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John Palmer joins me this week to discuss pale

0:02

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now your host and the author of home brewing

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This is beer Smith podcast number 284 and it's early July

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2023 John Palmer joins me this week to discuss pale

0:47

ales IPAs and water profiles

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into this week's episode Today

1:48

on the show I welcome back John Palmer John

1:50

is the author of the top-selling homebrew book how

1:53

to brew as well as definitive book on brewing

1:55

water

1:57

Today he joins us to talk about IPAs

4:00

So can you talk a little about first about the overall

4:02

flavor profile and sort of the style what it

4:04

looked like?

4:06

Yeah, it when you and

4:08

I were talking last week about you

4:10

know different water adjustments

4:13

for different styles it

4:15

kind of got me on this track of you

4:18

know the evolution of

4:20

American pale ale and American

4:22

IPA and hazy IPA

4:24

and I

4:28

Think it helps it may help people

4:30

wrap

4:31

their head around water adjustment

4:33

to

4:34

take these seemingly

4:37

different styles and

4:38

seemingly different waters

4:41

and Help draw

4:44

the draw the dots, you know draw the lines between

4:46

thoughts on how similar

4:48

they really are So,

4:51

you know the whole context helps round

4:54

it out So yeah, if we start

4:56

with

4:57

British bitters,

4:58

you know British pale ales

5:00

You know in a word

5:03

to describe British

5:04

bitters Moderation

5:07

I think

5:08

is the best descriptor.

5:10

They have

5:12

moderate multiness

5:14

moderate bitterness

5:16

Our hoppiness hop

5:19

character

5:20

and it all comes together in a

5:22

very extremely drinkable

5:25

composition Everything

5:27

in moderation. I think fighting

5:30

each other

5:31

just a very sublime

5:33

Drink ability, but

5:36

at the same time there's some complexity there too. I

5:38

think in terms of you know Oh, yeah, a lot more

5:40

off flavors for example in a British bitter than

5:42

you know, maybe a continental ale

5:46

Yeah You can't

5:48

have complexity without balance and

5:50

you know, British beers are

5:52

Superbly balanced

5:54

nice balance between the malton hops so

5:56

you can taste the different aspects of

5:58

maltenest

6:01

the touch of toast, the touch

6:03

of caramel, and the bread

6:05

from the malt, and as

6:07

well as your hot character, you've got

6:10

a

6:11

very well-balanced bitterness

6:14

that is riding side-by-side with maltiness.

6:17

And in addition to that, you

6:19

have a little bit of hot

6:21

aroma

6:23

and flavor from the dry

6:25

hot they

6:25

often do. So yeah, just

6:28

with balance comes complexity.

6:33

The bitterness units to gravity

6:36

units ratio these beers is

6:38

about 0.75 or 3 fourths.

6:41

That is, the bitterness is about 3

6:44

fourths of the points that the gravity

6:46

is.

6:47

So

6:48

look at, you know,

6:50

there's three grades of British bitter, you

6:52

know,

6:53

light, medium, and

6:55

higher,

6:56

or large, I guess you'd say.

6:59

Anywhere

7:01

from 35 up to, you know, 1035 up to 1060, I think, where

7:03

it goes. And

7:09

so your bitterness at any

7:11

gravity would be about 3 quarters of

7:13

that. And so it is a more

7:15

assertive hot

7:17

character in a British bitter than

7:20

you would get, say, in a typical

7:22

ale

7:23

or a typical lager,

7:25

Coles,

7:27

Hellas, other

7:32

ales, golden ale. So yeah, continental

7:35

styles and so on.

7:36

Yeah, various kinds of stuff. Typically,

7:38

you're looking at the gravity,

7:41

a bitterness to gravity ratio of about

7:43

one a half before those. You

7:46

know, half the bitterness of the original

7:48

gravity. So British bitter

7:50

coming in a little bit higher around three quarters

7:53

makes that hot character more assertive.

7:56

If you look at

7:58

American craft brewing

8:01

and home brewing, you

8:03

can see where we took that concept

8:07

of

8:07

a hoppy British bitter

8:10

and

8:11

turned it up to 11. You know,

8:13

the

8:13

Americans, everything has to be more.

8:16

So we added more hops

8:18

and we brought that

8:19

hop character, the BU

8:22

to GU, up to about 0.85.

8:23

You know,

8:26

another little boost in bitterness,

8:28

another little

8:29

boost in dry hop character.

8:31

And

8:34

it made the malt to hop

8:36

balance to become a little bit more hop

8:38

forward.

8:39

Same gravities.

8:41

And for a while there,

8:44

we were doing the same thing with the

8:46

malt fill as well. We were adding more caramel.

8:49

We were adding more Munich.

