Looking for the original Bar Towel blog? You can find it at www.thebartowel.com.
We have a trivia question in order to register to prevent bots. If you have any issues with answering, contact us at cass@bartowel.com for help.
Introducing Light Mode! If you would like a Bar Towel social experience that isn't the traditional blue, you can now select Light Mode. Go to the User Control Panel and then Board Preferences, and select "Day Drinking" (Light Mode) from the My Board Style drop-down menu. You can always switch back to "Night Drinking" (Dark Mode). Enjoy!
Rob Creighton wrote:Guinness - the Coors Light of black beers
I've been using this same line for years.
I've also used a similar comparison when comparing pseudo craft to industrial light lagers, "how is a crappy stout or a crappy pale ale better than a crappy light lager?"
G.M. Gillman wrote:Derek I've read that today it's not even a soured component but a food-grade acid of some kind.
Gary
It makes sense that they'd do this. They use to sour a batch (lactobacillus), pasteurize & concentrate it, then ship this 'essence' around the world to be added to other brews (rather than bringing bugs into a commercial brewery). Labatt's base probably wasn't much different than '50'.
G.M. Gillman wrote:Derek I've read that today it's not even a soured component but a food-grade acid of some kind.
Gary
It makes sense that they'd do this. They use to sour a batch (lactobacillus), pasteurize & concentrate it, then ship this 'essence' around the world to be added to other brews (rather than bringing bugs into a commercial brewery). Labatt's base probably wasn't much different than '50'.
What a horrible industrial product.
Yet that horrible industrial product still manages to be more flavourful and bigger-bodied than Guinness Draught. I still wouldn't call it great beer.
mintjellie wrote:Yet that horrible industrial product still manages to be more flavourful and bigger-bodied than Guinness Draught. I still wouldn't call it great beer.
I find it disgusting, it does indeed taste like they took one of their generic base beers (ie; 50) and added the "guinness essence" to it.
markaberrant wrote:I find it disgusting, it does indeed taste like they took one of their generic base beers (ie; 50) and added the "guinness essence" to it.
That is exactly how it was done in my time there in the late '70's
I wonder if the current Guinness essence has its roots in this early 1800's mention of "essentia bina". It is no. 2 in the discussion of how to colour porter. I believe it probably does and likely the method is a very old way to darken beer to give it the porter colour and taste. In the mid-1800's it was a reduced wort - really a malt extract - and as we see, straight-out caramel (boiled sugar) was also used, it is no. 3.
No. 1 is black malt, today extensively used in porter brewing.
Note no mention is made of roasted barley, its use was not allowed by law at the time because raw grains were not permitted in brewing and also, some brewers thought it inferior to black or roasted malt.
These stratagems of reduced wort or burned reduced sugar are very old but even then they were short cuts. Porter originally was made from all-brown malt. Only when pale malt started to be used for porter (early 1800's) did some brewers look for ways to colour it that were quicker and likely cheaper than using a mixed grist of pale, brown and sometimes amber malt mashed in the usual way. Black malt finally won out for this purpose although amber and brown malt continued also to be used for a long time in England and Ireland.
Somewhat off topic, but I brewed a historical imperial stout about two years ago:
pale malt
brown malt
black malt
I'd have to check my notes, but I believe the ratio was 80:15:5.
OG was about 1.110, with a massive addition of hops at the beginning of the boil. Calculated IBUs were in the neighbourhood of 175-200.
Post fermentation, it was aged for 1 year on some oak cubes and White Labs Brett Clausenii (reportedly an english strain, with strong "cherry pie" notes, and also known to produce a bit of acidity).
The intention was to brew a very strong, very bitter beer that would require aging before softening out. After one year, it was still quite harsh, though it showed extreme promise. I served it blind to a few friends, and they turned their nose up. Now nearing 2 years of aging, it is turning into a thing of beauty. Served it blindly to the same friends, and they loved it.
Rob: why not try something similar? Personally I would age in wood barrels without the brett addition. Store ends up, cover the tops with sand ("marl" was used in England, something similar) and keep cool (not iced) a year or two. Name? Cannonical Imperial Stout.
I find it disgusting, it does indeed taste like they took one of their generic base beers (ie; 50) and added the "guinness essence" to it.
Yes! I haven't had one in a while, but I found it to be awful as well. I was somewhat amazed that anyone could prefer it to draught Guinness, which is insipid and bland but not aggressively awful like the Labatt version.
