The Art of Lager Brewing

With so many mass-produced Lagers on the market there is no point trying to replicate them – we cannot compete on price – and we wouldn’t want to either when we can do better! What we do is try to make authentic, high-quality Lager with depth of flavour.

It is said in brewing circles that making a high quality lager is a real test of your brewing skills. The clean, crisp flavour of a lager highlights any errors in the brewing process and leaves no place to hide.

We take our lead from traditional German Lager brewing, but we also bypass some of the old methods and add in more modern components too.

This is how we approach brewing Lager:

  • All Malt – no adjuncts.
  • Multi-step Mash Profile
  • Thin Mash
  • Weheinstephan Yeast
  • Controlled fermentation

We use Pilsner Malt plus a small addition of Vienna Malt for a bit of that “bready” malt flavour. And nothing else. Many mass-produced lagers will have “non-malt” adjuncts (rice, maize/corn) to bring the costs down – but they also thin out the flavour or impart other flavours. We believe our lager has more of the right flavour.

We use a multi-step mash – starting with mash in at 55 to 58 C for a short protein-rest, Raise to 63-64 C for a long beta-rest, raise again to 71-72 C for a short dextrin-rest and finally raise to 76 C to mash-out.

We use a “thin” mash at 3.5 litre/kg of grain – this helps the beta-amylase enzymes work to ensure a dry finish to the beer to allow a crisp taste. This gives us some process headaches as our mash tun is sized for 2.5 litres/kg – a typical British ale ratio. We get around this by running two mashes in parallel when brewing lager – yes, it’s hard work – and it makes for a more stressful and longer brew day – but when quality and authenticity are your aim you take the necessary steps.

We use an authentic German lager yeast – we choose W34/70 Weihenstephan and a temperature controlled fermentation. For a lager you do not want to generate esters – these are fruity compounds that we love in our British Ales, but they have no place in a traditional lager. Fermenting cold is the answer, and the initial growth phase of the fermentation is the most critical. 

Where we differ from traditional German Lager processes:

  • No Decoction Mash
  • Pressure Fermented
  • New Cryo Hops
A traditional German brewer will use a “decoction” to raise the temperature between the mash steps. This involves removing 1/3 of the grain and liquid, bringing it to the boil for a short period and then returning it to the main mash to achieve the step change in temperature. We’d need to do a triple “decoction” to achieve our preferred mash profile. The benefits of a decoction mash are said to enhance the depth of flavour – maybe one day I’ll try it – but it will make brew day doubly hard again. At present, I’ll stick to controlling the mash temperature by more direct heating without the need to remove parts of the mash. The process we use is a Recirculating Infusion Mash System – we draw liquid from base of mash, pump over a heating element and return at top of the mash tun. This is a nice closed-loop which I can temperature control with little hassle.

We ferment our lager under pressure. There is research out there that shows the production of esters (fruity flavour  compounds) are further reduced by fermenting at 15 psi. This could allow you to ferment the whole batch at “Ale” temperatures – but we still start off cold for a couple of days before gently raising the temperature, we don’t push the limits on temperature. This allows us to get the batch through a bit quicker whilst keeping esters under control, even lower than a traditional cold fermentation according to the research, but the differences may not be perceptible to human senses.

A “noble” hop is used for German lagers. Hallertau Mittelfruh is a classic example that gives a clean hop bitterness. We are using a more modern hop variety (Loral) that shows strong noble hop character. These are also “cryo” hops – this involves a very cold processing of the hops that preserves volatile hop oils to generate pellets that have appx 50% of the vegetal matter removed, leaving a more concentrated pellet of the most useful parts of the hop cone. This allows lower hop addition to the kettle whilst still achieving the same bitterness and flavour extraction that we want – our Lager hop bitterness and flavour are higher than most mass-produced Lagers – for us, flavour is king! And the cryo hops make it a bit easier to clean the kettle out after the boil. (Brewers spend more of their time cleaning than they do brewing! Sanitation is also king!)

As you can see, we are not wholly traditional – pseudo-traditional if you like, or maybe even trad-lite – but, we think we strike the right balance to achieve a high-quality lager that has our own stamp of originality on it.

Below are a selection of pictures from the last Lager brewday. (Target volume and SG, Bright wort in kettle, Knock out temperature, Bright wort to fermenter, White foam head in fermenter)

 

Twas the night before Christmas

And the fermenters were full!

Think I got maximum beer into this one – this is before it starts fermenting. A re-brew earlier this week of Citrus Pale Ale – Make It Real. Brewery is all cleaned up and no more brews until we have an empty fermenter free.

All our vessels are full and fermenting more beer. Spare a thought for our yeast(s) as they will not rest this Christmas.

We have:

  1. Safale S-04 British Ale Yeast fermenting Make It Real Citrus Pale Ale.
  2. Saflager W34/70 Munich Lager Yeast fermenting St Arman Munich Helles Lager
  3. WLP510 Bastogne Yeast fermenting Monkezunkel Belgian Ale
  4. Framgarden Kveik Yeast fermenting Messianic Barley Wine

A very big thank you to everyone who has supported us over the last few months. Have a lovely Christmas.