8:51

And this really was birth

8:53

of the American amber ale style.

8:56

You know, when you start

8:58

adding more caramel, adding more

9:00

maltiness

9:01

and changing it from

9:04

amber up to copper color,

9:08

you know, increasing

9:10

the sweetness, now you need more hops to balance it.

9:14

That evolved into American amber.

9:17

And the other thing I

9:19

find interesting is, of course, they changed the yeast, right?

9:21

So a lot of the complexity you

9:23

get from the British yeast, maybe

9:26

not so present in the American version.

9:29

Exactly right. Yeah. Switched

9:31

to an American yeast, American hop character.

9:34

And yeah, it became a uniquely American

9:36

style, readily

9:38

differentiable

9:40

tasting. Well,

9:43

stepping back for a second, though, what

9:45

does the water profile look like? Because that's one

9:47

of the things you want to focus on for the

9:49

original bitters.

9:51

Okay. So we're

9:54

looking towards London for the

9:56

British bitters. And I'm sure, you know, every region of

9:58

the British is looking for a better place.

9:59

of England has their own

10:02

bitter style that goes back

10:04

hundreds of years.

10:07

But the water around

10:10

London

10:11

is

10:12

high, moderate hardness or medium

10:14

hardness and high alkalinity,

10:18

meaning that the residual alkalinity

10:20

was a positive value.

10:22

I think it's about 0.75, 0.85 something like 75,

10:28

85 residual

10:29

alkalinity, which means

10:31

that you need more dark malts in

10:34

the grain bill

10:35

to balance that alkalinity in

10:37

the mash to get good yield.

10:41

Keep in mind that when these beer styles are being

10:43

developed, pH wouldn't be

10:45

invented until 1920 or something like

10:48

that. So

10:50

yeah, they were figuring it out purely

10:52

from an extract and yield

10:55

point of view.

10:59

And the water, the London

11:01

water also had a balanced

11:03

sulfate to chloride ratio, kind

11:06

of one to

11:07

one,

11:07

not terribly assertive, both of the numbers

11:10

around 50 ppm, 40 to 50 ppm.

11:13

So just right

11:15

under just that threshold. The

11:21

practice of burdenization, this

11:23

is kind of

11:26

interesting,

11:28

the beers of Burton were recognized

11:31

as being

11:32

special, unique.

11:34

Even during

11:37

the 1600s, probably

11:39

by 1650,

11:41

definitely by 1700, there

11:44

were people writing about the

11:46

unique beers of the Burton-on-Trent

11:49

region.

11:50

And the Burton-on-Trent region had

11:53

a

11:53

much higher hardness

11:56

of water, higher in the calcium

11:58

sulfate.

11:59

higher than London. Burton

12:02

on Trent, for those of

12:04

us here in the States, it's about 120 miles

12:07

north of London. So

12:10

it's not really close to

12:13

London.

12:15

And I think one misconception

12:17

among American home brewers was that

12:20

Burton Ale was an IPA.

12:24

And that's not really the case. Burton Ale

12:26

was a large, a

12:29

big, you know, 1060

12:31

kind of gravity, but a sweeter

12:34

beer. Didn't have the depth of hop character

12:37

that my PA does. Now they

12:39

had bitter stock ales,

12:41

bales that they would

12:43

store for a period of

12:45

time, and that they did add hops

12:47

to.

12:48

And those beers were the

12:50

ones that became the IPAs

12:52

of

12:54

the day. And IPAs were being shipped

12:57

to India and elsewhere in the

12:59

Empire,

13:03

mid,

13:03

early to mid 1700s on.

13:07

So it was just kind of a gradual replacement

13:10

of Burton Ale

13:11

with the bitter stock ale,

13:14

which was popular beer region.

13:18

And then that,

13:21

they wreck, even though they didn't have the

13:23

concept pH at the time, they had

13:25

the chemistry that

13:28

let them understand that the water

13:30

of Burton on Trent

13:31

is what allowed this

13:33

clarity in

13:35

their

13:36

ales and Burton ales.

13:38

And that technology

13:42

lent the same appearance to their

13:44

stock ale.

13:45

It led

13:48

to a higher sulfate character

13:50

referred to as Burton Snatch.

13:53

A

13:54

little bit of the sulfur coming

13:56

out in the

13:57

aroma of the beer.

13:59

And so, Burtonization

14:01

as a science

14:04

and an improvement to brewing water

14:07

was

14:07

known and

14:12

by

14:14

roughly 1850,

14:16

that concept

14:18

of science was also made

14:21

known in Europe.

