Cock ale.
It sounds funny. Even dirty. But it's not. At least not in the way your twisted mind is probably thinking.
Cock ale is actually ale, a type of beer brewed with malted barley and yeast and then fermented at relatively high temperatures (for fermentation, anyway), that is also fermented with poultry, often chicken.
Cock ale has a history going back at least 500 years, and some beer historians believe that history started in Scotland.
As mentioned, this beverage is often made with chicken, but sometimes duck or other poultry can be used. Also, fruits, nutmeg, clove, mace and sometimes other herbs are used in the fermentation process. The chicken and the herbs can also be soaked in wine for a day or longer to add a little zing to the flavor.
Strictly speaking, the general goal is to create a mincemeat of the poultry being used, but modern recipes often just rely on using shredded chicken.
However, all that being said, you shouldn't just take shredded poultry and mix it in with beer you bought from the store. You'll just end up with a mess, and it'll taste nasty.
Proper cock ale is made during the actual beer-making process, during the fermentation. I'm not going to go into all the details of beer brewing because aficionados will already know and everybody else is not likely to care, but basically the poultry and other ingredients are placed into a bag and added to the fermenting beer on the second day of fermentation. Fermentation should take about a week longer than usual and the final product should be matured in the bottle for about a month before drinking.
Generally speaking, cock ales have a taste and texture akin to what are often called barley wines. Cock ales are usually darker or red, and usually have a fruity taste to them. But what can you expect if you add all that fruit?
So, there you go. At its most basic, cock ale is ale that's been fermented with chicken. Now you know.
Showing posts with label Beer history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beer history. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Thursday, July 1, 2010
How bad beer came to be, a basic history
Beer back in the day
Beer is a pretty simple drink. In most culture it's usually made from malted barley, which adds sweetness, and flowering clusters known as hops, which add bitterness. There are other possible additions to the recipe, quite often wheat and sometimes fruit. Many modern breweries also include yeast in their beer recipe, because yeast builds the fermentation process.
The Germans, who traditionally take their beer quite seriously even came up with a Beer Purity Law in nearly 500 years ago. In 1516, in the city of Ingolstadt, a law known as the Reinheintsgebot was passed that outlines the ingredients of beer as only water, barley and hops.
So, a simple drink. But within the limitations of what actually goes into making beer, there are plenty of possibilities, thus the many different types and flavors of beer available today.
More recent history
Before the late 19th century, most beer was regional beer. If you walked into a local tavern and ordered a brew, that brew was almost certainly thrown together by a local brewer. The reason for this is twofold. First, proper refrigeration technology did not as of yet exist. Second, transportation back in ye olden days was slow, usually by ship or horse. And beer couldn't travel for long without refrigeration because it would go bad, stale, skanky, whatever you want to call it.
Along comes the late 19th century. Railroads hit the scene, thus decreasing travel times immensely. And modern refrigeration is invented. Put the two together and you've got fast vehicles that can support refrigerated cars big enough to hold lots of beer.
So, beer could go anywhere. Which is what brought about today's modern, large beer companies. Think Anheuser-Busch, for example. Trains and refrigeration allowed brewers to sell their beers not only across the country, but across the globe.
Along come the cheapskates
As happens with any company growing in size, eventually the bosses look for ways to cut costs. They've got to make a buck or two, after all.
Malted barley could be expensive. But malted barley is important in making many beers. So, how to cut the costs there? By cutting down on the malt being used. Instead, other grains were tossed into many beer recipes, grains such as rice and corn which were cheaper to come by.
Unfortunately, rice and corn don't taste like malted barley. They don't even taste like wheat. They tend to weaken the flavor of beer while also lightening the color.
Thus you have most of today's mass-marketed beers. Budweiser. Miller. Coors. You know their names.
More on the coloring
Traditionally, beer kind of has a cloudy look to it. If you looked inside a clear glass or bottle of beer, it would almost seem as if stuff was floating around in there. That's because stuff was floating around in there, stuff like bits and pieces of the very malts and hops used to make the beer. There generally wasn't enough floating in the drink to ruin it or to turn it into sludge, but still there was stuff there floating around in your beer.
It seems many consumers don't like stuff floating around in their drinks. Understandable to some extent.
If beer sits still for a while, at least a few days in most cases but sometimes longer, gravity will take care of the job and those floating bits will sink to the bottom of the bottle or barrel. This will leave behind clear beer, at least until the bottle or barrel was moved.
