Sleeman Steam Beer

[old faithful]

hadn't tried this since it first came out a few years ago and picked it up the other day when looking for something good for this hot weather. First, from a technical standpoint, this is one of the cleanest beers I have had in a long time and I tip my hat (and this is not meant as a joke) to the Sleeman lab. There is not a hint of oxidised flavour in this beer or any other fault. The beer is more malty than any other Sleeman-branded beer, and has a pleasant fruity edge. If it falls down a little it is in the slightly tingly/acidic aftertaste, which is something of a Sleeman trademark and may derive from adjunct or the hop varieties used. Then too this adds a crispness which many people like in beer and tends to represent the mainstream Canadian beer side of Sleeman but that's okay. I don't know if Steam beer is still fermented in shallow vessels with lager yeast at warm temperatures but it tastes like a common or steam beer style, I am sure it is a typical late 1800's type of steam beer. This stuff would be even better on draft - a couple of years ago the Bow used to get Steam Beer on draft, maybe they still do. I love my Sinha stout and my Scotch-Irish's and the many other fine micros and imports that define the complexity and distinctiveness of beer at its best but Sleeman Steam is right up there too. It is a great session warm weather beer. I'll review the current Sleeman Cream later but want to say that the beers are better than they used to be, notably in a maltier body and more integrated flavour. That tingly aftertaste is the one thing I'd change if I could.

Gary

[Josh Oakes]

hadn't tried this since it first came out a few years ago and picked it up the other day when looking for something good for this hot weather. First, from a technical standpoint, this is one of the cleanest beers I have had in a long time and I tip my hat (and this is not meant as a joke) to the Sleeman lab. There is not a hint of oxidised flavour in this beer or any other fault. The beer is more malty than any other Sleeman-branded beer, and has a pleasant fruity edge. If it falls down a little it is in the slightly tingly/acidic aftertaste, which is something of a Sleeman trademark and may derive from adjunct or the hop varieties used. Then too this adds a crispness which many people like in beer and tends to represent the mainstream Canadian beer side of Sleeman but that's okay. I don't know if Steam beer is still fermented in shallow vessels with lager yeast at warm temperatures but it tastes like a common or steam beer style, I am sure it is a typical late 1800's type of steam beer. This stuff would be even better on draft - a couple of years ago the Bow used to get Steam Beer on draft, maybe they still do. I love my Sinha stout and my Scotch-Irish's and the many other fine micros and imports that define the complexity and distinctiveness of beer at its best but Sleeman Steam is right up there too. It is a great session warm weather beer. I'll review the current Sleeman Cream later but want to say that the beers are better than they used to be, notably in a maltier body and more integrated flavour. That tingly aftertaste is the one thing I'd change if I could.

Gary

I don't think it's fair to say that it tastes like 1800's steam beer. Neither you, I nor anyone else was around back then to taste the stuff. We actually have very little idea of what steam beer tasted like. We do know what Anchor Steam tastes like, but that's today and by all accounts that brewery went through periods of disuse (Prohibition), disrepair, relative neglect (only brewing once a month) and finally reconstruction in order to reach the Anchor Steam product of today. With all of that, it seems unlikely that Anchor Steam bears much resemblance to itself, and that's before exploring the issue of whether Anchor was ever a definitive representation of the style, which is may or may not have been.

[Philip1]

So how does it compare to Anchor Steam?

[pootz]

So how does it compare to Anchor Steam?

Not favorably IMHO...not that I'm all that fond of Anchor even though Fritz Maytag may think it the pinnacle of the style. If the current steam beers from the west coast micros ( steam beer being called "California common" down there and having a distinctive yeast strain) the best I've sampled is Flying Dog "old scratch". But I'm biased toward malty lagers. Compared to that, Sleemans is not very tasty......but I suppose Sleeman hasn't put much time or research into making a real close approxiamtion of a California common lager. The process and yeast used give this style abundant, distinctive ale-like fruity tastes but maintains a lager mellowness and chewy malty body....neither seem to be present in any notable quantity the Sleeman rendition IMO....

[old faithful]

Well, I've done some reading over the years on steam beer. I've reviewed e.g. some 1940's recipes, which are rather ordinary in that the beer was made from malt and some adjunct and the OG was 1045 or around there. I think one can deduce that steam beer was originally much like any other North American beer, i.e., a 6 row barley malt and/or adjunct beer. What made it steam was fermentation in shallow vessels at ambient temperature using a bottom yeast. This would have imparted a fruity taste yet with a roundness of character (possibly like many ales made in cylindrico-conical fermenters today where the yeast swirls to the bottom of the cone). So that's why I think Sleeman's version is authentic, because it has that fruity-but-round character but also uses some adjunct and is of moderate gravity. I found these steam recipes from 60 years ago in an old usenet collection of beer recipes (really). I'll try to document the source. Anchor's version is good but I don't much like the bottled one, it tastes of pasteurisation to me. The draft in San Francisco is very good.

I don't know if Sleeman's Steam Beer is from the family recipe book but even if it isn't, it strikes me as a good example of the style. Steve said the same thing when it first came out.

Gary

[Gunny]

Steve said the same thing when it first came out.

Gary

Steve Austin?

[old faithful]

No, OUR Steve (Steve Beaumont).