14:23

And I was talking to

14:26

Professor Ludwig Narciss a few years ago

14:28

and he commented that when

14:30

they developed the Pilsen beers, they

14:33

employed Burtonization of their water

14:36

through a brighter,

14:38

clearer Pilsen beer in

14:40

Pilsen. And

14:42

of course, the sulfate driving

14:45

it up changes a lot of things,

14:47

right? What else does it change? Yeah, the

14:49

sulfate dries out the

14:52

overall

14:53

malt character, the beer makes

14:55

that beer more crisp.

14:57

It accentuates the hop character,

15:00

making it more assertive yet

15:02

fading faster on the palate.

15:05

You mentioned

15:05

it's

15:09

clarity. Yeah. Yeah, it's

15:11

clarity.

15:13

The higher,

15:15

Burton water is both

15:17

high hardness and high sulfate, basically

15:20

high in gypsum.

15:21

And so the higher calcium,

15:23

it really aids beer clarity.

15:26

And yeah, it has a

15:28

profound effect on yeast flocculation,

15:30

shrub

15:31

formation,

15:32

etc. So you

15:35

just naturally get a much clearer beer

15:37

in a high hardness, high

15:39

calcium water

15:41

than you do then,

15:43

say the London water, which had

15:46

medium hardness and high

15:48

alkalinity.

15:51

So I mean, that obviously changed

15:53

things quite a bit for Pail-L's, like

15:56

I'm thinking of the classic Bass Pail-L,

15:58

for example.

15:59

Now let's

16:01

go and maybe switch gears back to

16:04

American Pale Ale, which came, you

16:06

know, along with American Amber, were

16:09

developed sort of in the early crap beer

16:11

days.

16:12

Can you talk a little bit about those styles and

16:14

how those compare to their English counterparts?

16:18

Sure. So, you know, as

16:20

home brewers, and you and I were in the thick

16:23

thing, you

16:23

know, 30 years ago, discovering

16:26

all this stuff for the first time.

16:29

We, you

16:30

know, we were enamored of the

16:32

tales of Burton on Trent and

16:35

brewing these these hoppy,

16:37

crisp,

16:38

you know, bass ales and Burton ales,

16:40

ITAs, and so on.

16:43

So

16:46

I remember when I first wrote How to Brew,

16:48

you know, in the late 90s.

16:52

It's funny, I remember how

16:54

much

16:55

of

16:56

an aside my

16:58

IPA recipe was at

17:01

that time.

17:02

It was, you

17:03

know, the in your first edition

17:05

of How to Brew, it was a victory in chaos,

17:07

British IPA,

17:08

no American IPA, just the

17:11

British IPA. And

17:13

it was just like something to include. It

17:15

wasn't the

17:16

main styles that

17:19

were being brewed

17:20

back then,

17:21

those being pale

17:23

ale, Porter and Stout,

17:26

or

17:26

Amber and Stout.

17:31

But,

17:32

you know, we like I said, we were enamored with

17:35

more, more hops, more,

17:38

more calcium sulfate.

17:40

And so you saw all these suggestions

17:43

that had calcium sulfate to all

17:45

of our recipe

17:47

back then,

17:49

which made that hop character more assertive.

17:51

And

17:54

like you said, with the addition

17:56

of American yeast and American hop,

17:58

hop varieties. led

18:01

to

18:01

American pale ale. Well,

18:03

that same mindset,

18:07

we took British IPA

18:10

and brought it into the fold, added

18:13

American yeast, American hop character, higher

18:15

hardness, higher spin, the high sulfate

18:18

that we thought was the key

18:21

to brewing these styles.

18:23

And that led to the development

18:26

of American IPA, West

18:28

Coast IPAs, it's kind of referred to today.

18:32

Less emphasis on the malt

18:34

side, although many of the IPAs

18:36

back then

18:37

were quite amber-colored. I

18:40

mean, they were

18:41

anywhere from eight, 10, 12 SRM,

18:47

whereas now they're more firmly in, say,

18:50

the five, three,

18:52

five, seven kind of range for today.

18:55

They're tailored. But

18:57

yeah, we took the

18:59

higher strength of the English

19:02

IPA, going

19:04

from roughly 1060,

19:05

now kind of bumping

19:07

it up to 1070,

19:09

and I braced that,

19:12

kicked it up even to 1075, added

19:16

more hops, more assertive character. And

19:19

with American IPA, we

19:21

were approaching a

19:22

one-to-one

19:25

bitterness unit to gravity unit ratio.

19:28

Again, making that hop character

19:30

even more hop forward,

19:33

that, sorry, the balance of the beer more hop

19:35

forward than American

19:38

pale ale.

19:41

Did you, how did the

19:43

water profiles evolve over this time? You

19:45

mentioned that, you know, in England,

19:47

obviously we had the London water,

19:49

which had a certain profile, and

19:52

we had the Burton-on-Trent water, which had a certain profile.

