lunedì 25 gennaio 2016

Altbier vs. Kölsch

Those two batches were brewed by chance: my homebrewing shop offered me a discounted pack of Wyeast Kölsch, so I decided to use it.
Kölsch vs. Alt 
I never liked Kölsch I tasted: too weak, too watery and with faint aromas, so I decided to produce an Altbier: amber, more bodied and with a higher hoppage than a Kölsch, but again with an hybrid fermentation, ale yeast (Alt means 'old') and lagered at low temperaturesm. I used Ho Pale and Munich malts, togheter with 6% Crystal, to give good caramel and melanoidins notes, all balanced with generous hop adjuncts of Hersbrucker and Aramis (a french hop with good aa% and perfect for bittering european lagers).
Kölsch and Altbier are served in the stange, the same tall and tiny glass, to drink it faster before delicate fruity aromas fade away. Produced and drinked in the same way, those beers are protected regional denominations, and can be produced only in the corresponding area of origin: that led to the big challenge between the two cities and theyr own beers

Anyway, after primary fermentation I moved the beer in another tank for the lagering: the beer had a gentle and elegant fruity aroma of apple and green fruith, so I decided to reuse yeast and brew a Kölsch style beer.
After the lagering, I brewed a light beer based on Pils, sweet water and a little Hersbrucker (20 IBU), bottled the Alt, and put the light wort on the yeast cake.

I did the same job as the donkey in the famous picture that drinks one beer and piss out the other: nice idea for the labels.

 

Labels are almost identical. Just a different color, like beers (but don't tell to people from Koln or Dusseldorf that their beers are so similar...).
Alt is already drinkable, slightly fruity, well hopped and bitter, withh caramel notes above all. In the meanwhile Kölsch has just been bottled, and the first sample from the fermenter isn't bad: light, watery and with faint hop notes. Like a canned Finkbrau: hopefully it will get better after few weeks...
Altbier, in a stange (oops! that's a Kölsch glass!)

I kept some Kölsch yeast, want to try it on a Bitter.

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