Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Beef's Ode to Malt

Seeing  I have today off work I thought, what better than write up on our blog about Malt as a first focus study.

Anyone looking to the sidebar of this blog can see that malt is definitely a 'like' I have with beer, as it should be with it being a main ingredient that makes beer beer. As I also state, darker malts are of particular interest to me, which is what led me to Tooheys Old and Guinness being popular beers for me, and has also led me to want to brew the Beer Chocolate Milkshake we have just done.

For me, malt can really give beer a body to create the chewy texture I like so much, and bring a sweet sense to it as well. I have become interested in Malt Beers, and tasted a few noteworthy one like Japan's Yebisu, and even a local brewer in Kew (Vic) called Brewer's Pure Malt Beer (which I am happy to see has now started commercial distribution through Duncan's bottlos). I have even found that some lagers can close in on the fine line between malt and hops like Barossa Brewing Company's Miller's Lager. However, I have also found those that don't, like a new lager called 'Effen', that touts itself as triple malted, but then overpowers any malt by using hops that don't seem to compliment. For me it comes back to one thing, just because beer can be complex, doesn't mean it has to be. Brewing beer is such a simple thing, and beer is such a humble drink. This contradiction of simplicity and complexity brings with it great potential which should be explored, but then also creates a fine balance that is to be found. Of course there is individual taste that comes into it (I know my taste in beer probably don't reflect that of the general aussie population if the most popular beers here are XXXX, VB, etc), but commercially producing overly-complicated beers just because you can and to make a beer stand out from others I don't think is a positive end-point we should be looking for.

Anyway, I'll stop before I get any deeper in this. I like beer, I like malt taste in beer. Maybe as it is a staple of beer, I therefore like stable beers.

-Beef

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