FORUM ON BEER, HOMEBREWING, AND RELATED ISSUES
		Rob Gardner, Digest Coordinator


Contents:
  RE:Yeast Lab Weizen (Jim Busch)
  Sam Adams being investigated (jimf)
  Legal Probelms for Sam(tm)Adams(tm) (Timothy J. Dalton)
  Re: Sparge water (Ed Hitchcock)
  Miller Clear -- Less Yucky? (stevie)
  Yeast trivia, Zima (Bob Clark)
  Correction (George J Fix)
  Skunk beer? (Paul dArmond)
  Filtering beer (Scott Stihler (USGS analyst))
  Sierra Nevada Brown and The Goat Hill (BELLAGIO_DAVID)
  recipies for weisen (C05705DA)
  tv ad for hb video (jay marshall)
  Effect of light on beer (WESTEMEIER)
  Methanol (aka wood alcohol) (Corby Bacco)


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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 6 May 93 9:38:47 EDT
From: Jim Busch <busch at daacdev1.stx.com>
Subject: RE:Yeast Lab Weizen

Dave asks about the yeast lab weizen:

<
<<Date: Wed, 5 May 93 13:31:00 PDT
Subject: Yeast Lab Co. and its Weisen yeast
<
<
Fellow HBDer's,
Does anyone know an addres or phone # for the Yeast Lab Co. I'm actually
I too am extremely interested in any info regarding the origins
of the Weizen strain they sell.  I have *heard* that it is 
similar to Wyeast Wheat, but I have not tasted it or know of 
a brewer using it.  If anyone out there uses this strain (or 
others from them), I would appreciate feedback on the fermentation
characteristics.  IN particular, does the yeast produce distinctive
banana esters and phenolic character?

Good brewing,
Jim Busch

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Date: Thu, 6 May 93 09:45:10 EDT
From: jimf at centerline.com
Subject: Sam Adams being investigated

Today's Boston Globe reports that Sam Adams is being investigated by
the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs for misrepresentation
in advertising.  The investigation was incited by the Brooklyn Brewery
because of the advertisements stating that Sam Adams Lager has "won
the Great American Beer Festival four years running."

It seems that they won in '85, '86, '87, '89, and '90 -- never more
than three consecutive years.  (The article also mentions that they
won a gold and silver medal in '92 but they didn't mention that when
talking about how many awards they'd won.)  They didn't compete at all
in '88.

Best quote, from Jim Koch, about why it's ok: "I used to say we won
four years in a row.  If you go to bat three times, get three hits and
a walk, and then a fourth hit, didn't you get four hits in a row?"

Also disputed is the claim that Sam Adams is the only American beer
imported into Germany.  So are Brooklyn Lager and others.

jim frost
jimf at centerline.com

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Date: Thu, 6 May 93 09:51:44 -0400
From: Timothy J. Dalton <dalton at mtl.mit.edu>
Subject: Legal Probelms for Sam(tm)Adams(tm)

Boston Globe, Thursday May 6, 1993.  Pg. 77 (Business Sect.)
Quoted without permission.  

Barroom Brawl, by Frederic M. Biddle, Globe Staff.

"   Beer isn't all that's brewing at Boston Beer Co.
    The Maker of Samuel Adams Boston Lager, described on bottlecaps and in 
company advertising as "The Best Beer in America," is barroom-brawling
with a New York rival.
    New York City's Deparetment of Consumer Affairs is investigating Boston Beer
for "possible violations" of the city's consumer protection law. "It's
smarmy," Jim Koch, Boston Beer's president, said in an emotional interview
yesterday.  He said that the Borrklyn Brewery, which in New York distributes
Mass. Bay Brewing Co.'s rival Harpool Ale, incited the investigation.
    "Thats ridiculous!" says The Brooklyn Brewery's president.
    "Thats irrelevant!" says a spokeswoman for the New York Department of
Consumer Affairs.
    What is relevant,a ll agree, is the New York agency's April 19 letter to 
Koch.  "Your current ads claim that Sam Adams Lager 'won the Great American
Beer festival four years running,'" the agency writes.  "However, our
preliminary investigation indicates that while you received awards in 1985,
1986, 1987, 1989 and 1990, awards were never reveived for more than three
consecutive years."
    Exactly what Sam Adams won is also in dispute.  In the late 1980s Samuel
Adams Boston Lager actually won "consumer preference" polls of attendees of
the Association of Brewers' Great American Beer Festival in Denver.  Plaques
accompanying those awards read: "Best Beer in America."
   But in 1990 the poll was replaced by a Professional Panel Blind Tasting, 
following sore losers' objections.  "It was becoming a popularity contest,
and it didn't really reflect our mission," says association president Charles
Papazian.
   Now New York is telling Koch that "there is clear potential for consumers
being misled when you refer in the aggregate to "winning" the Great American
Beer Festival without being specific as to the nature of what you won."