Still, this natural separation takes time, and time means money.
What mass brewers have done to rectify this situation is to add clarifying agents to their beers. These clarifying agents work to bring together all that loose stuff floating around in the beer, and once clumped together the brewer can scoop the stuff out along with most of the clarifying agents. What kind of clarifying agents are used? There are plenty of different kinds: some types of yeast, gelatin, isinglass, etc. The list could go on.
Basically all these extra ingredients do is to make your beer clear.
Mass-marketed beer
There are many different types of beer commonly referred to as "bad," and taste is obviously subjective. Beer one person loves might taste like the bottom of an ashtray to someone else. It's all subjective.
Still, among beer aficionados, there are beers generally thought of as "bad" or "awful" or, at least, "not very good." Many of the modern, mass-marketed beers fall into this category. To be fair, those beers to serve their purposes. They might not taste great to the beer snobs, but they're usually cheap, wet and easy to find just about anywhere you go. Also, mass-marketed beers are consistent; like them or love them, a can of Schlitz in Florida is going to taste pretty much like a can of Schlitz in Alaska.
So, we've got mass-marketed brews. For experienced beer drinkers and tasters, it's easy to spot a mass-marketed brew with but a sip. The flavor is often weak and watery. The color is usually quite pale, almost like urine. The smell is also often weak, but sometimes noxious. Then you have light beers which commonly have even less taste and often seem loaded down with carbonation.
The simple truth is most of these beers taste this way because what makes beer, malt and hops and sometimes wheat, have been reduced. Instead, fillers have been included, like rice and corn.
True beer snobs might not even consider these mass-marketed brews real beer. But I won't go that far.
For one thing, there's nothing wrong with these mass brews from a business point of view or from the view of your average Joe. But the beer snobs want more.
I want more. Which is why I taste all kinds of different beers, from the good to the "bad."
Beer is a pretty simple drink. In most culture it's usually made from malted barley, which adds sweetness, and flowering clusters known as hops, which add bitterness. There are other possible additions to the recipe, quite often wheat and sometimes fruit. Many modern breweries also include yeast in their beer recipe, because yeast builds the fermentation process.
The Germans, who traditionally take their beer quite seriously even came up with a Beer Purity Law in nearly 500 years ago. In 1516, in the city of Ingolstadt, a law known as the Reinheintsgebot was passed that outlines the ingredients of beer as only water, barley and hops.
So, a simple drink. But within the limitations of what actually goes into making beer, there are plenty of possibilities, thus the many different types and flavors of beer available today.
More recent history
Before the late 19th century, most beer was regional beer. If you walked into a local tavern and ordered a brew, that brew was almost certainly thrown together by a local brewer. The reason for this is twofold. First, proper refrigeration technology did not as of yet exist. Second, transportation back in ye olden days was slow, usually by ship or horse. And beer couldn't travel for long without refrigeration because it would go bad, stale, skanky, whatever you want to call it.
Along comes the late 19th century. Railroads hit the scene, thus decreasing travel times immensely. And modern refrigeration is invented. Put the two together and you've got fast vehicles that can support refrigerated cars big enough to hold lots of beer.
So, beer could go anywhere. Which is what brought about today's modern, large beer companies. Think Anheuser-Busch, for example. Trains and refrigeration allowed brewers to sell their beers not only across the country, but across the globe.
Along come the cheapskates
As happens with any company growing in size, eventually the bosses look for ways to cut costs. They've got to make a buck or two, after all.
Malted barley could be expensive. But malted barley is important in making many beers. So, how to cut the costs there? By cutting down on the malt being used. Instead, other grains were tossed into many beer recipes, grains such as rice and corn which were cheaper to come by.
Unfortunately, rice and corn don't taste like malted barley. They don't even taste like wheat. They tend to weaken the flavor of beer while also lightening the color.
Thus you have most of today's mass-marketed beers. Budweiser. Miller. Coors. You know their names.
More on the coloring
Traditionally, beer kind of has a cloudy look to it. If you looked inside a clear glass or bottle of beer, it would almost seem as if stuff was floating around in there. That's because stuff was floating around in there, stuff like bits and pieces of the very malts and hops used to make the beer. There generally wasn't enough floating in the drink to ruin it or to turn it into sludge, but still there was stuff there floating around in your beer.
It seems many consumers don't like stuff floating around in their drinks. Understandable to some extent.
