European brewers immigrating to the United States in the 1800s received a bit of a rude awakening when it came to the qualities of available brewing ingredients. The most common brewing malt then was made from 6-row barley, which is noted for its higher protein content and grainier flavor. The indigenous hops were often Cluster, most charitably described as robust and distinctive, or perhaps foxy, catty, pungent, or like black currants by those more critical.

The high-protein malt created problems with clarity, color, excessive foam, and coarse flavors, as well as increased difficulty in lautering. The ultimate solution involved diluting the protein with starchy adjuncts from available grains, such as corn and rice. The 6-row malt had very high diastatic power (available enzymes to convert starches to sugars), so was also able to convert the starches from the enzyme-free adjuncts to sugar in the mash. 

However, the starches in those adjuncts were not readily available in the mash. The starches first needed to undergo gelatinization (swell with water until they burst) and liquefaction (become soluble with water) before saccharification (conversion to sugar) can occur. But the gelatinization temperature for adjuncts like corn and especially rice is considerably higher than for barley. Traditional brewing methods could not be used because the necessary enzymes would be destroyed before they could do their job.

The solution to the adjunct conversion was found in a new technique, the double mash. Using a separate vessel called a cereal cooker, the adjuncts were cooked along with a small portion of the barley malt until the starches were liberated. The cereal mash was remixed with the main mash and brewing continued with an upward infusion mash schedule. This process reminds me of decoction in general, although the separated fraction of the mash is treated differently, and it is done for different purposes.

Large, industrial American lager breweries continue to use this method, as it allows a more economical use of ingredients. These brewers normally use ground corn and/or rice, known as grits. They are simply broken into smaller pieces through crushing or other mechanical action, and thus have more surface area available. Some breweries may add liquid enzymes to accelerate the process.

Homebrewers and smaller breweries can opt for simpler methods of using adjuncts that are available today. Corn and rice are both available in flaked form (as are many other grains like barley, wheat, rye, and oats) that has been pre-gelatinized. This means that they can be added directly to the mash without using a cereal cooker. Rice and corn are also available in liquid forms that may be appealing to extract brewers, and rice can also be found as rice syrup solids, a powdered form that can be added to the boil.

Adjunct Beer Styles

I like to think of American adjunct beer styles as a large, branching family with many options. This may not be how they are judged in competition, but understanding how they are derived helps with recipe formulation. Methods, techniques, and ingredients will be similar in most styles, often with only minor adjustments. Understanding how to make a few key members of this family will unlock other paths. We are basically considering pale American-origin beers made with adjuncts and that have less than moderate bitterness levels. Higher levels of bitterness start moving us into the Pilsner family, which we would generally like to avoid.

American lager (Beer Judge Certification Program/BJCP Style 1B) is the modern form of the classic industrial adjunct lager found in the United States and elsewhere. It is a very pale, highly-carbonated, well-attenuated lager with a very neutral flavor profile and low bitterness. This is a standard-strength beer of about 5% alcohol.

Variations of this style include: American light lager (BJCP Style 1A), a lower alcohol and calorie version of American Lager; international pale lager (BJCP Style 2A), when brewed with adjuncts could also be called a premium American lager; and international dark lager (BJCP Style 2C), when brewed with adjuncts could be thought of as dark American lager. Pre-Prohibition lager (BJCP Style 27) is what American lager was before it was reduced in strength and bitterness by the Prohibition-era and World War II. I also appreciate international variants like Mexican lager (American/international lager with corn, uses a distinctive yeast), Japanese rice lager (American/international lager with rice), and hop lager (American/international lager with increased late hops).

Cream ale (BJCP Style 1C) is an ale adaptation of American lager that has a bit more character (and sometimes strength) but often serves the same purpose in the market. It was regionally significant in the Northeastern U.S. A historical darker version of this style is known as Kentucky common (BJCP Style 27). A significantly stronger version of this style is often called malt liquor (not a BJCP Style, best entered as BJCP Style 34B).

There are other adjunct styles that I think are interesting, but those tend to be higher bitterness beers with different balances. I would certainly mention cold IPA as a style that blends the best parts of American lager with American IPA, and some West Coast Pilsner-type beers are also sometimes using adjuncts. These are more recent craft era styles emerging and developing in the last five years or so. An observation I have about these emerging styles is that they are less classified by the yeast used, and more about the adjunct quality and how it influences overall drinkability and balance.

Brewing Variables

There are many similarities to these American adjunct beers, so it makes sense to discuss these options independent of the recipes. The most important choices are the base malts, the adjuncts, and the yeast, with the mashing techniques somewhat dictated by the adjuncts selected.

The base malts in these beers are typically something quite pale, and without big flavors. I’d say the most common today is 2-row brewer’s malt (sometimes called 2-row, pale malt, lager malt, or Pilsner malt of North American origin), with common maltsters being Rahr, Briess, and Great Western. The original base malt for these beers was 6-row brewer’s malt, which is still available and can be used, of course. I find that it has a grainier, coarser character, but is certainly acceptable. 

Continental Pilsner malt from Germany, Belgium, or other countries can also be used, but be careful about using malt with too much flavor like heirloom or floor-malted varieties. Avoid pale ale malt, or anything toasty, biscuity, or too bready because these attributes typically accompany malts with lower enzymatic power that are diluted to levels too low for normal conversion. Malts can be blended for additional variations, but shoot for using malts to yield a color of 2 SRM or less. I sometimes blend continental Pils malt with American 2-row for additional complexity.

It is possible to add a very small amount (less than 5%) of character malt such as Vienna, CaraHell^®, and the like. However, these risk bringing too much flavor. They will add some color, but color can also be adjusted darker using a touch of black malt (debittered is safest) or a commercial colorant.

The main adjuncts to use when making these beers are corn, rice, and sugar (corn sugar, typically). Corn and rice are the traditional ones used, but sugar is also common in some styles to increase alcohol and lighten the flavors. The form of corn and rice can be either whole/ground (grits), flaked (pre-gelatinized and rolled), or sometimes syrups and powders (such as rice syrup or rice syrup solids).

The techniques for using these adjuncts vary. Liquids and solids can be added directly to the boil, and so are suitable for extract brewers (or all-grain brewers looking to save time). The flaked form is probably most familiar to all-grain homebrewers. These can be added directly to the mash without any additional processing, similar to how other flaked grains (oats, rye, barley) are used. The grits form, however, requires some additional work to make the starches available for conversion to sugars.

The gelatinization temperature for corn and rice is higher than barley, so adding grits to the mash will not convert their starches since they will not be soluble in water. A double mash schedule uses a portion of the barley malt (perhaps 10–20%) along with all the adjuncts in a cereal cooker that uses higher temperatures than the main mash. The Practical Brewer (Master Brewers Association of America) recommends mashing in the malt at 100–122 °F (37–50 °C) for 15 to 30 minutes, adding the adjuncts with enough water to keep it liquid, then heating to boil while mixing. Boiling is recommended for 15–45 minutes, with more time being used with rice. The mashes are mixed together for conversion, before continuing with the recipe.

In addition to double mashing, some highly attenuated styles can use added enzymes to facilitate conversion. I find these to be generally unnecessary with modern malts, but specialized recipes may call for them.

Hop choices are often quite simple. Most classic noble hop varieties (such as Hallertauer, Tettnanger, or Saaz) are appropriate, especially for any late hopping. Noble hops are actually traditional for American beers, as German hops were imported during the 1800s. Bittering hop additions can use these same noble varieties, a traditional American hop like Cluster, or a clean bittering hop such as Magnum. Experimental styles featuring late hopping could use interesting tropical or New World varieties such as Motueka^TM, Riwaka^TM, Galaxy^®, Wakatu^TM, or Rakau^TM. Mandarina Bavaria also would be interesting. But don’t go overboard; I personally would avoid dank or piney hops, and would go easy on anything overly citrusy.

These styles typically don’t feature late hops of any significance, so a simple bittering charge will usually suffice. A small late aroma/flavor addition often is interesting, but anything moderate intensity or stronger is definitely experimental. If I was to play around with late hopping, I might shift some of the bittering addition to first wort hopping (adding the hops to the kettle before sparging, rather than adding them during the boil), and consider adding whirlpool hops either hot or after cooling below 180 °F (82 °C).

Most styles work with lager yeast, but I would select varieties that are low sulfur-producers. American lager yeast like White Labs WLP840 (American Lager) or Wyeast 2007 (Pilsen Lager), Mexican lager WLP940, Danish lager (WY2042, WLP850), and various German lager yeast such as W-34/70, WLP830, WY2124, or WLP833 would work nicely. I prefer strains that produce maltier results, unless looking for something highly attenuative. I also find higher temperature lager yeast such as the California common type yeast WY2112 or WLP810 also can produce good results for those who cannot ferment at lager temperatures. If making an ale, the reliably clean WY1056/WLP001 Chico strain is a good choice. I have seen some experimenting with tropical-type lagers using thiolized yeast strains like Omega Lunar Crush Lager (OYL-403).

Remember that most American lagers are differentiated by the fermentation profile, so look carefully at the choices. Fermentation temperature can affect the results, with most lager fermentations taking place between 50–55 °F (10–13 °C). Those wanting to ferment warmer could choose the California common yeast strains or a neutral ale yeast, and then fermenting in the 62–64 °F (17–18 °C) range. I honestly don’t mind light esters in a lager, as many commercial examples feature them.

I don’t have much to say about water, except that low-mineral or soft water favors the maltier styles. I use reverse osmosis (RO) water with a light touch of calcium chloride. I don’t think sulfates or carbonates bring much to the table in these styles.

Lagers should be lagered, not just use lager yeast. The cold conditioning phase helps the yeast clean up the fermentation profile and give a smoother finished beer. Those using pressure fermentation will reduce esters, but will not accelerate conditioning. If you like smoothness in your finished beers, please lager near freezing for a few weeks to a few months. Ales fermented at cool temperatures also can benefit from a cold conditioning phase to mature the beer; I favor two weeks at temperatures between 32–50 °F (0–10 °C).

Formulating Recipes

When formulating American adjunct beer recipes, I tend to follow a predictable set of steps. First, understand what techniques you can execute on your system so that you don’t make choices you can’t brew. Once you pick a target style, pick the strength target. Then think about the finishing gravity you want to achieve to hit the desired dryness or crispness profile. This will then let you determine the starting gravity based on these other values. Knowing your system efficiency should then let you understand how much grain and adjuncts you need to hit that gravity based on your batch size.

I then think about base malts and their flavor contributions. Plan on using at least half malt in these with adjuncts constituting the rest. I usually think about neutral American malt and that grainy-sweet German Pils malt, and proportion accordingly. Once the malts are picked, then the adjuncts can be considered. Think about flavor, color, and attenuation — corn contributes more color and flavor while rice is lighter and more neutral. Consider using corn sugar (dextrose) for part of the recipe if you want something drier or more attenuated, or if the color is too dark.

Understanding what mash programs you can execute on your system, select the type of mash you want to perform along with the form of adjunct used. Modify the mash program based on the final gravity desired, with lower temperature conversion rests producing higher attenuation. You may need to swap adjunct types if the form you need to use is unavailable; corn syrup for brewing is often harder to find than rice syrup. You want to use unflavored corn syrup, not something like Karo syrup that has added vanilla. Avoid the highly processed high-fructose corn syrup as well.

Noble hops are the default if you don’t have reason to use something else. If you are using any late hops, select those first so that you know their IBU contributions. Then pick the bittering hops to hit your IBU target.

Finally, set the final parameters. Pick the yeast you want to use and the fermentation temperature. I like something relatively malty and neutral, with low sulfur production. I enjoy the Mexican lager strains (of which most yeast labs have available) even if I’m not making a Mexican lager. Maltier German strains also are appealing to me, and if using dry yeast you can’t go wrong with SafLager’s W-34/70 strain. Pick your water based on any effects desired; I normally go with RO water with a light touch of calcium chloride in the mash. I ferment cool and lager for longer times; if I want to produce something faster, I tend to use the high-temperature lager strains or neutral ale yeast, but I still cold condition my beers for a few weeks to help them mature.

