bars, the beers on the shelf are only for communication not consumption. I once went to a well known Irish bar in town, and when I asked for the bottle of Spitfire on the shelf, the barmaid looked at me as if I had two heads. She may have had a point though - halfway through drinking the beer, I asked to look at the bottle as the beer had quite a skunky taste. Sure enough, it was 3 years out of date.

The general rule of thumb is that the darker it is, the more room temperature it should be. The new wave of aggressively dry hopped beers such as Brewdog and the American micro's can actually be served a bit cooler because they have so much aroma hops inside. Put them in the fridge for an hour or two, or if you store them in the fridge, take them out for an hour or two before serving. Of course you can drink them straight from the fridge, but that's not going to do them the full justice. It's like taking a Ferrari for a spin in a 40km zone.

                                                   Don't do this at home.

I'm watching the rugby later and I'll be drinking for refreshment. My mind wants to be on the game, not my glass. I'll have a few Czech lagers. These benefit from fridge treatment, with perhaps a little half an hour airing before drinking. Czech beers use Saaz aroma hops which is quite soft and the focus is on bite rather than aroma. I still like to taste and smell the floral zest that comes from the hops, so that's why I don't chill it to death. 

Tonight is another matter. The fire will be roaring, and I'll nudge my armchair that little closer as I open either my Abstrakt or Paradox Jura. These won't have been anywhere near a fridge, as I want to taste as much as possible. Depending on how roaring my fire is, I might store them in a slightly cooler room (because I don't have a cellar) before opening.

I think it'll get to the stage where as much information is going to be put on the craft beers of the future as possible. Wines talk about food, serving temperature etc, and I think it's only a matter of time before quality beers start doing the same. Some of them do it now, recommending what type of glass to use - this is only a good thing. Back in the UK, I remember we had an scheme in the bars where the customer was given a thermometer to stick in their beer. If it was too warm (because this was commercial lager), then he had a right to hand it back to the barstaff. Some glasses have a logo that turns blue if the correct temperature of beer is in the glass.


Here's a guideline on temperatures and styles: 

Very cold (0-4C/32-39F): Any beer you don’t need to taste. Pale Lager, Malt Liquor, Canadian-style Golden Ale and Cream Ale, Low Alcohol, Canadian, American or Scandinavian-style Cider.
Cold (4-7C/39-45F): Hefeweizen, Kristalweizen, Kölsch, Premium Lager, Pilsner, Classic German Pilsner, Fruit Beer, brewpub-style Golden Ale, European Strong Lager, Berliner Weisse, Belgian White, American Dark Lager, sweetened Fruit Lambics and Gueuzes, Duvel-types
Cool (8-12C/45-54F): American Pale Ale, Amber Ale, California Common, Dunkelweizen, Sweet Stout, Stout, Dry Stout, Porter, English-style Golden Ale, unsweetened Fruit Lambics and Gueuzes, Faro, Belgian Ale, Bohemian Pilsner, Dunkel, Dortmunder/Helles, Vienna, Schwarzbier, Smoked, Altbier, Tripel, Irish Ale, French or Spanish-style Cider
Cellar (12-14C/54-57F): Bitter, Premium Bitter, Brown Ale, India Pale Ale, English Pale Ale, English Strong Ale, Old Ale, Saison, Unblended Lambic, Flemish Sour Ale, Bière de Garde, Baltic Porter, Abbey Dubbel, Belgian Strong Ale, Weizen Bock, Bock, Foreign Stout, Zwickel/Keller/Landbier, Scottish Ale, Scotch Ale, American Strong Ale, Mild, English-style Cider 
Warm (14-16C/57-61F): Barley Wine, Abt/Quadrupel, Imperial Stout, Imperial/Double IPA, Doppelbock, Eisbock, Mead


So, final mantra: If your thirsty and want refreshment, put it in the fridge, if you're drinking for taste, take it out of the fridge. Or another one: "Nightclub = cold, Fireplace = warm".

Right, I'm off to prepare for the sport on tv. My Czech Pilsners are in the fridge, ales and Brewdogs are in my  kitchen, and I've thrown all my Estonian lagers out into the garden. I don't think that will affect their taste much.

Leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

"Leaves a bitter taste in your mouth" is often an expression that is used for something bad. If you look it up, this idiom focuses on the lingering effect of unpleasantness. When this idiom is applied to things other than food, it is about the lingering bad taste. Here's an example I found on the internet:

We had been dating for two months and I liked him very much. Monday night we went out and he became drunk and abusive. He has called me ten times since but I haven't returned his phone calls. His behavior on Monday left a bitter taste in my mouth.


Seems like he was drinking too much of the wrong beer. She did right. (although after 10 unanswered calls you think he would have clocked onto the fact that she didn't like him. Must be a Stella drinker).

