In his brewing career, John Keeling has experienced the highs and lows of aged beer. In part one of this column, he shares his experience at Fuller’s and how that expertise led to the launch of a modern classic in the brewery’s Vintage Ale.
One thing I have always done in my brewing career is age. Not just me but I have also been involved in the ageing of beer.
In my early career I was involved in shelf-life tests and one of the demands made of brewers today, and in the past, was to increase shelf life.
The reason for increase in shelf life was to ease supply chain problems (problems are always better when you give them to another department).
Unfortunately, and in every case, beer got worse with age. In particular oxidised flavours would appear, and these flavours were entirely negative.
A beer at six months old was worse than a beer at one month old, frequently a beer at nine months old was undrinkable but we still continued to put nine months on. However, supply chain met all their targets.
Beer quality in terms of flavour did not matter, in fact the only test really was on clarity. Very few beers would fail that test. So, we would send out beers which were best drunk fresh but often drunk beyond their peak. They were deemed to be ok because they were still bright at their shelf life.
It is still the same today. Sure, many improvements have been made, and oxygen is much better controlled as is pasteurisation but still, beers are best drunk fresh.
That is true of the vast majority of beer however there are some beers that are designed for ageing and actually are better for it. Craft beer has also even removed the need for clarity in many beers too.
We in Britain used to age beers all the time but by the time I got into brewing the art of ageing had largely been forgotten. When in 1995 we brewed 1845, a 6.3% old ale and bottle-conditioned we all thought it was going to be a one off.
Conditioning beer in the bottle was also something new for us or should I say something old that had to be rediscovered. We gradually refined our bottle-conditioning techniques during 1995 so that by 96 we had mastered the art of bottle-conditioning.
The technique we use now is to warm condition beer in conditioning tank (longest for the stronger beer, for example three months for Vintage), we then chill and rough filter before adding yeast back to bright beer tank. Yeast count is hugely important and for consistent beer it must be the same in every bottle. The ideal yeast count for us is 0.5 million cells per ml. Too much and the beer is over conditioned, too little and the beer is flat.
Unbeknown to us we had added another ingredient to our beers. What was this special ingredient? Why, it was time of course,”John Keeling.
The beer is roused in the bright beer tank and that rouser is kept on during bottle to ensure that the yeast count is uniform throughout bottling.
The tricky part is when the beer is below the rouser, you just have to hope that there are no breakdowns. Lucky as well that all our tanks are vertical with the rouser at the bottom which really helps.
After bottling, the beer is allowed to condition in the warehouse for a minimum of two weeks. There are two main reasons for this: one is to allow the laboratory to do thorough micro checks, there is nothing worse than infection for ruining the beer.
The second reason is to allow the build-up of carbon dioxide in the beer. I am only happy when the beer has enough fizz. Then the beer can go to trade.
The demand was such that we continued to brew 1845 throughout 1995 and by 1996 it had become a permanent part of our range. Then a remarkable thing happened. At a shelf life tasting (yes, Fullers did do them) a 12-month-old 1845 was tasted. It was better than the young versions, much better! What had happened?
Unbeknown to us we had added another ingredient to our beers. What was this special ingredient? Why, it was time of course. Suddenly the world of ageing was opening up to us.
We continued tasting the beer beyond its shelf life and then we started to increase the shelf life for all the right reasons because the beer just got better and better. 1845 now has two years shelf more than enough even for the most inept supply chain manager!
Following on from 1845 we then introduced another beer to our bottle conditioned range, Vintage Ale. The first brewing was in 1997 and this beer really did age well. Perhaps Vintage Ale needs a whole column to itself and there will be a part two to this one featuring Vintage.
Oh, and if you think I have been a little bitchy to supply chain and are feeling left out, don’t worry sales, marketing and the blessed accountants you are next in line….