19:54

And I know in the early days,

19:56

we didn't necessarily play a lot with water profiles,

19:59

except-

19:59

A lot of us were adding gypsum, I think at that

20:02

point. Yeah. But how did the

20:04

water profiles for

20:07

the styles change as we Americanize

20:09

them?

20:10

Well, and that's

20:15

kind of hard to define because you're

20:17

right, for a long time, really didn't

20:19

understand. I, for

20:22

example, did not understand

20:24

how water profiles

20:26

worked.

20:29

I felt that, yeah, we needed

20:31

to increase hardness and

20:33

we needed to adjust the alkalinity

20:36

somehow,

20:37

but all

20:39

of that was kind of,

20:43

at least a little bit intangible.

20:45

And A.J. DeLang and others,

20:48

Martin, for example, helped

20:50

us

20:51

codify that and help me understand

20:54

it. And that's how I wrote

20:56

the water book. But

20:58

what we basically

21:00

did was we said, okay, we're

21:02

trying to emulate this burden

21:04

on trant water to make great

21:06

IPAs

21:08

to get this crisp, hot character.

21:12

Then we started understanding, okay, that 800

21:14

PPM sulfate

21:15

was not a

21:16

real value.

21:18

I

21:20

mean, yes, it was the real value

21:23

of the groundwater

21:24

if you dig down and burnt on trant

21:27

and

21:27

analyze that, but you have to realize

21:29

this is what

21:30

comes out read Mitch Steele's

21:33

IPA book, one

21:36

of Ron Pattinson's works, Martin Marnell's

21:39

works. You realize that they were brewing

21:42

from wells that were drilled halfway

21:44

between the brewery

21:45

and the river. And the river,

21:47

of course, had much lower hardness,

21:49

more lower alkalinity,

21:52

calcium sulfate. So they were really

21:54

brewing the blend of river, the soft

21:56

river water

21:57

and this hard groundwater.

22:00

So, let's just say we'll cut

22:03

those sulfate numbers

22:05

in half,

22:06

you know, to say 400 max.

22:09

Which is still very, very high.

22:11

Yeah. Yeah, so it's still quite high. And

22:13

it definitely contributed to

22:16

the character

22:18

and mystique these beers had.

22:21

And so in trying to emulate

22:23

that, we were also

22:26

doing higher and higher calcium sulfate

22:28

additions.

22:30

As we came to understand

22:33

how those

22:35

calcium sulfate

22:36

additions

22:37

affected pH, mash,

22:41

and understood where we wanted to be

22:43

in the mash for good conversion,

22:47

we started, you know, kind of moderating

22:49

all of these guidelines

22:51

and kind of

22:52

bringing them down to more realistic numbers.

22:55

So

22:57

yeah, we were brewing

22:58

very high hardness, high sulfate

23:01

IPAs for quite a while.

23:04

And then we've kind of since

23:06

dialed it back to much

23:09

more palatable

23:10

numbers. So, we've got

23:12

multiple numbers that don't leave quite as much calcium

23:15

carbonate scale in the

23:18

hot liquor tank to mash them. Yeah.

23:21

I remember, yeah, using a lot of gypsum

23:24

particularly back in the day.

23:27

I did have a question though, going back to the, you

23:29

know, we talked about bitter and we talked about the

23:31

Burton on Trent styles.

23:34

A traditional British IPA, do you have any historical

23:36

sources to have any idea what the water may have

23:38

looked like or perhaps where they were made?

23:42

Well, they

23:44

were being brewed in several areas.

23:48

I mean,

23:49

the Burton region and,

23:51

forgive me, I'm not

23:53

the beer historian that other people are. That's

23:57

okay. They're

23:58

the, I forget the name.

24:00

I think

24:00

one of the popular breweries there,

24:02

Hull, or... Anyway,

24:07

yeah, they were brewing with

24:09

the Burton water, the higher calcium,

24:12

higher sulfate water,

24:13

and then they

24:16

were also being brewed elsewhere

24:18

with, you know, much softer water,

24:21

I assume.

24:22

With softer water, but still

24:25

highly hopped.

24:26

Still

24:27

basically a stock ale,

24:29

an ale that would

24:31

be, you know, fermented, dry

24:33

hopped in the barrel, and then those barrels

24:36

left to sit

24:37

for a year before

24:39

they would be consumed.

24:41

And so the

24:44

original IPA probably

24:46

was...had a certain

24:49

amount of breath character to it. And

24:52

in fact, Orval

24:54

may be the last surviving

24:57

traditional, you

24:58

know, or real IPA out

25:00

there

25:01

in terms of its hop

25:04

character and breath character

25:07

for a stock ale.