Final Thoughts

In the early days of craft brewing, adjunct beers got a bad rap. Often dismissed as “fizzy yellow lagers,” anything that wasn’t a flavorful all-malt beer was trash talked. Boy, have times changed. Adjuncts are found in many beers today, and some of the hottest innovative beer styles include them. An increased focus on drinkability has led to a new generation of brewers appreciating adjuncts as a viable brewing ingredient and not an opportunity for mockery. The English and Belgians have long used brewing sugars to enhance their beers, so this isn’t really something new.

Adjuncts can allow for a stripped-down malt experience that can showcase hops or yeast character. Even in beers with lower bitterness, interesting variations are possible that generate excitement for the brewer. Learning how to properly use adjuncts as part of your standard brewing process should remove any lingering doubts about their usefulness, and the newer forms of adjuncts also make them available to brewers of any skill level or experience.

One of life’s simple joys is enjoying a cold, refreshing beer after mowing the lawn in the summer. I call these adjunct beers “lawnmower beers” with pride, not derision. Whether you feel the connection with your father and his father or not, you can certainly relish their thirst-quenching qualities. 

Recipes

The American Lager recipe can be used as a starting point for many variations. Scale down the alcohol to 3.5% and reduce the bitterness to 10 IBUs to have an American light lager. Add SINAMAR® to make a dark American lager. Reduce the percentage of adjuncts from 20% to 10% and increase the bitterness to 20 IBUs to get a premium American lager. Use either all rice or all corn as adjuncts. Use all corn as adjuncts, increase the alcohol to 5.8% and the bitterness to 30 IBUs of Cluster to get a classic American Pilsner (pre-Prohibition lager). Add some tropical or New Zealand late hops to make a hop lager. Switch the yeast to Danish Lager, American Lager, or a malty German variety for a different fermentation profile.

The Cream Ale can be easily adapted to become a Kentucky common by either adding SINAMAR® or some mid-range crystal malt and black malt. It can also be made at a higher strength to give a decent approximation of a malt liquor.

The Malt Liquor recipe can be adjusted to a different alcohol level, if desired. Just add or remove corn sugar first.

The six judges around the table carefully read the complicated description that accompanies the next beer in our flight. Samples are poured and sips are taken. And then something happens that has never happened with any of the hundreds of beers I have judged in competitions across the world: I get goosebumps.

I probably don’t need to tell you that this is no ordinary beer. It has been entered into a category you wouldn’t find in your average Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) competition – African Wild Ale. The category requires brewers to use only African ingredients, including yeast gathered from the natural environment. The beer that makes the hair on my forearms stand on end uses a blend of South African barley, red sorghum malt, and maize malt. The wort was boiled over an open fire, no hops added, and it was wild fermented, as is customary in traditional African brewing.

The young brewers behind this remarkable beer have succeeded in doing something that craft brewers around Africa have been attempting for years: They have harnessed the very essence of traditional African beer — an ancient brew that is thick, completely opaque, and distinctly sour — and turned it into something that is familiar to the everyday beer drinker.

A Training Ground for Brewers

It is an extraordinary beer for an extraordinary competition. This is South Africa’s Intervarsitybrew Brewing & Tasting Challenge, an annual event that sees teams from universities and colleges of higher education competing to see whose beers will take home cash prizes.

But it’s not just about the competition. Above all, Intervarsitybrew is about education. It began on a small scale in 2008 as a way to plug a gap in South Africa’s higher education system. There wasn’t a single university offering any kind of brewing science program, so faculty at the University of KwaZulu-Natal appealed to South African Breweries (SAB, now owned by AB InBev) to provide them with brewing equipment. Word quickly got around and within a year, six more universities had SAB-sponsored brewing systems. 

A meetup was planned, where the student brewers could share brewing notes and taste each other’s beers. That first get-together, on a campsite in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province, was worlds apart from today’s professionally run conference and tasting showcase. But one thing hasn’t changed — there still aren’t any South African universities offering formal brewing education, and so Intervarsitybrew remains a crucial training ground for upcoming brewers. 

Teams are largely made up of those studying food science, chemical engineering, and biochemistry. Throughout the year, they experiment on homebrew-scale systems housed within their universities and each October bring their best beers to the Central University of Technology (CUT) in Bloemfontein, four hours south of Johannesburg. 

A Taste of Africa

The weekend kicks off with an icebreaker pub quiz evening, then continues on day two with educational sessions. Ninety students from 18 universities don silent disco-style headphones for a sensory analysis, and later a mass tasting class with brewers and beer experts from around
the country.

The main event happens on Saturday, when students attend a series of seminars focusing on technical brewing topics as well as inspirational stories and insight into how to get started in the local beer industry. Meanwhile, 30 experienced judges congregate in a separate building to assess the students’ beers.

There are six categories in the competition: Lager, summer beer, IPA, sour beer, aged beer, and African wild ale. It’s my third year here and I am at last lucky enough to be judging in what I consider the most exciting category — the wild ales. It is a judging flight like no other: A sorghum-based beer fermented with yeast harvested from guava skins; a spontaneously fermented Belgian tripel with sorghum and honey; a braggot hopped with African Queen and Southern Passion. 

And as if to emphasize that this is a uniquely African category, we are presented with an unlabeled quart bottle, around its neck a small Ziplock bag containing two ingredients featured in the beer: Marula nuts and dried mopane worms. Actually a caterpillar, the mopane worm is a common source of protein in the northern part of South Africa and throughout Zimbabwe. Once judging is done, we of course crack open the bag and have a nibble. They’re mildly fishy, with a texture somewhere between sawdust and wood chips. Let’s just say they taste better in a beer than straight from the bag.

Weird and Wonderful

There isn’t much deliberation when it comes to choosing the category winner though. The goosebump-giving beer inspired by umqombothi — a thick, creamy, sorghum and maize-based brew used mainly in traditional ceremonies — is outstanding. It captures the lactic and mildly barnyard-like notes of umqombothi and carries a light smoky note that’s common in the traditional version, but it has the appearance of a lightly hazy red ale, and the mouthfeel to match. We can’t wait to find out who brewed it.

Luckily, we don’t have to wait long. While the judges are busy with Best of Show judging, the students are setting up for the grand finale of the weekend. It’s essentially a mini beer fest: Teams set up a stand where they present their beer, pouring tasters for the judges, staff, organizers, and, of course, for their peers.

With more than 100 beers on show and only two hours to spend, there are decisions to be made. Some ask for each team’s best beer. I’m looking for the weird and wonderful — the stuff you would never find at a commercial beer festival. And it’s all here. There are two SCOBY sours (a fusion of beer and kombucha), an IPA with a grain bill that’s 80% sorghum, and a pale ale featuring a fig-like fruit I meet for the first time: African snuff (Oncoba spinosa).

My biggest surprise was the wood-aged IPA from the home team, CUT, who in the absence of an actual barrel, made a plan that wouldn’t quite work in a commercial setting of much size. As the bottle was opened, a sharp stave of wood popped out of the neck of the bottle, making it both a fairly tasty beer and a handy way to slay vampires, should the need arise.

Intervarsity Alumni

As I move from stand to stand, my drinking partners are constantly rotating but one thing is made quite clear — Intervarsitybrew is having a lasting impact on the South African beer scene. I share a SCOBY sour with Kyle Mozkovitz, a member of the University of Cape Town’s team in 2012 and 2013, who is now Brewing Manager at SAB’s Cape Town brewery. At the University of Limpopo stand I chat with Monique Schmidt, who competed for the University of Pretoria from 2011 to 2013 and is now Implementation Coordinator with SAB. At the University of Stellenbosch stand I compare notes on a Cryo IPA with Megan Gemmell, who joined the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s team in 2009 and now runs a successful nanobrewery, Clockwork Brewhouse.

There are many more Intervarsity alumni who now work in South Africa’s brewing industry who aren’t here today. Eben Uys, once on the University of Stellenbosch team, later opened Johannesburg’s most successful craft brewery, Mad Giant; Chris Nong competed at Intervarsity in 2022 and went on to work at one of the country’s largest craft breweries before moving to SAB; and Olaf Morgenroth, who captained his university’s team in 2013, is now Head Brewer at Fermentis by Lesaffre in France. 

“I was studying Wine Biotechnology and before joining the Stellies team I knew very little about beer brewing,” says Morgenroth when I chat with him after the event. “But then I discovered my passion for brewing and suddenly my career ambitions became much clearer to me. I attribute a lot of my personal success to Intervarsity. If it didn’t exist at the time, I’m not sure if I would have ended up with brewing beer as a career option.”

And the Winners Are

Moving around the room, I discover that some students simply joined the team to learn a bit about brewing, while others are intent on entering the industry. And the program is undoubtedly helping them along the way. It’s not just the competition and the conference; Intervarsitybrew has become a key event on South Africa’s beer calendar and the networking opportunities are excellent. There are high-ups from SAB and Heineken; the CEO of the Beer Association of South Africa, representatives of international companies like Anton Paar and Fermentis, and plenty of people from the local craft beer scene.

Students, staff, judges, and sponsors all gather in the glass-ceilinged atrium on Saturday evening to hear the results of the 2024 competition. There are roars as the University of Limpopo take home two silver medals for their Pale Rider lager and Heaven Hops Rye IPA, as well as a bronze for Funky Blondy, a mixed fermentation sour. It is the first time the country’s northernmost team has placed in the competition, and their elation is reflected in the faces of every other student in the room. “Winning at Intervarsity felt like reaching the summit of a mountain after a long and tough climb,” says Limpopo team member Gavaza Mabunda. “This win was not just a source of pride, but a testament to the group’s dedication, preparation, and love for brewing.”

The Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) team, headed up by Thembelani Xolo and Lamla Mayekiso, are overjoyed that their Imbizo — the sorghum beer that so impressed me at the judges’ table — picks up first place in the African Wild Ale category. “For us to win anything was a surprise,” says Mayekiso. “The flavor profiles of sorghum are not for everyone so our main goal was just to try out our latest version and then use the feedback to improve, as we have in previous years. We actually prepped the team to not go with expectations of winning anything!”

But the big winners, as they have been for the past few years, are the team from the University of Cape Town (UCT). They take first place in the sour, lager, aged, and summer categories, as well as third place for their African Wild Ale. And just when they think they’ve made their last visit to the stage, their low-ABV witbier, Wit Restraint, wins Best of Show, bagging them yet another check to add to the pile. Prize money goes towards equipment and ingredients for future brews and the team will need to start from scratch next year since competition rules state that teams
can’t reuse winning recipes.

Our Future Brewers

UCT’s team has benefited from the meticulous recipe planning and brewing skills of former captain Jac Sussens, but this year Sussens stayed behind to allow other team members to experience the Intervarsity weekend. Each team can only take four members — plus their faculty mentor — to the event, with UCT captained by Winnie Motswagae, originally from Botswana. A Master’s student at UCT, she is focusing on improving the shelf life of “marula beer” (actually more similar to wine in process) and is one of the students that is considering a career in beer. 

Teammate Tafadzwa Chapora, is likewise planning to go into the beer industry. “I’m an entrepreneur,” Chapora says, “and I am thinking of launching my own beer starting out as a contract brand.” Like Motswagae, Chapora started brewing with the UCT team last February and winning the top spot at the 2024 Intervarsitybrew has given him the final push to launch his own brand. “I’ve been hesitating and thinking this thing over for a long time but after this weekend, I have sufficient motivation to just do it!”

As for Imbizo, the beer that gave me shivers of joy, it might not have taken the overall prize, but for the CPUT team, winning the African Wild Ales category means just as much. “Using sorghum in all of our beers is our niche,” says Mayekiso, “and winning has really validated what we’re doing. We have been working on this recipe since 2019 and now we know we are capable of upping the sorghum to 100%, which is what we’ll be working on for next year.”

And I, for one, can’t wait to try it. 

Intervarsity Recipes

You’ve certainly heard the anecdote: Brewers make wort, but yeast makes beer. It’s the key to fermentation — the transformation of one thing into another delicious thing. The trouble is a side effect of a great problem to have, which is that we have so many yeast options available to us that choosing the right one feels just as hard as ordering wine off a pricey wine list. Let’s talk about considerations when choosing a yeast and then review the key numbers and terms that process includes.