[the articles continues on and on and on...
highlights....

Meanwhile, Koch has fallen flat with competitors.  For example:  Brooklyn
Brewery's president, Steve Hindy, disputes Boston Beer's claim that Samuel
Adams is the only American beer imported into Germany.  Brooklyn Lager is, among
others.  "Many people are of the opinion that Jim's advertising is
out of bounds," Hindy says.

[and it goes on...talking about the use of GABF awards in advertising and
how the policy is changing, and how there are 32 gold medals there...
SA got a gold and silver last year, but then again Pabst Brewing Co.'s
Olde English 800 Malt Liquor got the gold in the Americal Malt Liquor 
category...]



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Date: Thu, 06 May 1993 10:47:45 -0300
From: Ed Hitchcock <ECH at ac.dal.ca>
Subject: Re: Sparge water

Thank you George for responding to my question.
I do, however, have a few questions and commentaries.  Firstly, I recognize 
that the mash thickness can be varied to some extent with little change in 
the final beer.  The question then is which has a greater effect on the 
quality of the final beer, brewing every batch with about the same mash to 
sparge volume ratios, or brewing beers with about the same mash thicknesses?

You wrote: "Had the ratio been increased to 1.5 (26 liters in the
mash and 60 liters for sparging), the extract lost will typically drop to
1%. The most extreme case I have brewed had a ratio near 3.5 (20 liters mash
to 46 liters sparge), and virtually no extract was left behind in the 
grains."

	Perhaps I am missing something, but 26L mash and 60L sparge is a 
ratio of 2.3, and lo, 20L to 46L is also a ratio of 2.3.  You lost me 
somewhere in there.

	Lastly, was the 1.5 ratio solely for extraction rates?  If so, I am 
less concerned than if this figure were	for preventing tannin extraction or 
some other factor.
	ed

____________   
Ed Hitchcock/Dept of Anatomy & Neurobiology/Dalhousie University/Halifax NS
ech at ac.dal.ca   +-------------------------------------------------------+
		|    Remember, God created the world in six days,	|
		|   and that was without the benefit of power tools!	|
		+-------------------------------------------------------+
	Eschew Budmillmolcoorbattheadh

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Date: Thu, 6 May 93 11:15:05 CDT
From: stevie at spss.com
Subject: Miller Clear -- Less Yucky?

With Miller Clear Beer in test market in Richmond, it was no surprise that
last Saturday's Washington Post had a feature on it.  Customers at a local
tavern were questioned.  In general the comments were very much as in Ad
Age (mentioned in Tony Babinec's post in the last HBD), with the most positive
remarks coming from people who didn't really like beer.  One couple, in particu-
lar, said that they had been drinking beer since college, but came to realize 
that they really didn't like it.  Miller Clear was "less yucky" than regular 
beer.

The bar owner said Miller Clear was selling briskly, but it looked mostly like
a fad.  Most of the customers were trying it once, and then switching back to
normal-looking stuff.  

I didn't save the article, but I recall that Clear was only slightly lower 
in alcohol and calories than regular Miller products -- 122 calories per 12 oz.
Tim Norris and I (we were in DC to judge at BURP's Spirit of Free Beer homebrew
competition) thought briefly about a road trip to pick up a six to bring back to
our pals in Chicago, but we opted for "yucky" Belgian stuff instead.  We also
only got as far south as Manassas, and lucky for us, Hero's didn't carry it.

Perhaps one of our DC colleagues can provide direct quotes from the Post?
 +------------------+---------------------------+---------------------------+
 |  Steve Hamburg   | Internet: stevie at spss.com | "Life is short, and so    |
 |  SPSS Inc.       | Phone:    312/329-3445    | are some brewers."        |
 |  Chicago, IL     | Fax:      312/329-3657    |                           |
 +------------------+---------------------------+---------------------------+

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Date: Thu, 6 May 93 09:58:23 PDT
From: Bob.Clark at Eng.Sun.COM (Bob Clark)
Subject: Yeast trivia, Zima

I live in east San Jose, CA, just outside the area where there was
a problem with the Mediterranean fruit fly (MedFly) last year.  There's
a fly trap in my front yard, and I talked with the guy who was checking
it for fruit flies.  It turns out that the bait they use is a mixture
of borax and *yeast*.  This struck a chord with others who have mentioned
that their fermentation attracts fruit flies to their airlocks.

