Reading articles on beer history can be pretty depressing. Dead depressing. That's why I stay away from beer magazines as much as I can.I just happened upon this article by Roger Protz about Russian Stout and just couldn't stop myself reading it.
Rather than throw myself in the canal or start chewing the furniture, I had an idea. Use the article as a competition. Brilliant!
It's very simple. See how many factual mistakes you can spot in the article. The one who comes up with the most, wins a book. Generous soul that I am, I'll let you choose which.
Thanks for the corrected link Stan.
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15 comments:
Given that the link leads to a blank page, the answer is none.
I claim my prize.
I think in order to spare the furniture Ron has taken it down!
Yes, although you can read it here: http://aabg.org/newsletters/2008/AABG200809.pdf
My guesses:
1. "These beers were exceptionally
high in alcohol and hops to enable them to withstand the rigors of a long sea journey."
Sounds like a rehash of the IPA myth!
2. "It is thought that pilsner
malt was used from the 19th century—perhaps some European malt came back in the vessels that supplied the Baltic with beer."
Seems a little unlikely but who knows.
3. "my only caveats about the Sam Smith’s beer is that 7 percent alcohol is a little on the shy side for the style"
'Not to style!'
I can't find the article either, but I did stumble on the article on Brown Ale where I was solemnly informed that if I don't like Newcastle Brown, I don't like beer. That's twenty years wasted then. All that time I thought I liked beer when I really don't. It's good we have homebrew twats to tell us these things.
Can't the BGBW start an annual award for leading writer of beer fiction? I'd be interested to see whether Roger or Papazian would win.
Protz's original article in AAB, if that's the one Ron meant, is also here, for those that don't want to download a pdf.
He lost me at the start of the second sentence, "It was a historic site, with deep roots in the brewing of porter, stout and pale ale …". Courage was a mild ale brewer, not a porter brewer, and didn't brew pale ale, in the sense of bitter ale, either: it had to buy a brewery in Alton, Hants (which is where Directors bitter originated) to supply its pubs with pale ales. At the point where Protzie described Perkins as "another banker" I gave up completely: Perkins was Thrale's head brewer before he went into partnership with Barclay, which any sort of research would have revealed. And the line about Courage transferring the name of Barclay's Anchor brewery to its own site is pure historical assumptionism: Roger knows the Barclay's site was called the Anchor brewery, he knows the Courage site, in his time, was called the Anchor brewery, he assumes there couldn't have been two Anchor breweries so close to each other, and he assumes Courage must have transferred the name Anchor from the Southwark brewery to its own Horsleydown one. But in fact they WERE both called the Anchor brewery.
There's more: but I'll give others a chance ...
In the article that Matt pointed to, "A touch of Pilsner malt" is mentioned. This is analogous to the 3% white malt in the Truman stuff for porter given in an earlier blog on here.
So it seems that this was not just a bit of Truman nonsense, but was done by other breweries too. Why did they do that? What earthly difference will a "touch" of anything do in beers with such highly assertive malts and flavours?
Yet another mystery.
So Barclay Perkins was an American owned company!! Further proof that if it is worth owning an American owns it.
Ron's head explodes in 5,4,3 ......
All About Beer rolled out its new site yesterday and changed everything. I think this is the story you are referring to, right?
http://allaboutbeer.com/learn-beer/history/2002/03/imperial-russian-stout/
I am not a Russsian Imperial Stouts expert, but I have visited A. Le Coq brewery in Tartu and actually know enough of history of brewing and beer drinking habits of this region (where I happen to live) to spot some 3 mistakes in just one paragraph describing the establishing of the Stout brewery in the Russian empire, so I believe there could be many more in the rest of the article. My guess is 28.
Cool, Matt, your link is to the newsletter of my local homebrew club, Ann Arbor Brewers Guild. Note that I was hosting the August meeting.
Our newsletter is nothing special since we can't find anyone who wants to write anything for it, so our editor is obliged to find stuff on the web that pertains to the monthly style. The club itself is great, though.
You can also find it by using Google:
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:0hlzTe0xnjwJ:www.allaboutbeer.com/style/23.1-russianstout.html+http://allaboutbeer.com/style/23.1-russianstout.html&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=opera
Thanks Stan for the new link.
How 'bout this quote:
"...Target hops, around 24 pounds per barrel, were used. That’s four times the hop rate of a conventional beer."
Now I know the UK barrel is larger than the US beer barrel, but wouldn't "6 lbs/barrel" still be rather high for a "conventional" beer of the 1990's in the UK?
Protz and research! Take a look at https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5972965757983998426&postID=6838411630592564483 and https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5445569787371915337&postID=8924083928422168396 and https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=5445569787371915337&postID=8924083928422168396
Posted from Cologne after an enormous Kotelet at Lommi's - Ron, you really should get along there.
"The utilitarian Victorians loved simplicity and hated waste. To this end, Harvey’s and other similar breweries, such as Hook Norton and Tolly Cobbold, avoid the use of pumps that can all too easily break down."
Hmm... Take a look at Harvey's brewery (built in 1860s I think).
http://www.harveys.org.uk/uploads/20090817105011_breweryslide1.small.jpg.jpg
Not very utilitarian is it? Quite a lot of unnecessary decoration and embellishment. Which is, of course, why we like them. And why the owner commissioned them. A bit of peacocking going on, I think.
If you want utilitarian look at InBev's Leuven brewery. Nice if you like industrial units.
I guess victorian pumps were unreliable compared to modern ones but does RP have any reference to back this up?
Writing in 1880s E R Southby (Practical Brewing) decries the tower brewery and recommends a horizontal layout. This is mainly because with a tower design:
1. The owner/head brewer will be running up and down stairs all day and become knackered.
2. Those ingrate underlings will be skiving off, hiding behind the malt sacks playing cards, if the owner can't keep his beady eye on them.
We think that all victorian breweries were of the tower design but I suspect this is because a pretty tower is so striking we notice and celebrate it. Those other (probably more utilitarian!) non-tower designs don't get noticed. And a tower is pretty inflexible, I suspect, so once you have one you have to go on using it as is. Victorian horizontal designs would basically be large low building and could more easily be converted or modernised.
And no, I don't have any references to back this up. Oops :-))
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