25:09

But

25:11

as we move forward in time, you know,

25:14

the breath character went away. So

25:16

now, and then at the same time,

25:18

you

25:20

know, in the 20th century, hop

25:22

prices,

25:24

malt prices, the wars, you

25:27

know,

25:28

beer gravities have come down,

25:32

refrigeration happened so that they didn't

25:34

need the

25:35

high hop character, the

25:37

high bitterness to

25:39

travel well. I

25:44

could

25:45

go off on a tangent to American

25:48

adjunct blogger, the origins of that

25:50

in the late 1850s on

25:53

up in the early 1900s.

25:56

Less bitter

25:58

beers were extremely bitter. popular.

26:01

And you know people wanted American

26:03

blogger it was clear, it

26:06

didn't form chill haze, it didn't

26:09

spoil, you didn't get

26:11

infected as much,

26:13

it was a much more

26:15

flavor-stable

26:17

product

26:19

and it was less bitter people like

26:21

that.

26:22

So yeah the popularity

26:25

of

26:25

heavy bitter stock ales

26:28

really plummeted

26:29

in the latter half of the

26:31

19th century to the 20th century.

26:35

Makes sense yeah. And also I think

26:37

you know there's a lot of local options available too

26:39

coming out of those places. So we

26:42

didn't necessarily have to ship it across the world.

26:45

Yeah. So walking

26:48

through the different styles so let's talk a little bit about

26:50

some of the modern styles. So

26:52

like an amber or a original pale

26:55

ale and I'm using a same you know sort of like

26:57

a traditional American pale ale maybe something

26:59

like a Sierra Nevada.

27:01

I assume they didn't do a lot of water

27:03

adjustment at that point right because

27:05

we didn't have a lot of this knowledge at that point

27:07

when a lot of these beers were made. Right

27:08

yeah they

27:10

were adding calcium salts

27:14

and the

27:16

the water up in Chico

27:18

for example is a moderate

27:21

hardness

27:22

kind of balanced profile

27:24

if I remember correctly. You know in the 50

27:27

to 75 ppm range for calcium or

27:31

for sulfate

27:34

chloride but it was a more

27:36

balanced profile.

27:39

The addition of calcium sulfate would help bring

27:41

out

27:42

that hop character bit more but

27:45

it really was a fairly

27:48

medium level water moderate

27:51

level water not super high hardness

27:53

not super high sulfate

27:54

and it provided

27:57

a good

27:59

balance between the Maldonado

28:02

characters.

28:04

And the same went for Amber Ale,

28:08

pretty much brewed at the same water.

28:11

And in many breweries across the United

28:13

States, especially

28:15

some of the Eastern breweries,

28:18

they're being brewed with surface

28:20

water, so they were soft water

28:22

sources. So yeah, kind

28:25

of low mineral and made the beers

28:27

overall softer.

28:30

As opposed to the American

28:32

IPA.

28:34

And then as we move it... Go

28:36

ahead, I'm sorry.

28:38

Oh no, I was just going to finish with

28:40

the same. But we had that ideal

28:42

of burden,

28:44

you know, for the IPA

28:46

style.

28:48

Makes sense, yeah.

28:49

And then as we move forward into,

28:52

we see the American IPA style start

28:54

to come on the market, I guess in the,

28:56

oh, I don't know, mid-aughts or something like that,

28:59

right?

28:59

Yeah. Yeah. Did

29:02

we have, I assume we still didn't have

29:04

a lot of water knowledge then, but we were

29:06

probably still kind of following along with kind

29:08

of the Burtonization approach or what?

29:11

Yeah, yeah, it was,

29:12

that was very much the era of

29:14

the classic brewing cities, you

29:17

know, profiles. Yeah. And so,

29:19

yeah, people were doing water just

29:22

based on matching these classic brewing cities.

29:25

Again, not really tying

29:27

it. And there's, you know, tying

29:29

those additions to their source water and

29:32

mash pH.

29:35

pH was, you know, known and we

29:37

would talk about, you

29:39

know, 5.4, 5.2 pH that

29:42

we would see in brewing,

29:44

like German brewing textbooks and some

29:47

of the other, you know, multi-and-brewing

29:50

science textbooks out there.

29:53

So yeah, I mean, it was coming together. It was

29:55

coming together.

29:57

And then, of course, you published the water.

29:59

And about that time I

30:02

started to hear people get a little more

30:04

serious about their water. And

30:06

of course, I'm sure it affected the commercial

30:08

IPA brewing as well.

30:10

Yeah. It's

30:12

funny. I mean, even still

30:14

today,

30:15

when I do my occasional consulting

30:17

job on water, just

30:20

especially for contract breweries, they will

30:22

be given a

30:23

recipe and told,

30:26

here is what you do. Here is all the salts

30:28

that you put in and all the malts

30:31

that you use and the hops that's on. And they brew

30:33

it with no regard

30:35

to what their source water already

30:37

has in it versus the original source water. Which

30:40

is a bad problem. Yeah,

30:41

there's still that disconnect.