Availability and Pricelist 21-12

Stocks are dwindling for several beers. Stocks asre still good for Porter, Stout and Citrus IPA. Lager is in the fermenter. Next brews will be Make it Real and then Watchmaker – need to re-stock with low-strength pale beers.

We still have a small number of gift packs and the 12 Beers of Xmas available for collection.

Availability and Pricelist 18-Dec-20

Wow! You are buying quicker than we can make it at present. We’re thrilled at this but we don’t like to disappoint our customers. Note to self: I must brew harder.

We are now out of stock of the St Arman Lager. The last few are in gift packs. I did a fresh batch earlier this week so we should have stock again in a few weeks time. Realistically, this will be into the New Year.

Stocks are also getting low for Schnaison and B-Movie Monster. These are small batch beers so they are expected to sell out more quickly.

We still have some “12 Beers of Xmas” as listed above, when we are out of Lager we will replace with Schnaison – I would say substitute but the two beers are worlds apart in flavour and appearance.

Sargeants Butchers in Barrow have started selling our core range. This outlet is great for us in the centre of Barrow. The uptake has taken us a little by surprise and contributed to dwindling stocks. 

 

batch earlier this week so we should have stock again in a few weeks time. Realistically, this will be into the New Year.

Stocks are also getting low for Schnaison and B-Movie Monster. These are small batch beers so they are expected to sell out more quickly.

We still have some “12 Beers of Xmas” as listed above, when we are out of Lager we will replace with Schnaison – I would say substitute but the two beers are worlds apart in flavour and appearance.

Sargeants Butchers in Barrow have started selling our core range. This outlet is great for us in the centre of Barrow. The uptake has taken us a little by surprise and contributed to dwindling stocks. 

B-Movie Monster and Hopper IPA Canned

A busy afternoon on the canning machine. Will be labelled up and available from Sunday.

Two new beers:

B-Movie Monster, Red Rye IPA, 5.2% ABV.

Hopper, Citrus IPA, 6.1% ABV

Availability and pricelist will be updated Sunday

Coming very soon . . . 

12 Beers of Xmas

2x 440ml cans each of these beers:

  • Watchmaker Pale Ale
  • St Arman Lager
  • Hound of Darkness Porter
  • Impolite Stout
  • B-Movie Monster Red Rye IPA
  • Hopper Citrus IPA

Check the availability and pricelist from Sunday

Brewing Messianic Barley Wine and Monkezunkel Belgian Ale

Wednesday was a day for brewing big beer. Messianic is a 10.5% Barley Wine. This is a small batch of just over 40 litres, but it still fills the mash tun. This can give issues with wort flow to the kettle after the mash – but all went smoothly on this brew. Three American hops are used – Cascade, Azacca and Columbus – to give this barley wine a bright hop character, not like a stodgy traditional British barley wine. 

Brew-day is made easier by my RaspberryPi control-centre – it monitors temperatures for me and switches heater elements on-off automatically. Takes a lot of the stress out of brew day and lets me focus on testing pH and density.

This one will take some time before it is ready. You need to give the yeast plenty of time to get the final gravity down. It’ll then spend some time on dry hops and oak chips to add further complexity. And then allow more time for the flavours to develop and mellow. Maybe it’ll be available from February.

Another small batch brewed on Thursday. Monkezunkel is a 6%+ Belgian blonde ale. Belgian beer flavour is yeast driven so it is essential to use authentic yeast. Tuesday was yeast preparation day. I took 2 packs of liquid yeast [White Labs WLP510] and made a starter to grow yeast numbers by a factor of x6 to x7. This ensures a healthy yeast pitch for the fermentation. Yeast numbers are also important to get the correct outcome. And finally you need to ensure good temperature control during fermentation to get the right balance of flavour between phenolics, esters and higher alcohols.

It’s happily fermenting away today and the yeast seems happy. Should be ready some time in January.

Xmas Packs are ready!

December is here and our Xmas Packs are ready!

Each presentation pack will contain 3x 440ml cans. The packs are hand-stamped with our logo and Lewis will be sporting a festive hat. A perfect little Xmas gift for the beer lover in your life.

Pack01 One each of St Arman Lager, Watchmaker Pale Ale, Hound of Darkness Porter.

£8 per pack

Pack02 One each of St Arman Lager, Watchmaker Pale Ale, Impolite Stout

£8 per pack

Pack03 Dark Days. One each of Hound of Darkness Porter, Impolite Stout, Schnaison Brown Saison.

£8.50 per pack

More packs mixes can be made available if you have specific taste preferences.

Use the contact link to order or make requests.

Availability and Pricelist 27-Nov-2020

Impolite Stout is now available. This is a complex stout with lots of chocolate aroma notes and a very dry finish. This is sure to challenge the Hound of Darkness for your favourite dark beer this winter . . . . but maybe the Schnaison beats them both in this respect.

Make it Real stocks are now low but St Arman lager stocks have been topped up.

I’ll do an update about the Xmas packs this weekend, and we hope to have some great news about where you can buy Little Big Dog beer soon.

Availability and Pricelist

The table above shows what beers we have in stock and prices. If you wish to place an order then please use the “Contact” page. Let us know what you’d like and I’ll email you with details of how to pay. If you are local, we can then agree a time for collection or delivery.

Stocks of St Arman are low but there is another batch due to be ready in the next few weeks.