Yeast Manufacturers and Selection

The first elephant in the room is manufacturer selection. When you order a beer ingredient kit from one of the big homebrewing retailers, there’s usually a drop-down list to pick a yeast. The beginner homebrewer may simply default to whatever the cheapest option is (not a bad reason!), but there could be five or more options for that particular style, including multiple options from each manufacturer! The main companies making homebrew-sized quantities are liquid yeast manufacturers Omega, White Labs, Wyeast, and Imperial, and dry yeast manufacturers Lallemand, Fermentis, and Mangrove Jack’s (though some liquid yeast suppliers are starting to roll out dry versions of their most popular strains as well). All of these have impeccable quality control and consistency. Some of us pick one and stick with it like we would a car manufacturer, but you really can’t go wrong with any of them if you take the rest of the considerations we’ll discuss next.

Liquid vs. Dry Yeast

The main distinction to navigate when selecting yeast is picking between liquid and dry yeast. 

Liquid yeast offers more options so you’re able to find a variety of yeast choices for any style of beer you want to brew. Whereas you find one or two strains suitable for a saison from each dry yeast manufacturer, you’ll find a small handful from many of the liquid yeast labs, each bringing unique characteristics to the resulting beer. However, liquid yeast requires careful handling and near-constant refrigeration. Those are live cells living in suspension, patiently waiting to be fed! If you receive a swollen liquid yeast pouch, it doesn’t mean it’s bad — it just means the cells have come out of “hibernation” from the cold and have started multiplying and creating CO₂ inside the pouch. However, without a microscope and hemocytometer to count cells, you’re pretty much guessing about whether it’s still good to use. You could propagate the slurry in a yeast starter, but if that pouch sat in the back of a delivery van during a 104 °F (40 °C) California summer for two days, then it’s probably not worth pitching.

Dry yeast, on the other hand, is more convenient, generally costs less, and has a much longer shelf life. The technology for concentrating and drying yeast has come a long way and has become readily available to manufacturers, so homebrewers today benefit on both price and options from dry yeast labs. These packets are moisture-proof and vacuum-sealed or packed under an inert atmosphere to protect the yeast from contamination, air, humidity, and spoilage, which gives us an easy go-to option we can always keep on hand. I keep my dry yeast refrigerated, but not all brands require that and even those that suggest it should be OK if left at room temperature for a few days.

Yeast Nutrients and Proper Handling

It’s best practice to check the yeast manufacturer’s suggestions regarding nutrient additions at pitching time and during fermentation. While some yeasts may come with nutrients, most do not. High-gravity beers and lagers often require additional yeast nutrients to ensure a healthy fermentation.

One of the best ways to ensure a healthy fermentation is to properly oxygenate your wort before pitching if using a liquid yeast; dry yeast generally doesn’t require additional oxygenation. Yeast requires oxygen to multiply during the initial growth phase. For homebrewers, shaking the fermenter vigorously or using an aquarium pump with a diffusion stone can effectively oxygenate the wort. Professional brewers often use filtered air or pure oxygen injection to ensure adequate oxygen levels. Many homebrew equipment manufacturers have some pretty cool carbonation stone options when using stainless conicals with tri-clover ports. 

Choosing the Right Yeast Strain

Twenty years ago, we were lucky to have one, maybe two, options for each style. Most beginner ale ingredient kits just come with the dry, shelf-stable SafAle US-05 because of its stability and consistency. Nowadays you could pick from more than a dozen strains, choosing one over another because of the final product outcomes you are seeking.

Yeast strains vary in their ester production and temperature preferences due to differences in their genetic makeup and metabolic pathways. Esters, which contribute fruity and floral aromas to beer, are primarily created through the enzymatic reaction between alcohols and acids during fermentation. Different yeast strains contain unique sets of enzymes that regulate ester formation, which is why a Belgian yeast might produce pronounced banana and clove notes while a clean American ale yeast generates minimal ester content.

Temperature plays a key role in ester production because it directly influences yeast metabolism. Higher fermentation temperatures accelerate yeast activity, leading to increased production of esters and other volatile compounds. This means that fermenting with the same yeast at the lower end of the manufacturer’s recommended temperature range will result in a different tasting beer than fermenting at the upper end of the recommended range. This is just another way to influence the final outcome of your beer that brewers must consider. The yeast cell membrane’s fluidity and stress tolerance also differ between strains, affecting their optimal temperature range. Some ale yeasts, like White Labs WLP090 (San Diego Super Ale), are selected for high-performance fermentation at warmer temperatures while maintaining a clean profile, whereas traditional lager strains require cold fermentation to suppress ester formation. Understanding these characteristics allows brewers to harness yeast behavior for precise flavor control.

Looking for a more estery profile with a hint of fruitiness? Omega’s OYL-011 (British Ale VIII) has got you covered. If you want a clean and crisp hop-forward beer, then Imperial’s A07 (Flagship) is your pick. When I’m seeking a fast turnaround and clean finish, then White Labs WLP090 is my go-to.

Those are just a few liquid options for pale ale, but the point is that yeast plays a big factor in the finished product, so the key to knowing which option to pick is by learning how they behave. Reading the manufacturer’s description is a great place to start, though it isn’t enough guidance for me. I frequently split batches and try two different yeasts on the same wort so I can compare the appearance, aroma, flavor, and finish and make my own opinions about the outcomes. When doing this, take notes of how the fermentation behaved and your evaluation of the finished beer so you have this information when selecting yeasts for future batches.

After experimenting for years, I’ve settled on specific options for my “house beers” that I keep in rotation.

Temperature Control: Yeast’s Goldilocks Zone

Yeast is like Goldilocks — it wants everything to be just right. Temperature control during fermentation is one of the most important factors in achieving consistent results. Too warm, and you can get excessive ester production, fusel alcohols, and off-flavors. Too cold, and the yeast may become stressed or sluggish, resulting in an incomplete fermentation.

For most ale yeasts, the ideal fermentation temperature is between 65–72 °F (18–22 °C). Lager yeasts typically perform best between 45–55 °F (7–13 °C), requiring additional equipment like temperature-controlled fermentation chambers to maintain steady conditions. Even when fermenting in these ideal temperature ranges, the outcome will differ depending which end of the spectrum the beer is fermented. Temperature is ideally measured using the internal temperature of the fermenter. We can achieve that with a thermowell or a temperature probe mounted to a tri-clover port or through a two-hole bung. 

Understanding Yeast Numbers and Terms

There are a number of factors yeast manufacturers will list for each strain that are important to understand when choosing a yeast that will offer the desired outcomes, which we’ll dig into next: 

Attenuation

Attenuation can be thought of as the yeast’s work ethic. This number quantifies the density change in the wort as the yeast converts sugars into alcohol and CO₂. The level of attenuation has a direct impact on the beer’s dryness. Yeast strains can have varying levels of capability to ferment maltotriose — low-attenuating yeasts typically ferment none. 

Low attenuation (65–70%): Common for malt-forward beers like stouts and porters, leaving more residual sweetness.

Medium attenuation (70–75%): Common in ales and lagers for a balanced finish.

High attenuation (75–80%): Ideal for drier beers, where we want hops to shine, such as West Coast IPAs.

Extreme attenuation (85–95%): These high levels of attenuation to ferment beer are only possible when using diastatic (STA1) strains, such as those used to ferment saison, and are only used when trying to achieve an extremely dry finish. Another way to get an ultra dry beer would be to pitch enzymes (e.g., amyloglucosidase) in addition to yeast. 

Flocculation

Flocculation refers to how well yeast cells clump together and settle out of the finished beer. High-flocculating yeasts lead to clear beer, while low-flocculating yeasts stay in suspension longer, ideal for hazy styles like New England IPAs.

Temperature

The listed temperature is the ideal range the yeast should be fermented. We’ve already covered the impact of fermenting at one end of this range from the other.

Viability and Cell Count

Yeast viability refers to the number of live yeast cells available for fermentation. This number is indicative of new yeast when it is packed, so keep in mind that older yeast packets may have lower viability. A proper pitch rate ensures healthy fermentation. Yeast calculators, like those from Brewfather or BeerSmith, can help homebrewers determine the correct number of cells needed for their batch. We’ll dig more into pitch rates later.

STA1

Some yeast manufacturers list whether a yeast strain is Saccharomyces cerevisiae var. diastaticus (containing the STA1 gene). These strains are capable of fermenting residual carbohydrates that are unfermentable to most Saccharomyces strains.

Pitching Enough Yeast

Getting the right pitch rate is essential for a successful fermentation, and it depends on factors such as wort gravity, beer style, and fermentation temperature. Underpitching can lead to stressed yeast, sluggish fermentation, and excessive ester or diacetyl production. Overpitching, while less risky, can sometimes result in fewer flavor compounds or an overly clean beer that lacks character. That said, there is no hard and fast “ideal” pitch rate. Fermentations can successfully ferment over a range of pitch rates, but different pitch rates can, and often do, influence beer flavor. Some brewers prefer using low pitch rates for weizen yeast and others prefer higher pitch rates. Trialling different rates and learning from the results to determine your preferences is worthwhile. Don’t forget to take notes as you test!

The standard pitch rate guidelines vary depending on the author or manufacturer, but we generally land on these numbers when using liquid yeast:

Ale Fermentation: 0.75 million cells per milliliter per degree Plato 

Lager Fermentation: 1.5 million cells per milliliter per degree Plato

To calculate the number of yeast cells needed for a 5-gallon (19-L) batch of wort, use this formula:

Cells needed = wort volume (in gallons) × wort strength in ˚Plato × pitch rate × 3,785 (mL in a gallon)

As an example, for a 12.5 ˚Plato ale: 5 × 12.5 × 750,000 × 3,785 = 177 billion cells.

A fresh liquid yeast pack typically contains around 100 billion cells, meaning that a standard ale at 1.050 would require about one pack with a yeast starter or two packs without a starter to ensure a proper pitch. A lager would likely need two to three packs or a large yeast starter to reach the necessary cell count. Imperial Yeast is one manufacturer that has a broad range of options and their liquid yeast comes in 200 billion cell pitches. Personally, I love that because I know I just need one pouch for a 5-gallon (19-L) batch, and second, if a pouch sits in my fridge for several months I can still safely pitch it because it started with more cells than I needed. 

Dry yeast packets (11.5 g) generally contain 100-115 billion cells and are a convenient option for single-pitching standard gravity ales. However, for higher-gravity beers (above 1.060), additional packs are recommended to avoid fermentation stress.

Online pitch rate calculators simplify this process by allowing brewers to enter their wort gravity and yeast viability to get precise yeast pitching recommendations.

Troubleshooting Common Yeast Issues

Stuck Fermentation: Could be due to underpitching, low fermentation temperature, or poor yeast health. Solutions include raising the temperature or pitching fresh yeast.

Off-Flavors: Acetaldehyde (green apple) or diacetyl (buttery) off-flavors may result from stressed yeast or improper fermentation temperatures.

Think of brewing as starting a rock band. You, the brewer, are the manager, setting the stage and getting all the equipment (malt, hops, water) ready. But the real star of the show — the one who determines the style, energy, and final sound of your beer — is the lead singer. That’s your yeast.

Do you want a smooth, clean performance? Pick a yeast like US-05 or WLP001, the brewing equivalent of a classic rock singer – reliable, crisp, and won’t subject your wort to too many surprises.

Looking for some personality and flair? A British ale yeast like Omega’s OYL-011 is your Mick Jagger, adding fruity esters and making your beer a little more dynamic.

Going for high-energy and big flavors? A Belgian yeast strain will bring the stage presence of Freddie Mercury — bold, expressive, and impossible to ignore.

Need something technical and precise? Lager yeast is like a classically trained opera singer, slow and steady but delivering a refined, clean performance when given the right environment (cold fermentation).

Now, if you don’t give your singer the right setup — good stage conditions (proper fermentation temperature), enough oxygen (healthy yeast handling), and the right-sized crowd (proper pitch rate) — they’re going to struggle, forget the lyrics, and maybe even storm off stage (stuck fermentation). But if you set them up for success, they’ll deliver a flawless performance, and the crowd (your taste buds) will go wild.

So, when picking your yeast, don’t just grab the first one you see — think about the kind of beer you want to make and pick the right front man for the job. Rock on with your yeast selection, brewers! 