If beer sits still for a while, at least a few days in most cases but sometimes longer, gravity will take care of the job and those floating bits will sink to the bottom of the bottle or barrel. This will leave behind clear beer, at least until the bottle or barrel was moved.
Still, this natural separation takes time, and time means money.
What mass brewers have done to rectify this situation is to add clarifying agents to their beers. These clarifying agents work to bring together all that loose stuff floating around in the beer, and once clumped together the brewer can scoop the stuff out along with most of the clarifying agents. What kind of clarifying agents are used? There are plenty of different kinds: some types of yeast, gelatin, isinglass, etc. The list could go on.
Basically all these extra ingredients do is to make your beer clear.
Mass-marketed beer
There are many different types of beer commonly referred to as "bad," and taste is obviously subjective. Beer one person loves might taste like the bottom of an ashtray to someone else. It's all subjective.
Still, among beer aficionados, there are beers generally thought of as "bad" or "awful" or, at least, "not very good." Many of the modern, mass-marketed beers fall into this category. To be fair, those beers to serve their purposes. They might not taste great to the beer snobs, but they're usually cheap, wet and easy to find just about anywhere you go. Also, mass-marketed beers are consistent; like them or love them, a can of Schlitz in Florida is going to taste pretty much like a can of Schlitz in Alaska.
So, we've got mass-marketed brews. For experienced beer drinkers and tasters, it's easy to spot a mass-marketed brew with but a sip. The flavor is often weak and watery. The color is usually quite pale, almost like urine. The smell is also often weak, but sometimes noxious. Then you have light beers which commonly have even less taste and often seem loaded down with carbonation.
The simple truth is most of these beers taste this way because what makes beer, malt and hops and sometimes wheat, have been reduced. Instead, fillers have been included, like rice and corn.
True beer snobs might not even consider these mass-marketed brews real beer. But I won't go that far.
For one thing, there's nothing wrong with these mass brews from a business point of view or from the view of your average Joe. But the beer snobs want more.
I want more. Which is why I taste all kinds of different beers, from the good to the "bad."
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
What's the difference between beer and malt liquor?
The term "Malt liquor" began as a legal term in the United States for beers with an alcohol content of 5 percent or more. However, since malt liquor was first introduced in the 1940s, the social and marketing definition of this drink has come to refer to beer made with malted barley and has an alcohol content of 5 percent or higher.
However, different states today have various definitions of what products can be labeled as "malt liquors," though must are close to the definition above.
So, what is the difference between beer and malt liquor? It's really more of a social defining. Malt liquors are generally considered to be of low quality and to have a low price, thus they have a reputation for being common alcoholic beverages of the poor and lower classes in the U.S.
That being said, there are plenty of beers in the U.S. and in other countries which contain more than the 5 percent of alcohol and are made with malted barley, but are not considered malt liquors.
Beers with high alcohol content, especially in Europe, are often the opposite of malt liquor concerning quality and price. For these beers, it really comes down to the brewer and marketing and, though this is subjective, to general expected quality. These specialty beers usually come with a high price tag and are said by brewing experts to have quality taste and texture. Malt liquors, on the other hand, are usually said by beer experts to have lower levels of quality in taste and texture. Also, malt liquors are usually made with what are considered less desirable filler products for beer, such as rice or corn.
The first beverage called a malt liquor was Clix, first brewed by the Grand Valley Brewing Company of Ionia, Michigan, in 1937.
However, different states today have various definitions of what products can be labeled as "malt liquors," though must are close to the definition above.
So, what is the difference between beer and malt liquor? It's really more of a social defining. Malt liquors are generally considered to be of low quality and to have a low price, thus they have a reputation for being common alcoholic beverages of the poor and lower classes in the U.S.
That being said, there are plenty of beers in the U.S. and in other countries which contain more than the 5 percent of alcohol and are made with malted barley, but are not considered malt liquors.
Beers with high alcohol content, especially in Europe, are often the opposite of malt liquor concerning quality and price. For these beers, it really comes down to the brewer and marketing and, though this is subjective, to general expected quality. These specialty beers usually come with a high price tag and are said by brewing experts to have quality taste and texture. Malt liquors, on the other hand, are usually said by beer experts to have lower levels of quality in taste and texture. Also, malt liquors are usually made with what are considered less desirable filler products for beer, such as rice or corn.
The first beverage called a malt liquor was Clix, first brewed by the Grand Valley Brewing Company of Ionia, Michigan, in 1937.
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