Gary

[old faithful]

I did a little digging, see www.byo.com/feature/106.html

This is an article by Martin Lodahl on the origins and characteristics of steam beer. The author reports the likely origins much as I recalled them from my own prior reading (which included but was not limited to this article) except that by the late 40's and 50's contemporary steam beer recipes often left out amber or crystal malt and were contented to use pale malt (which of itself in my view does not disqualify them from being steam beer since the keynote was the fermentation method, well-described in this article from 1996). The Sleeman version is amber or almost, as is to this day Anchor Steam Beer. Neither Anchor Steam nor Sleeman are heavily hopped, which may be one point of difference from the late 1800's steam beers (or some of them, e.g. probably in the dead of winter in Northern California the weather was such that heavy hopping could be dispensed with). While we will never know for sure, I believe Sleeman's version can lay a decent claim to autheticity of style. Anyway, as a 19th century brewing text I often read, Byrn's Practical Brewing, notes in respect of American porter, if well made it doesn't matter if it lives up to the original since it can "stand on its own merits".

Gary

[Steve Beaumont]

For the record, I never said that Sleeman Steam was typical of the style. What I DID do was laud them for going to the effort and expense of creating the kind of special fermentation room that's essential to the style, as opposed to most "California common beer" brewers, who merely subject a lager yeast to higher temperature fermentation. I also noted that it did (and does) possess the kind of hybrid character that is integral to the style, but that's a lot different from saying that it's a good example of the style.

And with respect, Gary, the info you post to support your suggestion that the Sleeman beer is an example of what the style might have tasted like in the 1800's is full of holes. Your flavour description, for example, could easily describe any number of conventionally-fermented ales.

And finally, it's highly unlikely that the Steam recipe came from the family book, since the style was very much a west coast one, confined almost exclusively to northern California breweries.

[old faithful]

If my recollection of what you wrote then is wrong, I stand corrected.

My information, full of holes? I don't know, Steve, I referred to an article which gives information from contemporary sources. I'd be interested to review any other information available. You know that series that puts out booklets by style, e.g. Porter, Pale Ale, Stout, etc., maybe they issued a book on steam beer.

To say my taste description could apply to any number of beers can support my view because it may well be that steam beer tasted like that (non-distinctive) in the 1800's, Lodahl's article refers to a contemporary description as not for connoisseurs - fact is it might have tasted quite ordinary, like lots of beers today. We don't know what it tasted like then and I am only offering an interpretation.

Steam beer was I believe not just brewed on the west coast (although certainly the style ruled the roost there far more than anywhere else) but in any case I don't know if it is from the Sleeman recipe book. I'll ask John (whom I run into sometimes at trade events) if it was or not.

Kind regards

Gary

[Steve Beaumont]

Actually, Gary, I was referring to your earlier post. I don't believe that the post in which you cite Martin's article was on the forum when I began composing my post. (I got distracted and took a while to finish it.)

I haven't the time to read Martin's story now, but will get to it later on.As far as what I wrote goes, however, I can assure you that my recollection is correct.

[old faithful]

Fair enough, Steve.

I only offer my own views based on what I've read over the years and my own thinking about it and people obviously are free to disagree.

One thing I think we can all agree on is, to the extent draught Anchor Steam Beer represents an historical type (which I believe it does), Sleeman's beer is not as full-flavoured, not as good to those who want a full taste. But I think it represents one version of what historical steam was all about and (more in my later posts) I tried to scare up some info I recalled reading years back about old steam beer. In a word at its best it was probably very good but was never a worldbeater, is what I am trying to say (which nonetheless still pleased a lot of people in the old days).

[Steve Beaumont]

As a related digression, one thing I believe it's reasonable to accept as fact is that relative to today's typical mass-market brands, beer brewed in the 1800's was generally: a) much hoppier (for preservative effect in pre-tight filtration and pre-mass Pasteurization days); and b) considerably less pristine in character (owning to more primitive brewing, filtering and bottling technologies).

[old faithful]

I agree. I think any beer style today, even if faithful to historical type, is (generally) the best of what existed then, or maybe is more similar to what was brewed in the coldest times then (when hopping rates were lower and risk of acetification and other faults was less, too).

By the way Combrune in the early 1700's brewing text I've mentioned mentions that shallow pans are a good way to ensure the beer cools quickly after the boil and doesn't spoil before it can be fermented. I don't think the method was invented in Northern California, it was (given space and proper "management" as he calls it) a standard way of ale brewing in the old days except that the Californians used lager yeast instead of top yeasts to ferment the brew. They resorted to the old way of cooling since they lacked ice and mechanical refrigeration to control the fermentation temperature.

I've had in my time some home and micro brews that might approximate to what what bad steam beer was like in the old days. On the micro side, this was more in the first years of the craft rennaissance.

Gary

[old faithful]

Just a further thought, on Pootz' comment about Anchor Steam. I think the draft (as for many other beers) is usually better than the bottled one. But for the draft at its freshest you have to go to the Bay Area. Both draft and bottled are flash pasteurised, is my understanding, but the draft sampled on home turf always seems very good to me. I think too Anchor, like Sleeman, always kept one foot in traditional (20th century) brewing processes such as pasteurising. When Anchor was refitted by Maytag in the late 1960's, fine filtration was not generally used in brewing (I think only Coors used it) and he went with pasteurising for stabililty although using the lighter flash-type process. I always wondered what a tight filtered or bottled conditioned Anchor Steam would be like, but I don't think we'll ever know! There is always a trade off between flavor (to a degree anyway) and stability and all things being equal I'll take the latter since oxidation, especially in bottled beer, is always a potential threat. One thing I find interesting is that Molson abandoned heat pasteurisation some years ago, so they must be using a fine filtration system of some kind (maybe inherited even pre-merger from Coors?).

Gary