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In our sixth episode we review Big Bark by Live Oak while discussing the smallest batch bourbon, brewing our own beer, the grandeur of Tropic Thunder and the genuis of Academy Award winner Matthew McConaughey.
Also in this episode we send out a call to try to harass Cutter in his daily life.
Music for the show:
Evil Eye/ The Stranger Rides Tonight by Daddy Long Legs is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.
Bottle of Beer by simon_mathewson is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.
Show Notes:
Episode 06 Live Oak Big Bark Amber Lager
Live Oak
Austin’s Original Craft Brewery Since 1997, Live Oak Brewing Company has been committed to producing delicious lagers and ales for the enjoyment of passionate beer drinkers of Austin, Texas, and beyond. We employ an old-world style of brewing rarely found in America but practiced extensively throughout central Europe. We source only the best authentic ingredients, and use a time-consuming mash, open fermentation, and secondary lagering process. The result has achieved both regional and national acclaim, but more importantly, the satisfaction of loyal beer drinkers who appreciate our beer-making efforts. In 2015 we moved out of our home of 19 years in East Austin. Our new brewery, nestled among majestic groves of live oaks along the Colorado River, is just minutes from downtown Austin. Our new location features a spacious taproom and the shadiest Biergarten in town. We opened our doors to the public in February 2016 and hope you’ll come see us soon!
The brewery produces four year-round beers as well as nearly 20 more seasonal (or limited release) beers. Live Oak beers are available on draft across Texas at bars and restaurants. In 2016, Live Oak began canning their beers for retail sale at grocery, liquor, and convenience stores across the state.
While Live Oak uses industry standard step mashing for most of their beers, they use a more difficult and rarely used old world style of mashing known as decoction mashing for a few of their beers, most notably the Live Oak Pilz and the Oaktoberfest.
Live Oak uses large, horizontal dairy tanks as fermenting vessels instead of the more traditional cylindroconical fermenters.
Mashing
In brewing and distilling, mashing is the process of combining a mix of grain (typically malted barley with supplementary grains such as corn, sorghum, rye or wheat), known as the "grain bill", and water, known as "liquor", and heating this mixture. Mashing allows the enzymes in the malt to break down the starch in the grain into sugars, typically maltose to create a malty liquid called wort. There are two main methods—infusion mashing, in which the grains are heated in one vessel; and decoction mashing, in which a proportion of the grains are boiled and then returned to the mash, raising the temperature. Mashing involves pauses at certain temperatures (notably 45–62–73 °C or 113–144–163 °F), and takes place in a "mash tun"—an insulated brewing vessel with a false bottom. The end product of mashing is called a "mash"
Infusion mashing
Most breweries use infusion mashing, in which the mash is heated directly to go from rest temperature to rest temperature. Some infusion mashes achieve temperature changes by adding hot water, and there are also breweries that do single-step infusion, performing only one rest before lautering.
Decoction mashing
Decoction mashing is where a proportion of the grains are boiled and then returned to the mash, raising the temperature. The boiling extracts more starch from the grain by breaking down the cell walls of the grain. It can be classified into one-, two-, and three-step decoctions, depending on how many times part of the mash is drawn off to be boiled. It is a traditional method, and is common in German and Central European breweries. It was used out of necessity before the invention of thermometers allowed simpler step mashing. But the practice continues for many traditional beers because of the unique malty flavor it lends to the beer; boiling part of the grain results in Maillard reactions, which create melanoidins that lead to rich, malty flavours.
Big Bark
The alluring lagers of Vienna provide inspiration for our Big Bark Amber Lager. German specialty malt lends a soft body with deep malty richness and aroma, perfectly balanced by German Noble hops. Cold fermentation and lagering assure a beer with a clean finish that showcases the interplay of the malt and hops. A beer of fine malt character and subtle hop nuance, it is accessible,smooth, and satisfying. OG: 12.5ºP ABV: 4.9% IBU: 25
Vienna Lager
Description:
Named after the city in which it originated, a traditional Vienna lager is brewed using a three step decoction boiling process. Munich, Pilsner, Vienna toasted and dextrin malts are used, as well wheat in some cases. Subtle hops, crisp, with residual sweetness.
Although German in origin and rare these days, some classic examples come from Mexico, such as: Dos Equis and Negra Modelo. A result of late 19th century immigrant brewers from Austria.
Average alcohol by volume (abv) range: 3.5-6.5%
Lager (German: storeroom or warehouse) is a type of beer conditioned at low temperatures. It may be pale, golden, amber, or dark. Pale lager is the most widely consumed and commercially available style of beer. Well-known brands include Pilsner Urquell, Miller, Stella Artois, Beck's, Brahma, Budweiser Budvar, Corona, Snow, Tsingtao, Singha, Kirin, Heineken, Carling, Foster's, and Carlsberg.
As well as maturation in cold storage, lager is also distinguished by the use of the Saccharomyces pastorianus yeast. While it is possible to use lager yeast in a warm fermentation process, such as with American steam beer, the lack of a cold storage maturation phase precludes such beer from being classified as lager. On the other hand, German Altbier and Kölsch, brewed with a Saccharomyces cerevisiae top-fermenting yeast at a warm temperature, but with a cold storage finishing stage, are classified as obergäriges lagerbier (top-fermented lager beer).
Until the 19th century, the German word lagerbier (de) referred to all types of bottom-fermented, cool-conditioned beer, in normal strengths. In Germany today, however, the term is mainly reserved for the prevalent lager beer styles of southern Germany, "Helles" (pale), or a "Dunkel" (dark). Pilsner, a more heavily hopped pale lager, is most often known as "Pilsner", "Pilsener", or "Pils". Other lagers are Bock, Märzen, and Schwarzbier. In the United Kingdom, the term lager commonly refers specifically to pale lagers, many of which are derived from the Pilsner style.