We all know that Prohibition was a failure and that the law did not stop people from drinking various forms of alcohol. Much of this was consumed in the so-called speakeasys and was often of dubious quality. But many just wanted the beer they had loved and concluded that the only way to obtain it was to brew it at home. Many such persons had limited space and could use only utensils at hand. Even if they could obtain any malt, the logistics of all-grain brewing were beyond them. So, of course, they turned to brewing from malt extract. Many breweries, at the time unable to produce beer, sought other ways of staying in business. Non-alcoholic beer never really seemed to catch on so some turned to things like ice cream, ice production, sodas, and root beer. And a good many breweries turned to manufacturing malt extract, which readily lent itself to production on brewing equipment. 

Some of these were the usual suspects – Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Coors, Pabst, Schlitz, and so on. But there were many others around the country, some using their brewery’s name, others using various trade names. The production of malt extract was legal because it could be sold for use by confectioners and bakers. Its use in homebrewing was not legal. 

In 1920, shortly after the infamous Volstead Act became law, a commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue stated that homebrewing was illegal, even if the beer was consumed solely by the family in their home. Shortly afterwards, a Hartford, Connecticut, newspaper reported that the Bureau of Internal Revenue was planning a crusade against homebrewing, although it did not say just how it would accomplish such a difficult task.

The previous statement by the commissioner had said that it was illegal to sell brewing ingredients for homebrewing particularly if the containers carried labels with beer making formulas. But the brewers continued to produce and sell malt extracts and there were even other companies that had not been brewers who were advertising and selling such products. Mostly, the advertisements said nothing as to how such products were to be used — they were complying with the law but with their tongues in
their cheeks. 

There was at least one Hartford brewery that flouted the law quite brazenly, namely Ropkins & Co. In an advertisement for their hopped extract, they referred to it as “Home Brew” and stated that their extract should simply be diluted with water and fermented. Yeast did not come with the extract but was said to be readily available from the retailers of the extract and dry goods stores in general. I do not know if Ropkins was ever raided by the Bureau of Internal Revenue and I wonder what sort of beer was produced using their no-boil method by inexperienced brewers with limited equipment. The beer may well have been of poor quality, but its drinkers would not have minded when it was the only beer they could get!

This raises the question of how homebrewers went about the process during Prohibition. That is a difficult question to answer as there is little in the way of sensible information on this — after all, homebrewers would surely not have kept records that would incriminate them if they were raided by the Bureau. There are myths of course, such as “Grandpa brewed beer in the bathtub” and “My father’s homebrew was so strong just one glass would knock you over.” That which comes under the heading of oral history is likely not worth the paper it is written on. However, I can throw some light on this, thanks to a book that has come into my hands courtesy of Ron Page, a now retired craft brewer, one of the pioneers in the Connecticut craft brewing industry. The book is titled Proceedings of the Company of Amateur Brewers and bore the legend “Privately printed in 1932 for the MEMBERS of THE SOCIETY.” The year 1932 was just one before Prohibition was repealed. 

The Society was apparently founded in 1926 in Vermont; the number of members is not given. However, there must have been quite a few in order to fund the printing of the book. The reasoning for forming the society was that they could no longer obtain good beer. They implied that they could still do so in the early days of Prohibition, but because the racketeers moved in they could no longer find a decent brew. Therefore, brewing their own beer was the answer. 

The language in the book is rather flowery and it includes a large section on “historical” recipes for various alcoholic drinks that is of little interest to us here. However, the section on “modern” brewing is more sophisticated with an emphasis on the use of a hydrometer and how it can be used to determine alcohol content of a beer. This part of the book also lists original gravities and alcohol contents of various beers, namely mild ales (1.055–1.072, 4.17–5.57% ABV), light bitters and ales (1.038–1.050, 3.81–4.61% ABV), pale and stock ales (1.059–1.077, 4.77–6.68% ABV), and stouts and porters (1.054–1.081, 3.9–6.14% ABV). Clearly, these figures come from a brewing text but the source is not named in the book.

The real meat of this little book, as far as we are concerned, is that it actually gives us three homebrew recipes. All use malt extract, so no mashing of grain is involved. Oddly, the second is exactly the same as the first except that it uses less salt, so I shall just note this and give the other two recipes in detail. Again, the description of procedure is in rather flowery language, so I have adapted it to a more modern form.

The Company Special Recipe Reflection

The book promoted the use of a hydrometer, so it is surprising that no original gravities are given for these beers. At first glance we know the ingredients so we should be able to calculate them, shouldn’t we? Not so fast, Sherlock. How much extract is there in a can? I have found five examples obtainable during Prohibition; two of those contained 2½ lbs. (1.1 kg) and three of them 3 lbs. (1.4 kg). Two of the latter were Pabst Blue Ribbon and Budweiser, which were probably more widely available than the others. Therefore, I assume that our Company used 3 lbs. (1.4 kg) of extract. If I am right, the original gravity (OG) would have been 1.039. The smaller size can would have given an OG of 1.035. A caveat here: These numbers are based on the yield from modern extracts and I do not know if extracts in the 1930s were of the same quality. The latter might have had a higher water content and a lower malt extract concentration, in which case the gravities obtained by the Company would have been lower than I
have calculated.

I cannot even guess at what the final gravity (FG) might have been since the nature of the yeast is unknown — it may have been a bread yeast in which case we might expect it to have given a low attenuation. If so, then bottling after only four days would have run the risk of too much further fermentation in the bottles. If fermentation had gone to completion, the alcohol content would have been about 4% ABV for the higher-gravity version, or 3.5% ABV for the lower-gravity beer. 

As to hop bitterness, this is even harder to calculate. We do not know what variety was used, nor its level of alpha acids. We do know that despite Prohibition, hops were being grown in quantity in Oregon, New York, and elsewhere in the U.S., but that was mainly for export, apparently. It is possible that they grew their own hops, but that is unlikely since they made no reference to hop growing in the book. We do not know in what state the hops were grown — they might have been quite fresh if they came from New York or more aged if they came from farther afield. Also, at that time alpha acid levels were generally much lower than is the case today, perhaps only 3–5% at best with the likely variety being Cluster or something similar. I am therefore assuming that a value of 3% and a utilization rate of 10–15% given a boil time of only 20–30 minutes. Therefore, taking the higher level of 15%, The Company Special would have a bitterness of about 27 IBUs. This may seem a little low by modern standards, but it is right at the level I have seen in standard beers produced in the period before Prohibition.

Now, a comment on sugar. The Company Special used sugar at the rate of 40% of the total weight of the grist, based on a 3-lb. (1.4-kg) can of extract. If it was a 2½ lb. (1.1-kg) can, it would have used 44% sugar. That is a rather high proportion and could mean that the wort would have been low in free amino nitrogen (FAN), which can result in a sluggish and incomplete fermentation, and in the yeast being unable to convert the diacetyl produced during fermentation so that there may have been a high level of diacetyl in the final beer. Adding yeast nutrient when brewing a modern version of this beer is a good way to ward off unwanted diacetyl associated with nutrient-deficient wort. 

Further, this high level of sugar, since it is fully fermentable, would result in a rather thin-tasting beer. That would probably not have mattered to the members of the Company, since it was the only beer they could obtain, but would not be acceptable to most modern craft beer drinkers!

The Apartment Dweller’s Special Recipe Reflection

If we assume for this recipe, above, that the can contained 3 lbs. (1.4 kg) extract, this beer would have had an OG of 1.043. As with The Company Special, we can only guess at what the FG might have been. This recipe includes an even higher proportion of sugar than in the previous examples, namely 46% of the total by weight. For this OG and an all-malt brew with a modern brewing yeast strain giving, say, 75% attenuation would yield FG of 1.010. With a grist containing 46% sugar, we would expect the OG to be even lower with a good yeast, but we do not know what was the quality of the yeast used by the Company. 

While neither of these beers may be what we’d generally reach for, the information in them is quite interesting as a way to reflect on how our ancestors would have gone about homebrewing when there were no other options for beer. 

There is something inviting about beer foam. A tall hefeweizen with a creamy white cap standing proudly above the rim readies me for a great experience to follow. We know that great foam is a combination of malt proteins, charged ions, hop resins, gentle brewing, the right dissolved gases, clean beer glassware, and proper dispense. It’s like foam is a litmus test for excellent beer; or maybe that’s just how my selective memory has framed the significance of foam. It is true that beer is one of few beverages with a persistent foam and it’s also true that foam is a sign that beer has been roused during pouring, allowing for the release of aromatics. Foam adds mouthfeel to beer, deposits a wonderful windowpane-like lattice on the surface of a clean glass, serving as an indicator of sip size, traps aromatics released during pouring for enjoyment during drinking, and provides a layer of insulation to the top of the beer.

Over the past century of brewing research, scientists have identified the major contributors to beer foam. Protein Z, a group of albumin storage proteins each weighing about 43 kilodaltons (kDa) found in the barley endosperm, and Lipid Transfer Protein 1 (usually denoted as LTP1), a smaller functional protein weighing about 10 kDa, are believed to be the most significant foam proteins. We also know that metal ions, like iron, copper, nickel, and cobalt, improve foam stability, although none of these ions should be added to beer to boost foam! Hop resins improve lacing, carbon dioxide increases foam volume, ethanol improves foam up to about 1% and then becomes foam-negative, and carbohydrate gums, like beta-glucan, slow liquid drainage from foam. Guinness scientists figured out that nitrogen was the key to creamy foam when Guinness moved away from cask ale to ward off oxidation and then ushered in nitrogenation to the beer world.

Beers brewed with adjuncts suffered from protein dilution and brewers looked for foam stabilizers. In the 1950s, gum acacia was a common foam stabilizer produced from the bark of the acacia tree. Brewing scientists discovered in the late 1950s that propylene glycol alginate, produced from seaweed extracts, both improved foam stability and protected it from the negative effects of lipids transferred to beer through glassware. There was even a patent issued in 1949 to prevent gushing in beer by adding cobalt salts, which were believed at the time to pose no health risks to beer consumers. Brewers figured out that cobalt also improved foam stability, and some breweries began adding cobalt to stabilize beer foam before medical research put the kibosh to the practice. When hop chemists began producing reduced hop acids (hydrogen added across certain carbon double bonds), brewers quickly noticed that these advanced, light-stable hop products, especially tetrahydro iso-alpha-acid, aka tetra hop, improved beer foam stability. These hop products are now used specifically to improve foam.

Although the modern craft beer enthusiast often believes that “big beer” has never cared much about beer, large-scale brewers have constantly pushed beer quality forward, even when the methods involved practices with strange names. An article in American Brewer magazine was quoted by the Ann Arbor Sun in a 1974 article titled “Beer Belly Blues: Tastes Great, but Oh That Propylene Glycol Alginate” written by a Dr. Michael Jackson and originally published in the Lancaster Independent Press. The quoted excerpt read: “When beer was made with more malts and hops than is the practice today, stability of foam was rarely a problem. Today’s lighter type lagers and ales, however, made with higher percentages of adjuncts and only mildly hopped, require assistance in maintaining an expected head of foam.” Fifty years later that summation is still spot on, even in the craft world as brewers are increasingly being drawn to light beers to — how do I say this — sell more beer.

As an industry we know a lot about beer foam thanks to the research into this noble pursuit. As individual brewers we also know that producing beer with that perfect foam crown can be elusive. This article will focus on things we can do at home to improve beer foam in our homebrews.

All-malt brewing, especially when hops are generously dosed, gives homebrewers more than a fighting chance of brewing great beers with a heady topper of foam. There are a few things to look for when troubleshooting subpar foam. Over-modified malts can be a problem, especially when malt protein is diluted with low-protein adjunct grains like rice and corn or when sugar is added to boost gravity. The good news is that over-modification is uncommon these days and most base malts from around the world should provide sufficient foam-positive protein to give homebrewers enough of the good stuff. Very low-protein malts may also be problematic, but just like over-modified malts, these sorts of malts are relatively uncommon.

Brewers looking to boost what is typically present in wort have several options in the ingredient world to consider. Functional malts produced in such a way to improve beer foam and mouthfeel can provide a dose of boosters without having much effect on beer aroma, taste, or color.  Examples include so-called short-grown malts like dextrin, chit, and spitz, and well-known pale crystal malts like Briess Carapils® and Weyermann Carafoam® (known as Weyermann Carapils® in all parts of the world other than North America). Although short-grown malts have long been used by European, especially German, brewers, they have little history of being used in North America until the last decade or so. Some joke that these malts are barely malt because of their very low modification levels, however, enzyme development and limited cell wall breakdown does occur during germination. The takeaway is that they are much easier to use than raw barley and they boost foam, mouthfeel, and haze.

