Sainte Foy Tarentaise : Saturday 11 July 2020
Crystal Dark beer is the latest addition to the 1580m beer list. As it’s name suggests, it’s a dark beer of the stout or porter genre, and it’s a delicious blend of fruitiness and hops, with hints of coffee, and is slightly sweeter and less bitter than other more well known stouts.
We wanted to know what goes into making a craft stout beer, so we asked Steve Hatton, owner of 1580m and Head Brewer, to tell what’s involved.
The first thing Steve told us, is that traditionally, brewers always matched their beer to the type of water they were using. The various elements and minerals in the water impart a particular flavour into the beer, and since water makes up 90-95% of beer, it’s important!
The River Liffey water flowing through Dublin has it’s own peaty characteristics which make it suitable for making Guinness, but not necessarily good for other beers.
So how do you make different beers in Sainte Foy from the same water?
Steve uses local melt water. To meet EU regulations for drinking water, a small amount of chlorine has been added, so the first thing he does is to remove this chlorine. The next step is to add the minute amount of natural minerals which are found in the water of whichever region is renowned for the beer he is making at the time.
Originally an oil and gas engineer by trade, chemistry is his passion, and purifying the water to its natural state and recreating a particular region’s natural mineral content, is a game he enjoys. It is also an important step if you want to create authentic craft beers of distinction.
What makes up the other 5-10% of the beer?
A really important aspect in brewing is to match the barley and hops to the water. The big regional breweries always used to tailor their beers to suit their local water, and as different barley and hop varieties match certain water types, you can soon see how regional breweries developed their own particular beers.
The ‘Grain Bill’ is the term used to describe the list of barley varieties used.
Steve uses 90% Maris Otter. It’s an old style barley with a toasty flavour. Higher yields from other barley varieties have made Maris Otter more expensive, but its superior malting characteristics have kept it as the favoured variety amongst craft beer producers.
The other 10% of the barley we use comes from four varieties, one of which is Carafa, which is roasted and gives the beer its coffee flavour and black look. It has to be decorticated, have its husk removed, in order to roast it and this adds cost. But it provides a fabulous chocolatey flavour without being bitter, so it’s well worth it.
That’s two ingredients. What are the others?
This beer is made from barley, hops, water and yeast. There are no artificial preservatives, nor sulphites in Crystal Dark! So hops is the other main ingredient, and it gives the beer a lot of its flavour. Columbus and Cascade hops are used in Crystal Dark.
Columbus hops give the beer a punchy ‘hoppiness’ and a deep, pensive aroma with subtle citrus notes. Cascade provides lemon, citrus, and fruity flavours. Combined, they provide the stout with its classic earthy and bitter tones
There is a 60 minute boil process for the malted barley, with some hops added at the at the beginning of the boil. More hops are added at various points in boil process, with some added in last five minutes to give additional flavour.
After boiling, and cooling, some more hops are added during the fermentation process and this is called dry hopping. (It’s not dry exactly, but it’s not part of boil process).
What’s the difference between stout and porter?
Not a lot really, and it depends on who you talk to. They are very similar, but porter gets its name from it being a good drink for porters and working people!
Where does the beer get its ‘head’ from?
This is real ale and it gets all its CO2 naturally via the fermentation process. Other beers have CO2 added, but craft beers and real ale beers do not.
Crystal Dark stout is brewed on the premises at 1580m. It’s not bottled, there are no labels, and the beer goes straight from fermentation barrels to the bar where it is served. For this fabulous stout, 1580m measure their green miles in feet and inches!
Crystal Dark stout made its debut at the Sainte Foy’s first Beer Festival on Saturday 11 July 2020.
Read other articles about Sainte Foy on the Time to Ski blog page