30:43

But, you know, it's getting better.

30:46

And, yeah, we

30:48

were

30:49

drilling down to

30:51

exactly how much

30:54

adjustment was needed.

30:56

I remember, oh,

30:58

yeah, back in the early,

30:59

late 90s, early 2000s, there

31:05

was talk of

31:06

kettle pH being more important

31:08

than mash pH

31:10

for a good beer.

31:11

You know, wrong,

31:13

a little bit wrong, not totally wrong, but

31:16

a little bit wrong. But,

31:18

you

31:19

know, it comes from the idea

31:21

that if you have the

31:23

mash pH right to get

31:25

the optimum conversion and

31:28

yield from malts, then

31:30

that chemistry,

31:32

that

31:33

well-coordinated chemistry is going to continue

31:36

on through

31:37

the brewing process. And so, yeah,

31:39

if you have the right mash pH, it's going to

31:42

mean you have the right work pH going into the kettle. And

31:45

that after the boil,

31:47

that pH is going to be

31:49

very favorable for fermentation

31:51

as well. So, you

31:53

know,

31:54

it wasn't completely wrong, but it was just slightly

31:56

wrong.

31:57

Emphasis and understanding the way

31:59

it's treated. slowed down.

32:01

Um,

32:02

I feel like I'm getting off track again. No, no, you're

32:04

good. You're good.

32:05

Um, well, I want to bring one more style into the

32:07

mix, which of course is the hazy, uh, New England

32:10

IPA, which is a kind of a unique

32:12

beast, uh, from a water perspective.

32:15

Uh, can you tell us a little bit about the style, how it diverts

32:17

from the other IPAs? And then

32:19

of course we want to dive into the water profile.

32:22

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a great,

32:24

that's a great, uh,

32:26

topic too.

32:27

So

32:30

American IPA,

32:32

it, you know, as you said, they've had it, it

32:34

had its growth spurt in the early aught,

32:37

um, by 2010, you

32:40

know, they had been around and we had done

32:43

red IPAs, brown IPAs, black

32:45

IPAs, white IPAs. We had done

32:47

every IPA we could think of. Not

32:50

the downplay it, but they still make up over half

32:52

the craft beer made in the United States. So it's still

32:54

a substantial thing.

32:56

Yeah. But yeah, go ahead. Silver

32:59

were widely popular, but you know,

33:01

there's like, where is this going back as well?

33:04

Um, late hopping, more

33:06

hops. That was

33:08

more hops. There's always a passion for American

33:10

hombres and

33:11

craft brewers. And,

33:14

of course they found that by adding them later

33:16

in the process, you preserve more oil,

33:19

get more oil and more romance that

33:21

beer. And, um, in

33:23

the Northeast, uh,

33:26

this led to, you know,

33:28

somebody, it might've been Trillium, it might've

33:30

been a tree house or one of the

33:32

others, uh,

33:33

you know, all

33:35

late hop additions, no hops in the

33:38

boil.

33:38

And the beer turned out hazy.

33:41

Uh, but

33:43

you know, they had also had

33:45

massive hopper room and a massive

33:47

hop flavor.

33:48

And it had this kind of a juicy character

33:51

to it. You know, we were, they were realizing

33:53

more, uh,

33:54

hop character

33:56

doing that method with a hazy

33:59

or IPA. versus the

34:01

crystal clear standard of

34:03

West Coast IPA, green

34:06

flash, stone, Russian river, et cetera,

34:09

and firestone, those are all

34:11

crystal clear West Coast

34:14

IPAs. And there now we have this

34:16

hazy Northeast

34:18

IPA with

34:22

better,

34:24

deeper hopperoma. And that

34:26

was the birth hazy style. Now

34:29

in experimenting with that,

34:31

they added more

34:33

wheat, more oats

34:36

to the style, helped

34:39

increase the head retention,

34:41

made it fluffier tasting.

34:43

And

34:45

when you start looking into

34:48

how to enhance

34:50

that juicy fruity

34:52

character, you've got

34:54

to look at pH.

34:57

And so one downside to

34:59

the lots of dry hopping

35:00

and

35:04

willful hopping

35:05

without boiling

35:07

is that your hops raise

35:09

the pH of the wort and the pH of the

35:11

beer.

35:12

And I think, I don't

35:14

have the

35:15

number in front of me,

35:18

it's like,

35:21

I

35:21

think one pound per barrel raises the

35:23

pH like 0.4,

35:27

almost one half

35:28

unit.