Maybe you have tried using functional malts to boost foam and still want more? Consider making tetra hop the next stop on your foam journey. Tetrahydro iso-alpha acid is the name given to a chemically reduced form of iso-alpha acid. Although originally developed to prevent the light-struck reaction in conventionally hopped beer bottled in green and clear bottles in the 1970s, tetra hop is used by many brewers to improve foam. Tetra hop does have some properties that brewers need to keep in mind when using it. For starters, it is on average about 1.4 times more bitter than regular iso-alpha acids. It can also create a donut-like raft when used as the sole source of bitterness; this unusual appearance only occurs if a beer is poured and left to sit for several minutes. Because few beer drinkers pour a beer and leave it untouched for several minutes, breweries using tetra hop generally don’t have a big issue with it — but don’t say you weren’t warned! Craft brewers who use tetra hop usually use it in the 5–10 ppm range (about 7–14 IBU equivalents) and add other hops for flavor and aroma. Tetra hop increases foam stability and produces very impressive lacing. If you are not sure what tetra hop does to beer, pour a Miller High Life into a glass, observe, then enjoy.

For the chemically inquisitive, Figure 1 (below) shows how a generic alpha acid is heat-isomerized into a generic iso-alpha acid, then reduced by the addition of four hydrogen atoms to a generic tetrahydro (literally four hydrogens) iso-alpha acid molecule. The “R” designation is used to denote that these molecules have different forms (humulone, co-humulone, post-humulone, and ad-humulone) that vary by the “R” or functional group. 

The last ingredient I want to mention is propylene glycol alginate (PGA). Although not something easy to purchase at your local homebrew shop, there are online retailers that sell PGA for use in molecular gastronomy. One supplier even has a glass of beer on their package, although nothing on the package mentions beer. Like tetra hop, PGA beer foams can look unusual if too much is used. PGA works very well to improve foam instability associated with high adjunct use and to combat the effects of oils that often are transferred to beer from greasy foods like French fries and potato chips. You guessed it, some brewers want to make their draft beer foams bar food-proof!

Beer foam is like pH; foam is affected by just about everything we do during beer production and pH affects just about everything in beer. Gentle handling, minimizing foaming during transfers and carbonation, and keeping protease enzymes away from beer are all things that brewers can do to protect what is produced on brew day. When Suntory planned a new Kyoto brewhouse in the late 1990s, it was designed to reduce oxygen pick-up, shear damage during mash mixing and pumping, thermal damage during wort boiling, hot break in chilled wort, and energy consumption. After the brewhouse was commissioned in 2000, they reported an improvement in beer foam stability and lacing. Most homebrewers don’t subject mashes to much shear, but excessive splashing and rough stirring certainly can increase mash oxygen.

More obvious handling problems at home, however, relate to beer racking, exposure to proteases, and carbonation technique. There is much online discussion these days related to beer oxidation, especially when it comes to brewing hazies. Based on unpublished work from commercial brewing studies, my guess is that much of what is being reported, particularly golden beers turning brown after dry hopping, is likely related to metal ions from hops. Typical homebrewing racking practices are another possibility. While purging is a common and often effective method to prepare for a transfer, filling the receiving vessel with a no-rinse sanitizer, like Star San, and pushing the sanitizer out of the vessel is the best method to simply eliminate all oxygen from the receiving vessel while consuming less carbon dioxide than purging methods. This method works best with kegs and is not recommended for glass vessels.

Exposure to proteases, or enzymes that reduce protein size, occurs when yeast cells begin to autolyze. Autolysis leads to the release of enzymes from within the yeast cell and can damage foam when beer is aged in the presence of too much yeast, especially when aging temperatures are elevated. The general view among many homebrewers these days seems to be that racking is unnecessary and outdated. But as a commercial brewer who also homebrews, I am here to attest to the fact that racking from fermentation vessel to lagering vessel is still alive and well in the world of commercial brewing. Whatever your specific practices are after fermentation is complete, removing yeast sediment is a good idea.

Conical unitanks that are used for both fermentation and aging make yeast removal easy and are a terrific tool for both home and commercial brewers. Old-school homebrewers like me who still ferment in carboys can benefit from racking to a Corny keg or other vessel after fermentation is complete to move beer off the yeast sediment. I often move my beer a second time after aging and yeast sedimentation are complete to minimize the potential for stirring up yeast during keg dispense. I don’t worry about oxidation during racking because I always fill my receiving keg and purge with carbon dioxide before racking.

In the world of commercial brewing, transfers can cause beer foaming and subsequent loss of foam-positive compounds. The consensus is that the substances in beer that foam do so only once. After foam reserves are spent on a bubble, they are lost for future use in more beer foam. Some of this material sticks to vessel walls and some remains in beer as so-called bubble skins, like sad, deflated balloons. Aggressive carbonation is one of the most common practices leading to loss of foaming compounds. However, rapid carbonation is not a bad practice if the keg headspace is increased to just under the injection pressure before carbonation begins.

Although carbon dioxide is critical for beer foam, there is not much to say about the right amount required for great foam because beers ranging from low-CO₂ cask ales to highly carbonated Belgian ales and everything in between can have great foam. Nitrogen is a special tool used to produce creamy, very stable foams and is addressed in this issue’s installment of “Mr. Wizard,” so I won’t be mentioning any more about nitrogen here.

The last two topics are arguably the most important and are often what makes or breaks beer with inherently great foam; beer-clean glassware and proper dispense. Pouring beer into clean glassware sounds easy but all too frequently is the place where folks fail. And when failure occurs coupled by pictures of your beer babies on social media people do take notice.

My own rules about beer glassware are simple. Rule #1 is to pour beer into a glassware intended for beer. My favorite glasses have fill lines, not because I am selling homebrew, but because serious beer glasses usually have these handy marks. Rule #2 is to only use beer glasses for beer. And Rule #3 is to always wash beer glasses by hand because dishwashers have a way of damaging glassware over time.

If you really want to be strict about things it is important to use a dedicated glass brush to clean your glasses. Depending on how many people are in your home and where the glass brush is kept, keeping other things off the brush can be a challenge. This is where full-service bars often run into problems. Beer glasses, shot glasses, and cocktail glasses used for all sorts of drinks, some made with fat-containing ingredients, are all cleaned using the same equipment. The worst scenario is when a 3-sink setup is used where the second sink contains cleaning brushes and is filled with detergent. This is cross-contamination central and almost always leaves a coating of oil on beer glasses. Homebrewers do have a clear advantage in the glass cleaning department over bars, but that does not make us immune to dirty glasses.

An old-school test used to monitor glasses for “beer-clean” status is the salt test. This test is performed by taking a clean glass, wetting the interior surface, pouring out residual water, then sprinkling salt over the entire interior surface. If the salt sticks uniformly, the glass is deemed beer-clean and indicative of proper cleaning. Spots without salt indicate the presence of oils and flag cleaning problems. Glasses can also be evaluated by looking for uniform sheeting of rinse water and for the presence of gas bubbles adhering to the surface when filled with beer. Whatever you do, be sure to use a clean glass.

And finally, there is pouring. Whether pouring from a bottle or from a faucet, wetting the glass before filling allows for a quieter pour and allows for more controlled foaming at the right time. One textbook method is to quietly fill the glass about 75% full by tilting the glass and pouring down the side, then tilting the glass upright while shifting the flow straight into the center of the glass. If the glass is clearly on its way to over-foaming, it’s OK to stop pouring while the beer calms down and the foam height drops before completing the pour. Indeed, some expert beer pourers fill glasses in multiple steps to consistently deliver the perfect pour while minimizing beer loss. Other expert pourers intentionally over foam the glass, scrape the foam square with the rim, then dip the glass in a cold, clean water bath to rinse beer from the glass exterior.

Beer foam is a thing of beauty when the stars are aligned and all steps of the journey come together. As a lover of foam, I like taking pictures of epic pours. One of my favorite foam shots was taken during a trip to Prague in 2018. It was my last day, and I decided to take a brisk walk to the top of the hill overlooking the Charles River for one more look. On my way back to my hotel, I ducked into a pub that had Ferdinand Pilsner for a ridiculously great price. After my first sip, I knew that it was time to carefully lay down some serious lacing before taking an after pic. Hopefully this article and pictures below inspire you to up your foam game. Cheers! 

Tributes are a way to commemorate significant events and identify with the people who were there, who lived it, and who may have died there. It’s a small contribution to offer up as a way to show thanks or a way to stand in solidarity, a way to let others know “we remember.” In the early months of 2024, I was given the opportunity to create a tribute that I can only describe as one of the highest honors — a tribute that would become bigger than anything I had ever anticipated brewing. 

When I started my hobby of making natural water brews from various bodies of water that held historical or cultural significance (as detailed in the January-February ‘24 “Last Call” column), my longtime friend Matt was always on the “distribution list” for a bottle or two. When his friend, Glenn, heard of my brews, he made surprise stops on journeys to collect a small bit of water for me to brew with from Loch Ness, Scotland, and Lake Placid, New York — for which I am incredibly grateful. 

Matt and Glenn both served their country with the greatest of honor, have seen the world, and done more than their share to make it a better place. They maintained their friendship in the years since their discharge, and last year both received an opportunity that an incredibly select few got when they were invited to parachute into Normandy, France, for the ceremonies commemorating the 80th anniversary of D-Day. When Matt told me of the opportunity I was thrilled they would experience this event and be honored with the chance to “fly” in the footsteps of the warriors who landed on that very sand that fateful day. Before I could speak, Matt stated, “Oh, Glenn and I already planned to get you some water from Normandy.” 

After Matt returned, we met up for lunch so he could hand off the water — a bottle containing about 8 oz. (240 mL) of seawater from Normandy. Normally my brews use about 8 gallons (30 L) of source water, but logistically getting that amount from overseas just isn’t feasible (plus, I’m not sure how that much salt water would taste in a brew!). So I happily accepted the bottle of water and I brewed this for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create this tribute for them and a gathering of veterans who head to northern Michigan every year to meet up with their fellow service mates. What I did not expect, but also received, was a large flat box with my name on it — a gift from Matt and Glenn as a token of appreciation for brewing this tribute. Inside the box was a framed 11×15-inch (28×38-cm) United States flag that Matt had neatly folded in his pocket when he made his jump. It was signed by both he and Glenn, the white border with the grommets bore the details of the jump date, and a small plaque bore the details of the jump plane. There are very few moments in people’s lives that they will never forget — this was one of mine. 

Matt and I met on a perfect fall day in October to brew the beer that would become Omaha Golden Ale. We shared a couple beers, told old stories, and enjoyed the time spent brewing. Adding to the sentiment of the brew, all the ingredients were sourced specifically from Great Britain, France, Germany, and the U.S. to ensure the highest authenticity to the event we were brewing this for. We met up again a few weeks later on November 11, Veteran’s Day, to bottle, label, and wax the beers, which were then boxed up and sent with Matt to eventually reach the hands of the men they were brewed for. After conditioning, the finished brew was spot on — great flavor and exactly what we hoped for.  I do not believe the small amount of saltwater impacted the flavor, but it certainly made the beer what it was — the ultimate tribute.

Q. I am having an issue with a stout in which I used 75% nitrogen/25% carbon dioxide beer gas mix. It’s been kegged for six weeks at 33 PSI and held between 36–37 °F (2–3 °C). The beer barely cascades (basically nothing) pouring from a stout faucet. I’m new to using nitro, but have been brewing for 15 years and have no issues with my other beers. I’m starting to question if the stout tap is good.
Ken Schretlen
via email

A. When it comes to pouring stout, there is a clear gold standard to match: That’s Guinness. A brief review of a few key things known about Guinness draft stout helps troubleshooting. According to numerous references, Guinness contains a paltry 1.2 volumes or 2.4 g/L of carbon dioxide and about 55 ppm of nitrogen (level reported from a brewing scientist in England with knowledge about this specification). These gas specifications align with beer equilibrated with a 75% nitrogen/25% carbon dioxide gas blend at 33 PSI and 36 °F (2 °C).

