The Northwoods guys (@Alexander Kopf and @Geoff Gyles) are raising an interesting point about munich malt. I also want to tie in what @Marcos Bardelli had mentioned about yeast strains unbounding thiols from malts. I wanted to tie these two points together because I've heard about lager strains that produce grape-like esters (and I've had a few German beers that have that character).
Tying all this back to @Dominic Charbonneau's original post, the question that comes to mind is: are you tasting the grape-like flavor in both ales and lagers? If it's just one or the other, what strain are you using? More broadly, have you used more than one yeast strain in your beers and have you noticed that the grape-like character appears regardless of strain?
Similarly, I'm curious what yeast strain Northwoods is using for their lagers. Side question for Alex: what yeast strain was Redhook using?
To be clear, I'm not trying to imply that the issue is yeast and not malt, I'm merely curious to chase down this idea of the interaction between munich malt and certain yeast strains since some strains can produce grape-like esters. I can't help but wonder if it's not necessarily the craft malt Dominic is using but maybe the interaction between the malt and the yeast as Marcos highlighted could be the case.
------------------------------
Nassim Sultan
Brewer/Free Agent
nassimsultan@gmail.com------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 03-25-2024 15:35
From: Alexander Kopf
Subject: Grape flavor is malt from Quebec/Canada
I first got a grape soda flavor from a Maibock we made at Redhook. It faded within a week of packaging. That beer had only German pilz and Munich malts (munich light and dark, as well as caramunich).
Every beer after that which had grape soda flavor or aroma also contained some Munich malt.
Not sure if this is the sole cause of that flavor, but it has been my experience that it is a result of Munich malt.
------------------------------
Alexander Kopf
Lead Brewer
Northwoods Brewing Company
alex@northwoodsbrewingcompany.com
Original Message:
Sent: 03-15-2024 13:41
From: Dominic Charbonneau
Subject: Grape flavor is malt from Quebec/Canada
Hi everyone.
I am from Quebec/Canada, we have more and more local micro-malters who produces high quality malt from local barley. In the past, some of us had identified a special flavor that lots of us associated with the barley of the area which was often described as Grapelike, or Chardonnay like. With time the malters have refine their technics, but some still say they find it in the local malt made from local barley. While tasting beers made with these malts blindfold with many other brewers, nobody wrote this flavor in their description, but still many brewers (often more conventional or rigid) say they find this flavor in beers made with local barley.
My question is: Does anyone has a scientific explanation of how this flavor could have been created in malts (Where it comes from) and why some manage to rule it out of the malt in the brewery while other does not? What is the compound associated with this flavor?
Thanks for your help
DOMINIC CHARBONNEAU
VP PRODUCTION & BRASSEUR EN CHEF
B 450 250-2611, POSTE 223
SF 1 855 650-2611
3755, RUE PICARD, PORTE 2
SAINT-HYACINTHE (QUÉBEC) J2S 1H3