A friend brought a six-pack of Zima over last weekend.  We split one
bottle, and he refused to take the remaining five bottles home.  It
reminded me of the aftertaste you get with a really bad, cheap champagne.
A bartender mentioned, too, that everyone who tried it in the bar had
only bad things to say about it.

	Bob C.

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Date: Thu, 6 May 93 10:59:54 -0500
From: gjfix at utamat.uta.edu (George J Fix)
Subject: Correction

Richard Goldstein asks via private e-mail the following:

>Your mash ratio of 33 liters for 20kg of malt is roughly 1.5 qts/lb
>(sorry, I'm not entirely comfortable leaving all this stuff in metric
>units), and several of texts imply that this is at the high end of the
>mash ratios, ie that this is a rather "thin" mash. I am assuming that
>you are dispelling this notion by the statement:

>>plots of yield vs. mash thickness tend to be quite flat in
>>the range 25-40 liters/kg.

>Do you really mean 25-40 liters/kg, or are you missing a decimal point?
>Or am I missing the point? :)

Ops! What we have here is a tenured Full Professor of Mathematics with a
Ph.D. from Harvard who can not do arithmetic! Doctor cure thyself! The
correct range is 2.5 to 4.0 liters/kg. Thanks Rich!

The malt charge reported in my post was 10 kg., giving a concentration
of 3.3 liters/kg. which is approximately 1.58 qrs/lb. 

>I think that many homebrewers believe that a thicker mash is better, so
>this is very interesting. Are yields vs mash thickness fairly
>insensitive to mashing procedure? That is does your statement apply
>equally as well to infusion/step/decoction mashing, or are there some
>"better" thicknesses for each of these?

These results are for infusion mashing only. The situation for decoction
is a good deal more complicated because of the volume reductions during boiling.
Theoretically a thick mash provides more thermal protection for enzymes, and
this has been put forward as a point for a thick mash. On the other hand, 
enzyme activity is inhibited by the concentration of the products produced,
and this tends to favor a thin mash. 

There appears to be some disagreement about whether the effects cancel,
or that they are simply weak effects. Our mathematical models (based on the 
nonlinear differential equations of enzyme kinetics) suggest it is a 
combination of both. In any case, it has been my personal experience with my
own system that mash thickness is not a major issue. 

The issue of over sparging and indeed hot sparging varies with beer style.
IMHO one can ruin many lager styles this way, however as Martin Lohahl
correctly has pointed out a few months ago, some of these effects can and
have been used to advantage in Belgian styles.

Thanks again Rich. I enjoy your e-mail!

George Fix



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Date: Thu, 6 May 1993 11:27:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Paul dArmond <paulf at henson.cc.wwu.edu>
Subject: Skunk beer?

I also have wondered about the incidence of mercaptan "skunkiness".  So I
propose:

Hey, Chuck!  Could JudgeNet do an informal survey and report back on the
incidence rate of skunky beer in contests?  It seems to me that contest
submissions would be the product of "reasonable" anti-skunk precautions.

I have read in literature from John I. Haas (a big hop supplier) that
isomerized hop extracts are far more resistant to skunkiness.  I've taken
this to mean that most of the beer sold in clear bottles (Miller,
Newcastle, Sam Smith, Corona, etc.) is hopped with the isomerized extract
and doesn't use *real* hops.  I'm only guessing.....

Paul.


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Date: 	Thu, 6 May 1993 03:47:30 -0800
From: scott at fm.gi.alaska.edu (Scott Stihler (USGS analyst))
Subject: Filtering beer

Greetings,

I've got a question regarding filtering beer. I've been interested in filtering
my homebrew for awhile but I'm somewhat confused as to what is the optimum 
filter size for beer. Does anybody out there happen to know? I'm afraid if I
get too small a filter size I may lose body. Anyways, I'd appreciate here what
you have to say.

Cheers,

Scott

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Date: 6 May 93 11:28:00 +1300
From: BELLAGIO_DAVID at Tandem.COM
Subject: Sierra Nevada Brown and The Goat Hill

I would just like to second Bob's acclaim of Sierra Nevada's Brown.  I really
liked it.  They told me it was a special one time brew.  I will be going
back shortly and can't wait to have a pint.  I also like their spring special
Pale Bock.  As for Andy's mention of the Goat Hill Tavern, I was told of this
place by the HBD and was glad I went.  Great place to hang out.  I could go
for one of their Black Fog (Anchor Old Foghorn and Watney's Cream Stout)
mixtures right now.

Super Dave

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Date:         Thu, 06 May 93 15:04:43 CST
From: C05705DA at WUVMD.Wustl.Edu
Subject:      recipies for weisen

a while back, month or two roughly, several people posted good recipies
for weisen beer; they were fairly simple ones.  Unfortunalty, the file that
i saved it in bit the big one, followed by  at #%*!.  it seems that one of
them had munich malt and one had regular two row malt.  also, they included
the name of the yeasts they used; they were of the wheat ale type.  could
you good people please resend them?  thanks.


