Sleeman Steam Beer

[Rob Creighton]

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

Careful about hearing a marketing line and making broad assumptions about process. All draught from Molson is pasteurized as is most bottled beer. That would explain those football field sized pasteurizers in the middle of the plant. As far as I know they have only ever done a sterile filling room for Miller product. Whether they extended that to the Coors Light product I don't know but I doubt it. The depth filtration that Coors does in the US does not extend to Canadian product. It is a function of the Coors Colorado facility.

[old faithful]

Thanks Rob, I thought I read some years ago that Molson adandoned heat pasteurisation for sterile filtration but I must be wrong. As you say, MGD may be different. Anyway generally I think the majors get good stability but I recall a period some years ago when I felt some of Molson's beers exhibited some mild oxidation. The problem (if it was one) went away after a year or so.

Gary

[old faithful]

Just a further note that on the Molson web site is a basic flow chart setting out their brewing process. Under packaging it is stated bottles go through a tunnel pasteuriser as Rob said. Under "kegging" I clicked on the icon but the same info pops up as for bottle treatment so presumably kegs are pasteurised too since it doesn't say they aren't. A few pieces of info I found of interest on the site:

- hops are no longer commercially grown in Canada

- new beer (before cold aging) is called "ruh", I've never come across that term before, it sounds German but I'm not sure (unless it's a typo)


Not a bad site with more information than I thought and also they reveal full details on their label coding system.

Now if they would just introduce Molson India Pale Ale from circa 1900.

Gary

[Belgian]

Historical beer making seems like building construction... while some early beers may have been the pinnacle of traditional styles, numerous beers (like some buildings) were probably not that well made and/or had technical flaws best left in the past.

We can't assume "old" was entirely "better", and today we kind of get tradition with the benefit of much finer control. Wines, too are shockingly improved from decades ago. At least I think I know what I'm talking about.

[old faithful]

I think it works both ways though, some things done today weren't approved back then. E.g., very high hop rates for beers drunk for current consumption (beers not intending for "standing") would have been regarded as an anomaly. I think the people that really liked beer then knew what was good, just as we do today, and there were minority tastes then too, just as today. E.g. in the discussions of how porter evolved it is noted that some people like to drink the "stale" ales unmixed. These were the somewhat acid aged beers (perhaps like some of the Belgian sourish ales of today) that generally were mixed with newer beers to lessen the acidity and improve the taste of new beer which was often too "glutinous" (too sweet). In the old books I have read, you can get a sense of what people generally liked and to me it doesn't sound all that different from today: they wanted beer of moderate strength (e.g. Combrune states that brown stout - strong porter of probably 1085 or so OG was too strong for most tastes, hence also the market small beer had which probably was like inexpensive bitter in England today). Also people didn't like cloudy beers or beers that were too smoky from malt kilned on wood fires - there are many statements in old books advising how to avoid these faults and porter in particular evolved in part because it was not cloudy-looking but rather dark brown and limpid. Sourness too was generally to be avoided and many nostrums were given to "take up" acidity when it got out of hand, e.g., in long-stored beer. We will never know for sure but my opinion from reading hundreds of pages of these books is things then were not all that different from now with the exception of summer brewing, or brewing in warm climates, which without refrigeration would have been chancy at best. Many books state flat out not to brew in hot weather or to drink the beer quickly if you do. But England (and most of my references are to that country) was and is still - despite the climate change of recent decades - a temperate country. Most of the brewing was done in cool conditions using top-ferments in a 5 or 6 day process and the beer before refrigeration was layed out to cool and steam off in coolships sometimes only inches high off the ground and then put into the backs for the ferment. The concern noted e.g. in Combrune is not an uncontrolled ferment, if the process is properly managed, but losing too much beer from evaporation! The more I read his description of cooling before the era of heat exchangers the more I think I see where the term steam beer really came from.

In the 1880's or so in England, Thomas Hardy famously described what was likely an old ale if not stronger and his description included "piquant but without a twang". Clearly this meant the beer was moderately hopped because all here who know beer know what he means by a twang. And beer in a tradition-bound country like England, especially at the time, would not (especially in the country) have been all that different from 100 years before and more. So it is not any one thing but hundreds of things I have read over the years such as this that make me feel the good ale brewers knew what they were doing for centuries at least and things have changed less than one might suppose (if only too, or also, because of the inherent conservatism of the local drinkers).

But we won't ever know for sure we can only speculate and try to understand the surviving evidence, but this is my take on it.

Gary

[pootz]

Another difference between Anchor and Sleeman steam beer is Anchor will get a temporary protein haze if chilled to much and Sleeman won't cloud if you damn near freeze it. Creemore will chill haze but Canadian won't. You know where I'm going with this as far as ingredients is concerned.

Which beer has the greater malt content and lack of cosmetic chemicals?

[old faithful]

Possibly in terms of ingredients Anchor is the "better" beer but in terms of style Sleeman's is still a valid steam beer because of how it is fermented.

Also, many all-malt beers do not throw a haze no matter how long refrigerated - this has to do (generally) with residual protein content.

As for chemicals, I think the definition of chemicals is not an easy one to arrive at and a strict definition might mean many micro beers are made with chemicals.

Gary