Although U.S. nitro brewers use the gas mix and conditions you used, Guinness specifies in their Draught Quality Standards publication a 70% nitrogen/30% carbon dioxide gas blend at 32–40 PSI for kegs stored at 46–50 °F (8–10 °C) and chilled in-line to the faucet to 39-43 °F  (4–6 °C). This reflects differences in beer handling practices in the different parts of the world selling Guinness.

If low nitrogen content is your problem, one cause is insufficient headspace in your keg. An easy thing to try is to simply pour off some beer, let your beer rest to re-equilibrate or lay your keg on its side and do some shaking to speed things along, and check to see if you have more cascading. If you do, it’s an indicator that this strategy is working. Either keep rocking your keg until you hear gas flow stopping or let your beer sit for several days to allow gas transfer between the headspace and beer to occur.

Another possible cause of no cascading is insufficient velocity flowing through the faucet. The classic Guinness faucet requires turbulent flow occurring as beer is forced through the five tiny holes in the restriction plate or so-called jet disk. Some brewers make the mistake of reducing the keg pressure to “normal” beer pressure before serving or make the mistake of trying to balance the draft system by using the line diameter and length rules used for normal carbonated beer. Both mistakes result in low velocity and little to no gas breakout as beer flows through the jet disk. Guinness provides a 12 second target for the first part of their classic two-part pour. This translates to 1.25 ounces (37 mL) per second. If your flow rate is too slow and your keg pressure is about 33 PSI using a 75/25 gas blend, you have too much line restriction or your restriction plate is clogged. Start by checking the restriction plate; if clear, it’s time to do some line replacing using a minimal line length between keg and faucet.

In my experience, poor cascading and foam formation in nitro beers is typically caused by inadequate dissolved nitrogen. Although high gas pressures can be used to increase the gas transfer rate using what I call the crank and shake method, gas control is approximate at best. The most reliable way to quickly nitrogenate your beer is to lay the keg on its side, position your gas cylinder above the keg to prevent beer from flowing into your gas line, pressurize the gas line, connect it to the keg with the gas line positioned at 12 o’clock to prevent excessive foaming, and allow the headspace to pressurize.

Once the keg is pressurized to ~33 PSI, begin rolling the keg back and forth. As gas dissolves into the beer, pressure in the line drops, and the regulator allows gas to flow. This is audible and is a direct indicator of gas flow into the beer. As dissolved gas content approaches the equilibrium condition and gas flow slows, you should hear a change to the sound of the operation. When you can no longer hear gas flowing, you are close to being done. I find it works well to allow the keg to settle for about 15 minutes and repeat the rocking step. When no gas flow can be heard when rocking your rested keg, it’s time to let the keg rest upright for an hour or so before pouring a pint. If you don’t like this idea, simply connect your keg to your gas cylinder, set the regulator pressure to ~33 PSI and let the system sit for a week.

Q. I have been reading the articles on “dip hopping” in the recent issues, which has me interested in the technique, but I have a few questions. Do you leave the dip hops in the fermenter during the entire fermentation, or do you dump the dip hops after some time? If left in during the entire fermentation, will the beer develop grassy notes? And won’t the active fermentation drive off the hop aroma the dip hopping is trying to achieve?
Ed Chovanec
Schaumburg, Illinois

A. Much of what is known about dip hopping comes from the brewers at Kirin Brewing who developed the method. The method adds hop pellets before fermentation where the hop matter remains in contact with beer over the course of fermentation. Kirin does not provide details beyond that, but we can make some educated guesses about the process following hop addition.

Most commercially brewed beers these days, whether fermented using lager or ale yeast, typically finish fermenting within a week and are quickly chilled after a short diacetyl rest. Dip hopping, although predominately used by craft brewers for ales, was developed by this famous lager brewery at their Spring Valley Brewery in Tokyo, Japan, on the grounds of the original Kirin Brewery built in 1869. Today, the Spring Valley Brewery serves as a playground for Kirin’s innovative brewing team with multiple locations.

Spring Valley’s Toyojun 496 India Pale Lager is the brewery’s flagship beer and the one that introduced the dip hopping method. According to Kirin’s website, “Spring Valley Toyojun 496 uses the ‘dip hop method,’ in which hops are steeped in the beer for seven days. By carefully and thoroughly extracting the aroma from hops, also known as the ‘soul of beer,’ we have achieved both a rich aroma and a smooth aftertaste, resulting in the beer’s characteristic rich flavor and clean aftertaste.”

Grassy hop characters can be caused by several factors, including hopping rate, beer pH, and hop quality. I have not included time in this list because research related to extraction rate of hop compounds from pellet hops conducted by Peter Wolfe, a PhD student at the time in Tom Shellhammer’s group at Oregon State University, showed that hop pellets quickly give up their goods when added to beer. In any case, dip-hopped beers do remain in contact with hops during fermentation and grassy characters are not found in 496. The typical practice these days is to either rack beer from the fermenter into a lagering vessel after fermentation or to remove yeast and hop sediment from the cone of unitank fermentation vessels following cooling.

Your question about aroma losses during fermentation has been specifically addressed in several studies conducted by Kirin. Interestingly, hop pellets act as carbon dioxide nucleation sites and reduce the concentration of dissolved carbon dioxide in beer during fermentation, leading to scrubbing of undesirable volatiles. Data from beers brewed with and without dip hopping show less of the sulfur-
containing, onion-like compound 2-mercapto-3-methyl-1-butanol (2M3MB) and less myrcene, a hop terpene known for earthy, musky, and dank aromas, with dip hopping. The same study shows the retention of linalool, with its pleasantly fruity and floral aromas, to be similar when beers are either dry hopped or dip hopped.

I recently visited Japan on a business trip and did learn something new about dip hopping. I have speculated in the past that this method was developed by innovative brewers simply experimenting with different ways to use hops. It turns out that Japanese tax law is the real reason behind dip hopping. Happoshu is a category of beer and beer-like beverages defined by ingredients and processes used for production. Beers brewed with less than 67% malt are classified as happoshu. Because the tax rate on happoshu is less than beer, some breweries developed happoshus brewed with very little malt to serve the low-cost market. Changes to the tax code have recently closed the tax rate difference between beer and happoshu and brewers are using more malt in their beers. Malt usage, however, is not the only thing distinguishing happoshu from beer. A beverage is also classified as happoshu when ingredients are added to beer after yeast pitching. This means that many imports from Belgium and the U.S., for example, are classified as happoshu because of dry hopping or fruit additions. To avoid the happoshu classification and consumer biases that come with it, Kirin developed dip hopping, and the rest is history.

Q. How do I best lager after fermentation if I don’t have multiple fridges (nor do I have room for them)? I have tried outdoors during winter, but the temperature changes a lot. Do temperature changes damage the beer? Can I lager them at basement temperature around 52 °F (11 °C)? If so, will it affect the lagering time? Also, should I carbonate them before or after lagering? And should I lager them in kegs or bottles if I plan to bottle them? 
Børre Aursnes
Drøbak, Norway

A. The textbook answer to a question about the traditional lagering method is that lager beers are fermented at temperatures ranging from 46–54 °F (8–12 °C), often in open fermenters, until beer is about 2 °Plato (8 gravity points) above the anticipated end point, racked to a lagering vessel equipped with a spunding valve to allow control of pressure developed during the end of fermentation, and allowed to slowly cool to about 32 °F (0 °C). A general rule for the duration of lagering is one week per degree Plato (4 gravity points) based on wort strength prior to fermentation. In the past, standard strength Pilsners at 12 °Plato (1.048 SG) lagered for three months and bock beers at 16 °Plato (1.065 SG) received the four-month treatment.

Closed fermentation vessels, the advent of commercial refrigeration, the development of the unitank process, better understanding of brewing biochemistry, beer filtration, the widespread use of chill-proofing brewing aids, and brewing economics are some of the things that led to changes in today’s approach to lagering. A key part of any process change is to understand the objectives of the process. In the case of traditional lagering, I believe there are three primary changes that must be preserved by alternate methods: 1) flavor maturation, 2) beer clarification and haze stabilization, and 3) carbonation. Traditional lagering, and cask ale production as a related topic, accomplishes these objectives.

A common change among lager brewers is to allow the fermentation to naturally warm towards the end of fermentation to accelerate the conversion of alpha acetolactate excreted from cells during fermentation into diacetyl. Yeast cells then absorb diacetyl and acetaldehyde and reduce these aromatic, “green beer” compounds into flavor-neutral acetoin and ethanol. This simple process change speeds up flavor maturation and is used to reduce the total time required for lagering. Although there are other flavor changes that occur during lagering, like reduction in volatile sulfur aromas and bitterness accompanying beer clarification, diacetyl and acetaldehyde reduction are the most significant and tend to dominate what brewers think about in terms of flavor maturation.

Extended aging, especially in relatively shallow horizontal lagering tanks, results in naturally clear beer. For whatever reason, the use of isinglass finings was not widely used by lager brewers, and lager brewers relied on time and cold temperatures to clarify beer. The cold temperature part of the equation is important because chill haze particles formed upon beer cooling do eventually settle. Lager brewers did, however, use other tools, like tannin powder from oak galls, to help clarify beer. In fact, Anheuser-Busch used oak gall tannin powder in so-called schoene (pronounced shay-na) tanks up until the turn of this century. Commonly used chill-proofing agents today include a variety of silica gels, PVPP, and the enzyme Aspergillus niger prolyl endoprotease (AN PEP), often referred to by the trade name Brewers Clarex®. Silica gels and AN PEP work by removing haze-active proteins and PVPP does its thing by removing haze-active polyphenols. These tools all shorten process time. And AN PEP allows brewers to chill-proof beers without having to chill it, saving time and energy.

Beer can be chill-proofed without being clarified. Commercial lagers brewed by large breweries are typically clarified by centrifugation and/or filtration, while smaller breweries without clarification equipment often rely on silicic acid fining solutions, such as Kieselsol or Biofine Clear, to quickly settle yeast from beer upon chilling to ~32 °F (0 °C). Filtration was first used by breweries in the late 1800s to produce brilliantly clear beer without the added costs of extended storage. 

Carbon dioxide is “free” to brewers who naturally carbonate, and large breweries continue to take advantage of carbon dioxide produced by yeast for beer carbonation. None of the time-saving methods discussed thus far interfere with natural carbonation. To capture this gas, lagering tanks must be pressure-rated for the combination of pressure and temperature required to produce beer containing about 5.4 grams or 2.7 volumes of carbon dioxide. Because lager yeast function well at cool temperatures, fully carbonated lager beer can be produced at pressures less than 1 atmosphere, aka 1 bar or 14.7 PSI, of gas pressure. Ale yeast, however, typically have difficulty fermenting when the temperature drops below 60 °F (16 °C) and require at least 1.7 bar/25 PSI pressure for carbonation. This is a big deal to commercial breweries because most countries have very different design codes for vessels designed and rated for use at pressures above 1 bar. In practical terms, this means most ales carbonated to lager-like levels are carbonated by bubbling carbon dioxide into beer.

OK, time to wrap this information into a homebrewing solution. You don’t need to cold age your beer for long if you adopt these modern methods and use your chilly basement to your advantage. Start by cooling your wort down to about 50 °F (10 °C) because I do want to maintain some aspects of traditional lager production with this recommendation. Fermenting lager at 52 °F (14 °C) is relatively normal, so just use your basement environment for fermentation. If it’s relatively easy to move your fermenter into a warmer room, consider moving it towards the end of fermentation to speed up diacetyl and acetaldehyde reduction. I am a fan of aging under pressure developed by fermenting yeast and suggest spunding your fermenter or racking your beer into a keg if fermenting in a vessel not rated to hold pressure (read this issue’s “Techniques” found here).

It’s now time to allow for carbonation to develop and for your beer to gravity sediment. It’s perfectly acceptable to bottle your beer at this point and finish lagering in the bottle. One major downside to this is that you may end up with more sulfur notes in your beer than if you lager in a keg. I’ll just leave this topic for you to ponder and will continue this discussion from a bulk-lagering perspective.

