Given the significant results of our prior water chemistry xBmts, I was curious about the impact mineral additions might have on finished beer. Would tasters be able to tell a difference between a couple beers adjusted to have different chloride to sulfate ratios once fermentation was complete? Results are in!
Great stuff. Three significant results for water chemistry is very unlikely to be coincidental.
I agree strongly with your friends that Belgian beers are better when crisp and clean, with subtle rather than overbearing yeast flavours. Simple grain bills work best for me - it’s hard to beat 100% pilsner.
“Belgian beers” is a broad category! It’s tough to make sweeping generalizations about such a varied beer culture.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing your results with us. I wonder if hop choice (noble vs australian vs american C’s) has a significant impact involving Cl:SO4 ratio?
Precisely. Something like Rochefort 10 is not a “clean and crisp” beer. It’s big and round and soft.
Thanks for posting, Marshall.
My thoughts exactly. “Belgian” tends to be used as a blanket term but really encompasses the Monk beers, Abbey beers, specialty pales, regional styles such as Lambics, sours, etc. Add in the fact that people lump North American interpretations in as “Belgian” and things get confused and misinterpreted pretty quickly.
Sorry for the derail. Great write up Marshall.
[EDIT: I’m a huge fan of the monastery beers and they represent my favorite beers of Belgium. I try to make that distinction so as not to confuse people.]
+1 to the derail. Belgian beers are all over the map stylistically. Pretty hard to pigeonhole them into an attribute.
Don’t have hard proof but I strongly suspect that the origin of the so-called “Speciale Belge” yeast strains is British.
No, you’re totally right, I was having a little fun with my opinion there. That said, my buddies were saying even beers that are easy to get here in the states are cleaner in Belgium, something they think may be a function of shipping and age. I don’t know.
This is very possible. I’m convinced that none of the German beers we get here are as they should be. But since I haven’t been to Germany to try these beers for myself, I’m just spit balling when I say that. Even the beers on tap we get here probably don’t taste as they taste in Germany. And that elusive German lager flavor that we seek is probably just age and oxidation. I just don’t know…
I couldn’t agree more!
That is why I don’t purchase many German beers anymore.
I can definitely buy into that, although we likely benefit on the monk beers!
[EDIT: I wonder sometimes if when people say they are not fond of Belgian beers they mean some of the North American interpretations. In general even the good ones are way off.]
This probably has some parallels with the stuff I hear Jim talking about with finishing pH, no?
It seems that how you finish, package and present the final product is another variable to excellent beer.
The reason I say that, really, is because if you have ever had Samuel Smith’s Organic Lager it has that very same flavor. So it must not be something specific to German beer, but something the shipping and aging process does to the beer.
Makes it very hard to trust that what you’re getting is really what it’s supposed to taste like. But I often wonder…can we trust that even the kegs we get from Germany are as they should be? Is there something different about the beer being in a keg and being shipped versus beer being in the bottle? While bottle caps can let O2 in, I doubt sealed and pressurized kegs can, because the many kegged German beers I’ve had on tap have had “that” flavor.
Anyway, sorry for going on a tangent here!
Did you calculate the concentrations of the various ions?
Yes:
It’s fine to make sweeping generalisations about one’s own preferences though isn’t it?
That’s an odd question.
I think RPIScotty misread my first post. I thought it was pretty clear that I was expressing a personal preference rather than making a sweeping generalisation about Belgian beer. I assume you missed the point too.