"The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs,
 nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately,
 by the grace of God."   Thomas Jefferson

address: c05705da at wuvmd.wustl.edu

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Date: Thu, 6 May 93 16:34:51 CDT
From: jay marshall <marshall at sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov>
Subject: tv ad for hb video

While watching the Discovery channel last night I saw an ad for a
homebrewing video.  Needless to say I was surprised to see this kind
of thing advertised nationally.  Has anyone seen the video?  If so,
would you care to give a brief review?

Jay
marshall at sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov


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Date: 06 May 1993 19:52:26 -0400 (EDT)
From: WESTEMEIER at delphi.com
Subject: Effect of light on beer

In response to yesterday's request for info on the effect of light on beer:
I've always found this fascinating, so I'll just outline what I understand
to be the case, and let the experts fill in the gaps and correct the parts
that are shaky.
 
What actually happens is pretty easy to understand (assuming you have a PhD
in organic chemistry).  The alpha acids in hops are changed chemically
during the boil, becoming isomerized (which means the molecules are formed
into long chains).  These iso-alpha acids (as they are then called) are
much more bitter than the naturally occurring alpha acids, and they are
also much more unstable in light.  When light hits them, they are changed
chemically again, and they tend to react with some of the sulfur compounds
present in all beers.  That reaction produces a new chemical (to be
precise, the loss of CO by the acyl radical forms the 3-methyl-2-butyl
radical, which then combines with a thiol radical from sulphur-containing
proteins to produce 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol, for those of you keeping
score) which is familiarly known as a mercaptan.  Mercaptans are also the
active ingredient in a skunk's defense mechanism, and are easily recognized
by the human nose at levels of a few parts per billion. OK, how much light
does it take?  If it's the right (actually, the wrong) kind of light, the
answer is "not much." Any light with a wavelength shorter than 520
nanometers will do the job.  Think about how sunlight is broken up by a
rainbow or a prism.  The longer wavelengths are at the red end of the
spectrum and the shorter wavelengths are at the blue end.  Red, orange, and
yellow won't really cause you a problem.  Green is getting dangerous (the
yellow-greens are OK, the blue-greens are not).  Blue, indigo, and violet
are a definite no-no.  Ultraviolet is right out.  Since normal (white)
light contains more or less the whole visible spectrum, you want to use a
type of glass that filters out the harmful part. Anyone who has ever done
serious photography knows that fluorescent lamps put out light that is more
heavily skewed toward the blue end of the spectrum, and incandescent lamps
toward the red end.  Obviously, fluorescent lights are more harmful to beer
than incandescent lights.  What kind of lights are used in the beer display
case at your favorite retailer?  Uh-huh, that's right! Actually, it only
takes about 24 hours of exposure to this kind of light to have an effect on
beer in a clear bottle (have you had any Corona lately?).  Green bottles
help, but only a very little, since they just block a little of the red
light and a little of the blue.  Higher levels of sulfur compounds in some
beer produced in green bottles can actually wipe out the advantage, so that
some beer shipped in green bottles is even more easily skunked than beer in
clear bottles.  Brown bottles help quite a bit, since they block almost all
of the harmful wavelengths, but still let some of the harmful green light
through. Some of the big guys actually apply a chemical treatment to their
beer, so that light has little or no effect.  Miller is the first one that
comes to mind, and even though it's shipped in clear bottles, you're very
unlikely to find a skunked Miller.
 But who wants a Miller? We don't always get what we pay for, and it would
really be worth your while to ask your retailer for beer that hasn't been
exposed to the light.  Get a six-pack from a freshly opened case in the
back room, rather than a cold one that has been sitting in the display case
under fluorescent lights for a week.

Ed Westemeie  Cincinnati, OH   westemeier at delphi.com

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Date: Thu, 6 May 93 18:39:29 -0600
From: cbacco at ursa5.cs.utah.edu (Corby Bacco)
Subject: Methanol (aka wood alcohol)

Hello all,
     First of all let me say that I know that methanol is not
produced in homebrewing, at least everything I've read so far says 
that, and I am not worried about going blind.  But, now that
I've been brewing for about a year I've heard enough people say
"You homebrew!?  Watch out you don't go blind!"  that now I
really would like more amunition to argue with.

     Specifically, WHY isn't methanol produced during homebrewing
or I guess the question could be asked as how DO you produce
methanol?  Thanks for the info in advance.


			Cheers,
			    Corby Bacco

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End of HOMEBREW Digest #1136, 05/07/93