Your basement is the perfect lager cellar for the carbonation step. Make sure to locate your unitank/pressure fermenter or lagering tank/keg in a spot where it can sit undisturbed for 3–4 weeks. During this time, yeast will consume the last bits of fermentable extract (assuming that you capped your fermenter or racked before fermentation ended), excess pressure will be vented along with sulfur aromatics from the spunding valve, and yeast will settle from the beer as activity ceases. If your fermentation finishes before spunding, adding priming sugar before aging works perfectly if you plan on serving your lager from a keg or have a counter-pressure bottle filler. 

At the end of the 3–4 week lagering phase at 54 °F (14 °C), your beer has undergone diacetyl and acetaldehyde reduction (with or without the room temperature rest), carbonation, and most of the yeast has settled out of the beer. You’re 90% complete and have yet to need a refrigerator. At this point, you can chill your beer and serve from a keg or bottle if you have the right equipment (or chill and drink the bottles if you have lagered in the bottle). The problem is that as soon as you chill your gravity-clarified, cool-lagered beer, it is going to instantly turn cloudy when haze-active proteins and polyphenols cuddle in the chilly beer. If you are OK with that, all is good. But if you want clear beer, you have a problem that requires us to roll back the timeline a bit.

An easy and effective solution is to add AN PEP when you pitch your yeast. In the U.S., White Labs sells a diluted version of Brewers Clarex® called Clarity Ferm to homebrewers. If you have access to this product, it’s the easiest path forward. If not, and you want clear beer, you are going to need to chill your beer after lagering. One option is to position your lagering vessel/keg in a bucket at the beginning of the lagering process. After 3-4 weeks, use ice, water, and some salt to make a water brine with a temperature around 28 °F (-2 °C). To maintain this cold temperature, you will need to add ice and salt several times per day. The good news is that cold stabilization only takes 1–2 days. But the bad news is that commercial brewers typically filter beer at this stage because chill haze particles are only slightly denser than beer and take a very long time to settle. And I’m guessing you don’t want to filter or mess around with silica gel or PVPP.

Another option is to use the ice and salt trick to get your beer very cold without buying a second refrigerator and fining your beer with something like Kieselsol or Biofine Clear. This process, although requiring cold temperatures, is much faster than traditional cold conditioning and much easier than filtration. You must add Kieselsol or Biofine Clear at least a few days prior to bottling because the sediment should be removed before consuming and the sediment is too fluffy to decant beer from the bottle. 

In the world of beer styles, Kölsch is remarkable for being a formally defined style with a legally protected appellation within the European Union that limits its production to a specific geographic area. While this definition and recognition is relatively recent, the style has its roots in prior styles that evolved in response to competitive pressures to become the modern crystal-clear pale golden beer often described as “delicate” and “well balanced” with a “soft” finish.

But is this beer an ale or a lager? It’s both, actually, depending on how you define these terms. Germans typically define lagers as beers that have undergone a traditional cold maturation process, while characterizing beers as being either top-fermenting or bottom-fermenting based on the type of yeast used. Ales are considered a type of English beer rather than indicative of the yeast used. In England and the U.S., ales are thought of as top-fermenting beers and lagers are bottom-fermenting beers. But a Kölsch is a top-fermenting beer that has been lagered, much like the German altbier style. I once called these “hybrid beers,” but I think “lagered top-fermented beer” is more accurate and descriptive.

Beer writer Michael Jackson described the style as delicate and refreshing, and suggested that it makes a wonderful aperitif. In its hometown of Cologne (Köln, in German), the beer is served freshly poured from small casks in a tall, narrow, thin-walled 20-centiliter glass known as a stange (pictured to the left). The blue-aproned waiters, known as Köbes, keep them coming until you make them stop by placing your coaster on top of your glass, and track your order often by making tick marks on your coasters (kind of like a dim sum restaurant counting the plates). Yes, it’s as fun as it sounds.

Kölsch is style 5B in the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) Style Guidelines, within the Pale Bitter
European Beer category along with the bottom-fermenting lagers leichtbier, helles exportbier (Dortmunder), and Pils. It tends to be not as bitter in the balance as the others in this group, while having a softer finish and a subtle fruitiness the others lack.

History

The city of Cologne has a long history from its founding as a Roman settlement in AD 50. Located on the western bank of the Rhine River in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was an important city in the Holy Roman Empire and the Hanseatic League, eventually becoming the fourth most populous city in Germany. Cologne has a brewing tradition of more than a thousand years, including medieval times when it was brewing Keute (also known as Kuyt) and later gruit. In later industrial times, the beer of the area was known as Wiess (not to be confused with weiss, also known as hefeweizen). Wiess was a more strongly hopped, unfiltered pale beer made with up to 20% wheat. 

Kölsch as we know it today emerged in the early 1900s as a clearer, more balanced version of wiess. The name Kölsch was first used to describe it in 1918, but the name basically means anything from Köln (kind of like how Pilsener means something from Pilsen). While being in a region with a strong top-fermenting tradition, the breweries resisted switching to bottom-fermentation but compromised by adapting the lagering process in response to the growing popularity of Pilsner-style beers. Bottom-fermentation was actually legally prohibited in Cologne, so perhaps the resistance was reinforced through legal protectionism. 

Cologne was heavily bombed in World War II, with over 90% of the city being destroyed (thankfully, the landmark gothic cathedral was spared). Brewing was re-established and the style grew, but not as much as bottom-fermented beer did. This competitive pressure eventually caused the breweries to band together in a brewing association that attempted to protect the style. They developed a Kölsch Konvention — a document signed by over 20 breweries in Cologne and neighboring townships in 1986 — that defined the style and was eventually recognized by the European Union in 1997 as a protected geographic indication (basically, an appellation). 

The protected appellation prevents others within the EU of using the name, although this does not extend to other places in the world. Some may choose to call their beer “Kölsch-style” while others may just call it a Kölsch (or Koelsch, the Anglicized spelling). The protection did not prevent some Köln breweries from closing or consolidating, but there are many still brewing and some bottle their product for export (notably, Reissdorf, Früh, and Gaffel).

Sensory Profile

Eric Warner’s Kölsch book gives a great sensory summary based on his first impressions of the style: “A light golden beer with a thick rocky head that is crystal clear, less malty than a helles, less bitter than a Pilsner, slightly fruitier than either, while being soft, well-balanced, and relatively light in body.” That is just as true today as it was when written in 1998. The Kölsch Konvention simply defines the style as a “light, highly attenuated, hop-accentuated, clear, top-fermenting vollbier.” Vollbier is a German tax class for beer indicating a product brewed from an 11–14 °Plato wort (OG 1.044–1.056) — in other words, a standard or normal beer (literally, it means “full beer”). Most examples actually top out at 12.5 °P (1.050).

Commercial Kölsch examples can have small variations in balance but they tend to be quite even between maltiness and bitterness. I don’t think they have any strong or sharp flavors, with the four major sensory components (maltiness, bitterness, hoppiness, fruitiness) varying in intensity from medium-low to medium-high, with none outright dominating. Commercial producers differentiate their products through small variations in balance, with some being drier, hoppier, and more bitter, while others seem more rounded and sweeter. Commercial versions are traditionally filtered to be crystal clear.

The beer is dry and well-attenuated but still retains a soft finish; it is not crisp, sharp, or biting like some Pilsners. Freshness matters in this style, and it can fade quickly with age. Oxidation can make the bitterness seem harsher, affect the softness and delicate flavor balance, and start bringing in papery flavors. I think it can seem somewhat like a slightly bitter cream ale or a subtle Bavarian Pilsner, if you are looking for comparisons.

The bitterness level is medium to medium-low, with a similar hoppiness that can have typical noble-type qualities (floral, spicy, herbal). The subtle fruity notes can sometimes be perceived as apple, pear, or cherry. The malt is usually Pilsner-like, with a grainy-sweet flavor sometimes with a hint of honey or bread. The flavors should be delicate and balanced, while allowing for some individual brewer variety.

The beer should be attenuated, not sweet, although the malt and fruitiness may give a slight impression of sweetness. The body is typically medium-light, although some can be as high as medium. Carbonation is moderate to moderately high. It should be smooth and soft, while dry, and never should seem heavy or filling. The alcohol range is typical for a vollbier, around 5% ABV or slightly less.

Brewing Ingredients and Methods

The ingredients for a Kölsch are fairly straightforward. It should be mostly pale or Pilsner malt, but can have a small amount of character grain (such as CaraHell®, Carapils®, Vienna, or wheat) to give a deeper color and add some flavor variety. Some sources (such as Warner and Kunze) mention grists of up to 15–20% wheat, but I have not seen this much used in practice. Very few breweries today use wheat (Malzmühle is one that does), and when they do, it is usually less than 5%. Perhaps the wheat level calls back to the earlier unfiltered wiess style, which often did have this amount.

Mashing regimes can vary, but most are step infused (Warner remarked that he was not aware of any Kölsch brewery not step mashing). Single decoction was sometimes used in the past, and a single infusion is viable, but step infusion tends to give the proper fermentability while retaining some body, and without excessive color development. The final gravity should be in the 2 °P (1.008) range, so be careful with methods (and grists) that go much higher. Conversion temperatures in the 143–146 °F (62–63 °C) are appropriate, followed by a rest at 156–159 °F (69–70 °C) and a mashout at 168–176 °F (76–80 °C).

Aroma hops should be traditional German noble hops such as Hallertauer or Tettnanger, but not too late in the boil (maybe with 10–20 minutes remaining). Bittering hops could be Perle, Magnum, or other German noble hops. Warner suggests a level of 16–34 IBUs, but I think most examples are in a narrower range. Personally, I think mid-20s works well. Water should be soft, with low alkalinity, avoiding excessive sulfates that could sharpen the finish.

Traditional Kölsch yeast is a powdery top-fermenting type that often is difficult to fully flocculate. This type of yeast lends itself to higher attenuation, but not so much to clarity unless other means are taken (mechanical or via finings). Common yeast strains are Wyeast 2565 (Kölsch), White Labs WLP029 (Kölsch Ale), or the SafAle K-97 dry ale yeast. Other suppliers sell Kölsch strains, and typically mention Kölsch or German Ale on the label. Confirm it by looking for a highly attenuative ale strain that produces a relatively clean flavor profile.

Fermentation temperatures are cool for ales, traditionally in the 55–59 °F (13–15 °C) range, sometimes higher (but usually not more than 68 °F/20 °C). The beer should be lagered after fermentation is complete, typically for at least a month at near-freezing temperatures. If lagering warmer, the duration will be longer (say, three months at 40 °F/5 °C). If the beer seems sulfury or vinous, it likely needs to be lagered longer.

Homebrew Example

My example shoots for the lower end of the style statistics as I think it is more refreshing that way. I think it’s important to have the right level of attenuation to keep the style from feeling heavy, so you have to keep the OG low as well or the ABV gets out of hand. As a dry beer, I don’t want to push too many IBUs at it, otherwise it will seem too bitter. To keep the finish soft, I’m also avoiding the higher IBUs, adding a touch of light crystal malt, and avoiding sulfates in the water.

My use of a step mash and lower mash conversion temperatures helps achieve the attenuation, but the fermentation and conditioning process also helps encourage the yeast to fully complete their job. I’m using mostly Pilsner malt for its flavor, with a touch of Vienna and CaraHell® to bump up the color, flavor, and body slightly.

My hop choice is a mix of German and American hops that mimic noble characteristics. Using all German noble hops is certainly appropriate, as long as you can source fresh samples. I’m using first wort hopping to keep the bitterness smooth and boost some of the hop flavor. The aroma addition is gentle.

A Kölsch-specific yeast should help with the attenuation and flavor, but don’t let the fermentation temperature rise dramatically. The subtle fruitiness should be natural, not forced through extreme temperatures. The lagering and conditioning phase is important for sulfur reduction and general smoothness – don’t ignore it. If you are shooting for a quick beer to make, maybe choose another style because actual lagering is part of what makes this style special.

Finally, remember that Kölsch should be brilliantly clear, so plan to either fine or filter the beer after it has lagered. I think this also tends to limit the shelf life of the beer, so you might want to drink it like they do in Cologne — fresh with the pints coming one after another. You may find that you have a new summertime house beer.