35:29

So

35:31

yeah, so as you add more

35:33

and more hops lately, whirlpool

35:35

hopping, dry hopping, the

35:38

beer pH starts rising considerably.

35:41

It can become,

35:43

the beer can become coarser tasting,

35:45

more stringent, more

35:47

coating to your palate.

35:51

And so we are still adding

35:54

the same

35:54

amount of calcium

35:57

salt, but we're adding more calcium

35:59

chloride.

35:59

because that accentuates maltiness

36:03

and

36:03

backs off a bit on

36:06

the assertive hop character,

36:08

makes it softer and

36:09

makes the beer balance a little

36:12

bit maltier and sweeter

36:14

and less aggressive.

36:16

Probably the extra

36:18

sweetness complements the fruity

36:21

flavors too from the hops I would think.

36:23

It really does and that's an aspect of the juiciness

36:25

character that

36:26

people were looking for that made the

36:29

beer more approachable to the public

36:32

than previous IPA's

36:34

have been.

36:35

But the other aspect to juiciness

36:38

and fruitiness is acidity

36:40

because as you know if you bite into an orange

36:43

or an apple or other piece of fruit those

36:45

are fairly acidic

36:46

items

36:48

and so a lot of

36:50

brewers these days do acid

36:53

adjustments post

36:55

fermentation to bring that pH

36:58

back down.

36:59

During

37:00

dry hopping your pH can rise

37:02

up to 5.6

37:03

and

37:06

back up to homeless mash level

37:09

from the 4.6

37:11

plus I guess 5.6

37:13

is kind of extreme but

37:15

it can rise a lot and so they

37:17

would do acid additions to bring

37:19

that back down to

37:21

the 4.2, 4.4 range which is more

37:25

typical

37:26

of a pale beer.

37:28

Interesting so they're actually I assume

37:31

adding some kind of acid post-matt or

37:33

post-brewing I guess.

37:35

Yeah typically phosphoric

37:37

you can also use lactic or a combination

37:40

thereof.

37:43

So the water profile

37:45

then is almost the opposite of what you have

37:47

for an IPA in a lot of ways right?

37:50

Right well it's it's the same it's

37:52

it's the same in terms of calcium and alkalinity.

37:55

You want hardness, you don't want alkalinity,

37:58

you want a negative residual.

37:59

alkalinity to help bring

38:02

that mashed pH down to your

38:04

target 5.2 to 5.6 or room temperature.

38:08

But to do

38:11

that,

38:11

you're also

38:13

brewing a paler beer,

38:16

so you're often adding

38:18

additional acid

38:19

to that high hardness to

38:22

help that high hardness along.

38:24

It's hard without the specialty malt

38:27

that add acidity, it's hard to get

38:29

pH down

38:31

with the malts alone.

38:33

So they're usually

38:36

adding some acid

38:39

to the hot liquor tank or to the mash ton

38:41

to help get the initial pH down.

38:44

But they're swapping out the calcium

38:47

salt, whereas before we were using

38:49

calcium sulfate

38:50

to really accentuate the hop character, make

38:52

it dry

38:53

or assertive

38:55

or aggressive.

38:56

Now they're switching to calcium chloride.

38:59

Calcium chloride accentuates the

39:00

malt character,

39:02

makes the beer taste a little bit sweeter,

39:05

makes that hop character a

39:07

little softer.

39:09

And overall, the

39:11

focus of the beer switches

39:14

from an aggressively bitter beer to

39:16

a huge soft

39:19

hoppy beer.

39:20

Yeah, appreciate that distinction.

39:23

Yeah.

39:24

So we're getting to the end, but

39:26

I was wondering if we could walk back through the different

39:30

styles that we talked about today, maybe starting with the bitter

39:32

and the Burton-on-Trent and so on,

39:34

and just describe the water profiles for

39:37

each, you know, so it can help home

39:39

brewers maybe target each of them.

39:42

Yeah. So yeah, British

39:44

bitter,

39:45

you're looking for a balanced sulfate

39:47

to chloride ratio, one to one or

39:50

near one to one, somewhere

39:52

in the 50 to 75

39:54

TPM range for both sulfate

39:57

and chloride. You're

39:59

looking for...

40:00

moderate hardness, again, you know, 50

40:04

to 75 calcium

40:06

is a good number. You're

40:07

gonna have,

40:10

typically have, a

40:12

medium to high alkalinity

40:15

that could be 75 to 100 PPM

40:18

of bicarbonate

40:20

or total alkalinity.

40:22

Your residual alkalinity is typically

40:24

going to be positive

40:26

somewhere in the 50 to 100 range.

40:29

And

40:30

you're gonna rely on specialty

40:32

maltsins you're adding to these British bitters to

40:35

help bring that pH down back

40:36

into that 5.2 to 5.6 range.

