I’ve noticed that a particular beer I’m enjoying right now (Cigar City Invasion Pale Ale) has a very distinct head. It doesn’t look like the typical beer head. Any thoughts?
1/ Grist differences - small amounts of wheat or flaked barley contribute to good foam. Don’t know their grist makeup, though.
2/ Hop levels - hop forward beers have better foam as a rule. I see it’s an APA, but some are fairly hoppy.
3/ Carbonation level - highly carbed beers often have rocky foam. Think Belgian.
4/ Process - they’re a great brewery, so I’m sure their fermentation temp, mash schedule, pH, etc are conducive to that.
5/ Your glass - is this glass a little cleaner/better rinsed than your others? Cleanliness and method of cleaning make a huge difference. There was a recent thread along these lines.
Yeah, I tend to get that sort of foam from a beer with a large amount of hops. I rye IPA I brewed a few years back had cappuccino foam.
I think maybe even more than IPAs , the best, rocky foam I ever get is from my American stout - I use flaked barley and of course some finishing hops. Crazy thick foam. If it didn’t have that flavor in pale beers, I’d put flaked barley in damn near everything.
Hops are incredible foam enhancers. There are also a myriad of thing you can do to enhance your foam at the homebrew level. Carbonation level is a HUGE factor. You can’t float a head of foam on subpar carbonation.
This month’s Zymurgy has an excerpt from the Malt book in which Wayne Wambles discusses using Cara-Foam. He’s the head brewer there.
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You know what sad? I read that earlier today and obviously didn’t pay close enough attention!
All this. The two things that make a huge difference for me in such a case are hopping and Carafoam. My IPAs and late/dry hopped beers have incredible retention due to those two factors. I add 1/2# of Carafoam per 5 gallons and it makes a tremendous difference in head forming proteins. Add late/dry hops and you’ll get head for days.
What’s the flavor contribution of cara foam? Would it be used in place of caramel/ crystal?
<10% in an IPA will be undetectable.
Carafoam is Weyermann’s carapils. Just a pale dextrin malt.
Weyermann has the trademark for carapils in the rest of the world, but somehow Briess has the trademark in the US.
Hadn’t heard that.
actually think carafoam is a better marketing name anyway.
Not as good as “great head” would be.
;D
women and beer… distinct differences in both!
How’s this for head…my Dunkelweizen.
Mighty damn fine ! Looks great.