But is bitterness all about bad taste and abusive phone calls? In beer, bitterness is extremely important. So important in fact, that it's the key taste that people decide if they like the beer or not. Like smell, taste has an evolutionary role in protecting the body from ingesting anything harmful and identifying tastes that give us pleasure

As you can see above, the tongue is split into four different zones. Each of these play a part in tasting beer, because the liquid washes over your tongue before ending up down your throat (or t-shirt depending on how many you've had). Right at the back of the tongue is where bitterness is detected

Most natural toxins and medicines are bitter and acids are sour. These tastes are often perceived as unpleasant and potentially harmful to the body, whereas sweetness is seen as acceptable. This is why you normally stick your tip of your tongue onto an untasted food to check if it's ok  If it's bitter or sour, then by the time you've got it in your mouth, your tongue will be detecting that it's potentially harmful and give you massive signals to spit it out.

After smell, taste is the next most important factor in flavour perception. Once again, genetics, cultural background and experience play a role in taste ability and preference. It's also sad to note that as you get older, the ability to taste and smell declines with age (which explains why it's only young people who complain about smelly old people on buses and trams - not the other way around.).

Culture is an interesting one.  I'm from a culture in the UK where we are used to drinking quite bitter beers. The main cause of bitterness in beer comes from the addition of hops. Hops are added at the start of the boiling process, which means the brewer gets the flavour but not the aroma of the hops (that is lost in steam up the brewery chimney. If the brewer wants the aroma, then he'll add some more hops for the last 5 minutes of the boil, in a process called "late hopping".). Hops also act as a preservative of flavour, as the resins in hops have anti bacterial effects on organisms which can make beer taste "off". It's these preservative effects that were noticed by brewers who were sending their beer on the long trip to India in the 1800's. They used loads of hops to make sure the beer tasted fresh at the journey end. This type of beer was called India Pale Ale (IPA) and it, aswell as the hops inside it, became very popular in the UK and fashioned our style of beers still drunk today.

But Estonian beer never had to travel to India. Which means that Estonian beer on the whole, doesn't exactly rate high up on the bitterness scale. And a scale there is. All beer when it's brewed is measured in International Bitterness Units (IBUs). The more bitter it is, the higher the amount of units. These days it's becoming more and more popular to display the amount of IBUs on the label, because as I mentioned before, it's the bitterness that most people use to determine if they like a beer or not. Think of it like the numbers on a coffee packet to indicate how strong (roasted = bitterness) it is, or the amount of chilli peppers next to the food description at your Chinese takeaway (unless of course you are in Estonia, whereas you might as well disregard these entirely). Some examples:

Sol = 0 IBU (doesn't contain hops)
Bud = 10 IBU
Saku Originaal = 12 IBU
Saku Hele = 18 IBU
A Le Coq  = 12 IBU (suprise suprise)
Abbot Ale = 35 IBU
Pilsner Urquell = 45 IBU
Punk IPA = 68

Anything above that, and it starts to get very interesting! Currently, the beer with the most IBUs is from Danish brewer Mikkeller. Their "Hop Juice" has. Wait for it. 2007 IBUs. These brewers are similar to Brewdog in that they do a lot of experimental brews just for the hell of it. I have however spoken to them about bringing their beers to Estonia (mouth drooling) and the suggested brands they gave me included the beer called "1000IBU light". No prizes for guessing what the amount of bitterness units are in this one. I might be a bit scared to try it though!

The nearest we've got to something in the way of a beer with high IBUs is Brewdog Hardcore IPA, and it's that beer I'm reviewing now.

Brewdog Hardcore IPA (ratebeer rating: 99) 33cl 9.2% abv

You can't help but be a little bit scared when you are about to open this. It's the combination of the fact that it's 9.2% alcohol, its 150 IBUs and it's from Brewdog. When I first had a bottle, it sat in the fridge for quite a while, because I was waiting for "the right moment" to drink it. This is not a beer you grab when you've just finished playing football, just about to watch a football match, or the beer you give your father in law for the first time. I actually had mine on Christmas day, which I thought was the right moment - I was nice and relaxed, plus had a nice full stomach after stuffing my face all day. This beer took the role of a cognac or glass of port in front of the fire at the end of a long day.

It pours an amber golden orange colour, and suprisingly considering the amount of IBUs has quite a small head. What little head it does have packs a lot of aromas - toffee, caramel, banana and maybe a bit of honey and pine.

The taste is as you would expect - powerful, dry and full bodied. After the initial bitterness, it's got a sweet taste, and then finishes again with a long dryness. Almost like the juniper taste of a dry gin. The sweetness give it great drinkability - caramel and toffee flavours combined with the resin like sweetness of pine and orange peel.

So nothing to be scared of. Apart from the fact that I finished it and immediately wanted another one. It's definitely a drink to take at the end of the night, because in the morning (ok, I had another one) the first thing I tasted in my mouth was hops Unless of course, Hardcore is the ONLY drink you choose to drink all night.

"Leaves a bitter taste in your mouth"? Maybe in time this will be a phrase to describe something good and agreeable instead of the otherway around. I can't guarantee about getting drunk and making 10 abusive phone calls though...