40:39

So again, medium

40:42

hardness, medium to high alkalinity,

40:45

you know,

40:46

you're putting up with that. It's not

40:48

a goal, it

40:49

is. And then medium sulfate,

40:52

alright, 50

40:53

to 75. Yeah.

40:55

And that's switching to a mertonail, for

40:57

example, different? Burton, yep,

41:00

Burtonail.

41:01

Now we're moving, you know, from London

41:03

up to Burton.

41:04

And now we have higher

41:06

hardness, 75 to 125 calcium and anywhere from 400

41:12

to 500

41:16

sulfate, typically. Again,

41:17

the diluted

41:19

water they're getting with the river.

41:22

Hard to know exactly,

41:24

but different breweries did different

41:26

things.

41:26

But yeah, you're generally

41:29

higher hardness,

41:30

higher sulfate,

41:32

and you get a much

41:34

more hot, assertive beer.

41:37

And then of course, switching over to the United

41:40

States, let's talk about the early amber

41:42

and pale ales. What kind of a profile would

41:44

they have?

41:46

Yep, we are imitating that same

41:48

kind of profile,

41:50

but with softer,

41:52

typically softer water, surface

41:54

waters in the eastern half of

41:56

the country.

41:59

Again, adding some calcium

42:02

sulfate, generally looking

42:04

at the same kind of

42:06

levels as British

42:07

bitter, 75 to 100

42:09

calcium. So

42:12

pretty moderate water, not the Burton

42:14

and Trent then, right?

42:16

Right. Right. 50 to 75

42:19

calcium, sorry, sulfate, 50 to 75 chloride.

42:28

And what do you remember?

42:31

When you go to American IPA, it's

42:34

up for that. Now we crank up the

42:36

calcium sulfate, we make more additions.

42:39

And we're taking that calcium level

42:41

to 100, 150 range, higher range. Again,

42:47

the same with sulfate

42:49

anywhere from 100, 150, up to 300 in some cases, in

42:51

the

42:54

2010s. Which

42:57

of course is going to accentuate the

43:00

hoppiness in the beer, right?

43:02

Exactly.

43:03

Yeah. And then with the advent of

43:05

hazy ICPAs

43:07

and the evolution of those, we

43:10

flip the sulfate and chloride around,

43:12

still high calcium, and

43:14

maybe that comes down a little bit,

43:16

more around the 100 ppm

43:18

max. But we're taking

43:21

that chloride up to 150 ppm

43:25

with say only 50 to 75 ppm sulfate.

43:29

So I mean, when we look at the sulfate to chloride

43:31

ratio, which is sort of the ratio of bitterness,

43:35

is it almost inverted there

43:37

from a regular IPA?

43:39

Basically? Yes. Wow. So

43:42

that's cool. Whereas sulfate to chloride in the West Coast IP

43:44

would be something like

43:46

two to one or four to one,

43:48

the sulfate to chloride in

43:51

a hazy IPA would

43:53

be one to two or one

43:55

to three.

43:57

So almost inverted, yeah.

43:59

Well, cool. Well,

44:02

John, I was wondering maybe if you could just close

44:04

with the overall role water plays

44:07

in a lot of the modern beer styles. And

44:09

also maybe some comments on where you see us going

44:11

from here.

44:14

Yeah.

44:16

I think I've

44:17

tried to keep this in perspective.

44:20

Water is an important aspect

44:23

of brewing. It is that final 10%

44:27

of the flavor profile, if you will. Being

44:30

able to adjust the sulfate,

44:33

chloride, and the hardness to alkalinity

44:35

to really

44:37

dial in the

44:38

right pH for the beer and

44:41

the right flavor balance, sulfate

44:43

to chloride, hoppiness to maltiness.

44:46

Where you put that balance is that final

44:49

adjustment to make to

44:51

a great beer. Just like final

44:54

seasoning a great chef does to

44:56

a dish.

44:59

Otherwise, you can brew

45:01

good beer, any water

45:04

out there, any clean water out there.

45:07

It's when you understand the

45:09

nuances of seasoning and

45:12

fine tuning pH that can allow you to really

45:15

open it up to the

45:17

next level.

45:19

Awesome, John. Well, thank you

45:21

again for coming on the show. Really appreciate you being here.

45:24

Thank you. Thank you very much.

45:27

Well, it's a great pleasure today to have my good friend,

45:29

John Palmer. John is the author of the top

45:32

selling homebrew book in the world still, which

45:34

is called How to Brew,

45:35

as well as the definitive book on brewing

45:38

called Water.

45:39

John, thank you again for coming on the show.

45:42

Thank you, Brad.

45:45

A big thank you to John Palmer for joining me this

45:47

week. Thanks also to Craft Beer

45:49

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