History of lager brewing
While cold storage of beer, "lagering", in caves for example, was a common practice throughout the medieval period, bottom-fermenting yeast seems to have emerged as a hybridization in the early fifteenth century. In 2011, a team of researchers claimed to have discovered that Saccharomyces eubayanus is responsible for creating the hybrid yeast used to make lager.
Based on the numbers of breweries, lager brewing became the main form of brewing in Bohemia between 1860 and 1870.
In the 19th century, prior to the advent of refrigeration, German brewers would dig cellars for lagering and fill them with ice from nearby lakes and rivers, which would cool the beer during the summer months. To further protect the cellars from the summer heat, they would plant chestnut trees, which have spreading, dense canopies but shallow roots which would not intrude on the caverns. The practice of serving beer at these sites evolved into the modern beer garden.
The rise of lager was entwined with the development of refrigeration, as refrigeration made it possible to brew lager year-round (brewing in the summer had previously been banned in many locations across Germany), and efficient refrigeration also made it possible to brew lager in more places and keep it cold until serving. The first large-scale refrigerated lagering tanks were developed for Gabriel Sedelmayr's Spaten Brewery in Munich by Carl von Linde in 1870.
Production process
Lager beer uses a process of cool fermentation, followed by maturation in cold storage. The German word "Lager" means storeroom or warehouse. The yeast generally used with lager brewing is Saccharomyces pastorianus. It is a close relative of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast used for warm fermented ales.
While prohibited by the German Reinheitsgebot tradition, lagers in some countries often feature large proportions of adjuncts, usually rice or maize.
The Reinheitsgebot (German pronunciation: [ˈʁaɪnhaɪtsɡəboːt] , literally "purity order"), sometimes called the "German Beer Purity Law" in English, is the collective name for a series of regulations limiting the ingredients in beer in Germany and the states of the former Holy Roman Empire. The best-known version of the law was adopted in Bavaria in 1516, but similar regulations predate the Bavarian order, and modern regulations also significantly differ from the 1516 Bavarian version.
Adjuncts are unmalted grains (such as corn, rice, rye, oats, barley, and wheat) or grain products used in brewing beer which supplement the main mash ingredient (such as maltedbarley), often with the intention of cutting costs, but sometimes to create an additional feature, such as better foam retention, flavours or nutritional value or additives. Both solid and liquid adjuncts are commonly used.
Adjuncts entered United States brewing as a means of thinning out the body of U.S. beers, balancing the large quantities of protein introduced by six-row barley. Adjuncts are often used now in beermaking to introduce a large quantity of sugar, and thereby increase ABV, at a lower price than a formulation using an all-malt grain bill. There are however cases in which adjunct usage actually increases the cost of manufacture.
Variations
The examples of lager beers produced worldwide vary greatly in flavor, color, composition and alcohol content.
Styles
Pale lager
Helles
Pilsner — Pilsner Urquell (Czech Republic), Stella Artois (Belgium)
Märzen
Bock
Dark lager
Dunkel
Doppelbock
Schwarzbier
Pale lager
The most common lager beers in worldwide production are pale lagers. The flavor of these lighter lagers is usually mild, and the producers often recommend that the beers be served refrigerated.
Pale lager is a very pale to golden-colored lager with a well attenuated body and noble hop bitterness. The brewing process for this beer developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took pale ale brewing techniques[12] back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany and applied it to existing lagering brewing methods.
This approach was picked up by other brewers, most notably Josef Groll who produced in Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic) the first Pilsner beer—Pilsner Urquell. The resulting pale colored, lean and stable beers were very successful and gradually spread around the globe to become the most common form of beer consumed in the world today.
Vienna Lager
Distinctly amber colored Vienna lager was developed by brewer Anton Dreher in Vienna in 1841. Austrian brewers who emigrated to Mexico in the late 19th century took the style with them. Vienna lager is a reddish-brown or copper-colored beer with medium body and slight malt sweetness. The malt aroma and flavor may have a toasted character. Despite their name, Vienna lagers are generally uncommon in continental Europe today but can be found frequently in North America, where it is often called pre-Prohibition style amber lager (often shortened to "pre-Prohibition lager"), as the style was popular in pre-1919 America.[citation needed] Notable examples include Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Great Lakes Eliot Ness, Devils Backbone Vienna Lager, Abita Amber, Yuengling Traditional Lager, Dos Equis Ámbar and Negra Modelo. In Norway, the style has retained some of its former popularity, and is still brewed by most major breweries.
Dark lager
Lagers would likely have been mainly dark until the 1840s; pale lagers were not common until the later part of the 19th century when technological advances made them easier to produce. Dark lagers typically range in color from amber to dark reddish brown, and may be termed Vienna, amber lager, dunkel, tmavé, or schwarzbier depending on region, color or brewing method.
Tmavé is Czech for "dark", so is the term for a dark beer in the Czech Republic - beers which are so dark as to be black are termed černé pivo, "black beer".[16] Dunkel is German for "dark", so is the term for a dark beer in Germany. With alcohol concentrations of 4.5% to 6% by volume, dunkels are weaker than Doppelbocks, another traditional dark Bavarian beer. Dunkels were the original style of the Bavarian villages and countryside.[17] Schwarzbier, a much darker, almost black beer with a chocolate or licorice-like flavor, similar to stout, is mainly brewed in Saxony and Thuringia.
In 2010 brewer Diageo which is part made up of the Irish brewer Guinness released their own Guinness Black Lager brand.