Kölsch by the Numbers:
OG: 1.044–1.050
FG: 1.007–1.011
SRM: 3.5–5
IBU: 18–30
ABV: 4.4–5.25%

In the world of beer, time spent in the fermenter and energy spent keeping things cold is money — making lagers particularly expensive to age. After all, we all know that lagering takes 40-plus days at near-freezing temperatures to make true and proper crystal-clear Pilsners and the like. 

You can imagine, then, that commercial breweries have every incentive to cut the amount of time and energy needed to make a beer. Brewing profit margins are slim when you’re at the scale of beer pricing wars, so any penny saved is a penny back into the company coffers. It’s that expediency that has driven much of the research in lager processes and ingredients. From time to time, you’ll see news announcements about lager breakthroughs — new yeast strains that require less chilling, ceramic plates infused with stabilized yeast that can, in theory, ferment a lager lickety split. And if you’ve been paying attention to the homebrew gear market, you may be able to guess where we’re going with this: Pressurized fermentation. 

One of the best things about homebrewing is that we sit at a swirling nexus of possibilities. Each of us can choose from a thousand ways of brewing and various levels of “tradition” vs. “technology” and this split is perfectly represented by the technique of pressure fermentation.

Here’s the basic theory: Warmer fermentations create more flavor compounds and in turn require more time to mellow. It’s a well understood fact that pressure during fermentation reduces ester formation regardless of the temperature. With fewer esters (and other flavor compounds) being produced, there’s less cleanup work needed.

We see this in the big tanks used by commercial brewers, and hence the reason we always caution that if a pro brewer says they ferment at 72 °F (22 °C), homebrewers should usually knock off a couple of degrees to adjust for the fact that our 5-gallon (19-L) columns of liquid just don’t have the same resulting pressure suppression that even a 200-gallon (760-L) batch self-generates. 

Pressure fermentation takes that character suppression a step further. Rather than depend on the native pressure generated by our batch sizes and fermenter geometry, why not turn to a long-lived piece of brewing equipment — the spunding valve?  You know it’s good for brewing because its name has a German origin (from spund in German meaning “bung” — aka how you’d seal a barrel of beer). 

Unlike an actual hard bung, the spunding valve is a selectable pressure relief valve (PRV). You select a specific pressure (say, 14–15 PSI) and the valve allows that much pressure to build inside your vessel before venting to avoid over pressuring. These valves are widely used in commercial brewing, particularly at the tail end of fermentation (more on that later).

It wasn’t that long ago that if you wanted a spunding valve for home use, you had to build one for yourself. (Drew still has a homemade one full of automotive parts and enough Teflon tape to plumb a house sitting in his brewing toolbox.) These days you can buy any number of fermenter-specific or generic valves from homebrew suppliers. They have decidedly less Teflon tape!

When combined with an appropriate fermentation vessel, the spunding valve means you now have a pressure environment in your brewery in addition to your kegs. Let’s be very clear about that appropriate bit. By and large, general plastic vessels and all glass carboys are not appropriate vessels. 

We’re going to repeat that for the folks goofing off by the fermenters in the back — don’t pressurize containers that aren’t meant to hold pressure. We have very few hard-set rules, but that’s a good one to have. No one needs to lose an eye because they’re making beer. 

Don’t be fooled by the materials either — a good number of stainless-steel vessels are not meant to be pressurized. We both use Grainfather GF30 Conicals in the brewhouse; despite being lovely gleaming stainless steel, they are designed to release their lid if the pressure inside gets above ~3-5 PSI (this is to prevent the device from becoming an accidental 30-L pipe bomb). 

There are other conicals and even plastic fermentation systems that allow you, with accessories and care, to pressurize your fermenter. Each system works a little differently, but the basic rules are the same. We’ve both used Corny kegs to do our pressure tests.

So, let’s determine how you want to “pressure ferment.”

The most common use of pressure fermentation is to cap the vessel towards the end of fermentation to capture CO₂ and begin carbonating the beer naturally.  

• Choose a target gravity to begin capping. Usually when you have about 4–8 gravity points (1–2 °P) left in fermentation. For instance, if you have a beer you expect to finish at 1.010 SG, you’ll want to cap between 1.014–1.018.

• Attach the spunding valve to your fermenter as directed (in our case, it was as simple as attaching the spunding valve on a keg gas fitting and plugging on the gas post).

• Dial in your specific desired pressure (14–18 PSI is common for carbonation).

• Let the beer finish and transfer under pressure to a waiting keg.

• Check the carbonation and serve when ready.

For the full-on pressure fermentation with the beer always operating under pressure, the process is much the same — except you attach the spunding valve from the start and go from there. 

A few rules of thumb:

• What pressure and what temperature you use in fermenting is going to be largely strain-dependent. Some yeast strains produce solid and reliable results while others are much less effective working under serious pressure. Any of the 34/70 family of strains appear to perform like the global workhorse they are proclaimed to be. Drew has also used SafLager S-189 with positive results (a good place to start is around 13–15 PSI). There are several strains sold as “pressure fermenters,” but you can achieve the same results with trial and error with regular yeast strains. Keep in mind that until you gain experience with this technique, you’re bound to make mistakes, have things stall out, etc. It’s all part of the deal.

• Fermenting under pressure is a more stressful environment for yeast. More stress means you’ll need very healthy and viable yeast in solution to pull this off. 

• While pressurized fermentations do produce (particularly with lager yeasts) a far less pronounced bit of kräusen, you’ll want to avoid fouling the spunding valve. Watch your pressures and use a system that has a secondary pressure escape. 

• Because the beer will be naturally carbonated, you’ll need to take care to transfer the beer under pressure to preserve the carbonation.

• Dry hopping becomes trickier because beer geysers tend to happen when you introduce fine little bits of hop matter to a carbonated liquid. Many of the same folks who sell pressure fermentation systems also sell various pressurized dry hopping rigs (popular with the hazy IPA crowd to reduce oxygen introduction). You could transfer onto the hops under pressure to keep the mess down. Skipping those, if you’re fast you can probably pull it off, or be safe and degas the beer before introducing the hops.

• If you’re going for speed, you’ll want finings to speed up your beer’s polishing. Drew does this by racking into a keg with Biofine Clear and a shortened dip tube. (Floating dip tubes are another option for you dedicated gear heads!) 

All told, when done right, a standard lager beer of reasonable gravity (~1.050) can be produced in two weeks at “ale temperature” (around 65 °F/148 °C).

Which brings us to the other point: When and why should you do this? And when should you not?

For us, pressure fermentation is an interesting technique, but one with little application to our preferred brews. Denny makes West Coast IPAs and Belgian ales, neither of which need/favor pressure techniques. Drew makes milds, cream ales, and saisons, and only one of those (cream ales) possibly benefits from pressure fermentation. The other two will lead him to talking your ears off about the value of open fermentation. 

To us, capping to start naturally carbonating is a no brainer if you use pressurizable fermenters. It’s standard practice and wonderfully economical. 

Full pressure fermentation makes the most sense if you either have the desire to quickly turn around clean, yeast-neutral lagers or you want to produce them while fermenting at more achievable fermentation temperatures. There are additional benefits around LODO (low dissolved oxygen) practices and avoiding hop oxidation as well, but we’ve talked before about the mismatch on technique to goals for our general practices. 

The other reason to do it? Because you want to. You want to play around with the seemingly impossible trick of pulling off a lager without lagering. You want other shiny toys to play with. Or maybe you just want to make a beer in an indecently short amount of time. Nothing wrong with any of those, but for us, it’s a nice technique to have in the brewing tool chest, but not our usual way of fermenting. As with all things brewing, be mindful of why you’re doing the things you’re doing and what goals you hope to achieve! 

These beers are lower on flavor and complexity than many craft brews, but that doesn’t mean they are easy to brew. Two award-winning brewers share advice for the perfect summer thirst-quenching beer.

Sam Tomaszczuk is the Brewhouse Manger at Wiseacre Brewing in Memphis, Tennessee

I  think the reason you hear a lot of brewers say light lagers are so difficult to brew is due to the fragile nature of these styles of beer. Delicate flavors and aromas are typically the goal when we set out to brew them, and so the slightest imperfections tend to be magnified to a much greater degree than perhaps they would in other styles. We’re not trying, as brewers of American light-style lagers, to impress you with a boatload of boutique hops, a cornucopia of malty flavors, or even some dominating yeast character. The goal, instead, is to wow you with a harmony of subtlety and modesty, which sounds like a preposterous idea. 

We use yellow corn grits at close to 30% in Sky Dog (winner of the gold medal in the American-Style Light Lager category at the 2024 Great American Beer Festival). The rest of the grain bill is North American 2-row, with a modest amount of acidulated malt for pH adjustment. Due to the corn grits addition, we do utilize a cereal mash as part of our mashing regimen with this beer, mashing the initial cereal mash in at 158 °F (70 °C) before boiling. For hop additions we use Saaz for flavor and aroma additions towards the end of the boil as well as in the whirlpool. We also bitter with the concentrated hop product, FLEX®. In brewing these styles, just keep in mind to use all things in moderation.

Doing this style well comes down to zeroing in on the process to make sure we aren’t getting any unintended flavor pickup during production. We’ve done a great deal of work on the hot-side to make sure we’re performing our mash regimen and our lautering steps to the highest standard our equipment can achieve. On the cold-side, we’re regularly monitoring throughout fermentation to make sure we’re hitting our desired specs. Outside of that, we’re using good malt, quality hops, healthy yeast (we use an Augustiner strain, similar to White Labs WLP860 or Imperial Yeast L17), and really damn good water — Memphis, Tennessee, has some incredibly soft water, similar in profile to Pilsen. Sulfate and chloride are both naturally below 10 ppm and calcium is usually between 10–15 ppm. We add a very modest amount of calcium chloride for flavor and mouthfeel, and adjust pH with acidulated malt.

Does all of this sound overly simplified and obvious? That’s because this style of brewing really tests your knowledge of the basics. 

I think what macro beer does, it does incredibly well. They reliably make a consistent product day after day that appeals to a very large consumer base. With that said, on the craft side we are targeting a slightly different audience that affords us the ability to make a more noticeably flavorful beer, while simultaneously maintaining a relatively fine-drawn flavor profile. Mass-produced lagers are just driven by a different ethos altogether, one that sacrifices certain process and ingredient choices in favor of production efficiencies. At the end of the day, I think we invest more in the quality of the liquid we make more than anything else, which enables us to be more discerning with our ingredients and more meticulous with our production processes. As a homebrewer looking to make your own, you have the same flexibility and these same decisions to make when crafting light lagers.

Matt Westfall is the Owner of Connecticut’s Counter Weight Brewing Co.

Pale lager recipes, flavor, and aroma are very subtle and nuanced, leaving little to no room for even small mistakes. That narrow window is a fun challenge. 

Like all good beer, pale lager starts with high-quality ingredients and healthy yeast coupled with sound fundamental brewing practices. Since American lagers are direct descendants of European continental lager beers, we essentially start with a rough German helles concept, lighten it with corn, lower the terminal gravity, and aim for less bitterness units. I don’t necessarily think of softer, more integrated flavors as less interesting. In fact, when simple beers are very harmonious in their characteristics and have well-defined flavor, they tend to be some very interesting beers. The main difference is they end up being a part of the conversation instead of the conversation itself. 

Like most craft American lager producers, the dials on the malt character and hops are nudged up ever so slightly to make for a more flavorful beer while still falling within style guidelines.

For Modern Classic (2024 GABF silver medalist), our grist consists of 20% flaked corn and very pale German Pilsner malt. The Pilsner malt has a very soft, subdued honey note that is further softened by the addition of the corn. When supported by a delicate hopping and a super clean fermentation, the malt and corn are relatively neutral but add just enough malt flavor to make the beer flavorful and interesting to drink. 

We mash at 146 °F (63 °C) for one hour and step up to 168 °F (76 °C) before transferring to lauter for vorlauf and run off. We use Hallertauer Mittelfrüh hops and aim to achieve a calculated 13 IBU beer with one early boil bittering charge and one 10-minute addition. We’re looking to add just a touch of that classic noble floral and spice to help with overall balance.

We lager this beer for four weeks. Temperature control is always the most difficult thing when making lagers at home. As a homebrewer, look for the best ways to control fermentation temperature in your setup. It will make a big difference in the finished beer.