Mixed fermentation is the process of fermenting wort into beer by manually adding lab grown microorganisms to the wort the morning after it is brewed. This wort destined to be a mixed fermentation beer is cooled in a sterile tank over night and the next morning we introduce a blend of microorganisms into the wort before it is pumped into barrels.
A couple years ago we had the great privilege of pouring beer at Foudres Unis, a beer festival hosted by Brasserie Dunham in Quebec. Once we arrived in Dunham, we were told that we would be sharing accommodations with the folks from Twin Sails. We had never met the Twin Sails team before but weren’t concerned as most folks in the brewing business tend to be easy to get along with. To make matters even better, the generous folks at Dunham provided each accommodation with a case of their beer, so we got to work sampling the wares with Cody, Clay and Eli and got to know each other over a few beers and next couple days. As tends to happen in these circumstances we thought it would be a great idea to do a mixed fermentation collab together at some point. We didn’t have a specific plan or date in mind, but the intention was clear.
In early 2019 we heard that Eli was traveling to Edmonton along with Jeffrey, one of the Twin Sails sales team, for a local festival and tap takeover so we put our collaboration plan in to action. Eli and Doug worked together to plan out the recipe opting to go with something different thqn our standard base wort. Typically, the Monolith beers use just Pilsner Malt and Unmalted Wheat. The idea was to change it up with the addition of Caraaroma and Munich malts to add fruitiness and depth, which would highlight the use of freshly emptied Spanish red wine barrels we happened to have. The wort was made using the turbid mash method typically used for the Monolith beers and placed into the fresh 500L Spanish red wine barrels with a house blend of microorganisms. As you may have noted from a prior post, we’ve learned that our mixed fermentations beers peak after 12 to 18 months in barrel, so true to form we waited until 16 months before blending the batch and some additional barrels to round out the blend. As we bottle condition all of the Monolith beers it spent nearly 9 months in the cellar until we felt the secondary fermentation and conditioning were complete.
It also picked up some tannin from the barrels which helps round out the texture. We don’t have any special hop additions in this beer beyond our standard aged hops, so it has low bitterness. Finally, it has a medium level of acidity that does a great job emphasizing the red fruit notes that characterize this beer.
The name of this beer and branding stem from its origin. One Night in Dunham we met the folks from Twin Sails and agreed to make a beer with them. The label is an homage to their iconic style combined with our passion for landscape art on our expansive beers. We hope you like it.
Our first release of 2021 is Mentis Oculi, an addition to our Dry Hop Series from the Monolith. Like its sibling Un Petit Peu we used a blend of mixed fermentation barrels from our first batches of beer fermented in Marsala barrels. You’re likely wondering why it’s taken much longer for this beer to be released in comparison, and there is a very good reason for it. Barrel fermented beer can be fermented for between one and four years, changing and developing character over time.
Previously we have made blends when our barrels were younger (about 1 year) as they showed great characteristics for young barrels. We did however sit on the remaining barrels for another six to eight months and discovered that additional fermentation time further rounded out their character and made for a more delicious beer.
Mentis Oculi differs from previous Dry Hop Series beers due to a change in hop varietal in the dry-hopping regime. Dry-hopping is a process where we add fresh pelletized hops to a finished beer in order to extract hop oils and resins to add hop character to the beer. For Mentis Oculi we wanted to combine both old world and new world hop character. To achieve this, we used a combination of German Tettenang and American Simcoe. We expected the combination of these two very different hops would result in something more than the sum of their parts.
Like other beers in the Dry Hop Series this one also features art from the mural on the back of the Monolith by the amazing Mr. Cenz. The piece of the mural we chose the label also happens to reflect the title of the beer (Mentis Oculi means “of an eye”).
The fourth release from The Monolith is another first: it is our first fruit beer. Fruitful Pursuits: Plum is the first in a series of fruit beers from The Monolith. We’ll be doing a number of fruit beers under the “Fruitful Pursuits” umbrella that will be accompanied by the fruit or blend of fruits in the name. To create this beer, we used more than 750kg of ripe Damson and Presidents plums shipped directly from the Okanagan. We processed the plums by hand (removing about a third of the pits and squishing them to disrupt the skins), and then added the crushed plums to our specially designed fruiting tanks. We have very fond memories of “Plum Squishing Day”!
We used whole fruit to make this beer, the hardest and most time-consuming way to make a fruit beer. But it’s absolutely worth it.
The barrels selected for this blend were from batches of mix-fermentation beer from our first year of production. We selected nicely balanced and fruit forward barrels to enhance the Plum character with the knowledge that the plums will add some brisk acidity to the beer. The plums sat on the beer for two months and the mixture went through another round of fermentation as the sugar from the plums was consumed. The resulting beer has a beautiful ruby-purple color, lots of bold plum character and a medium-high acidity. We always aim for balance in our beers, and even though Fruitful Pursuits: Plum is our most acidic beer to date it is still has a delightful fruit character and full texture.
Fruit beers are fairly common and there are several different processes that breweries use to create them. If one were looking for just fruit flavouring, one could simply use a fruit extract, a chemically processed syrup that contains “fruit essence” or artificial fruit flavour. Many breweries wanting a natural fruit flavour use pureed fruit, which is mechanically processed fruit, processed and often pasteurized to be easier to transport and utilize. Traditionally breweries would use fresh, unprocessed whole fruit, which not only adds flavour of the fruit but also character from the skins, seeds, and stems. The fruit (whatever the source) is generally added after primary fermentation. With almost all methods, apart from fruit extract as it adds next to no sugar, the beer and fruit will go through a secondary fermentation. This fermentation will vary in time and complexity depending on the availability of the sugar and complexity of fermentation. A puree has fermentable sugars that are well disrupted and readily accessible, thus fermenting quickly and cleanly. The puree processing removes parts of fruit that could also add further complexity. Using whole or lightly crushed fruit leads to a slow fermentation process because the sugars are not as readily available. This benefits different microorganisms from the beer and fruit allowing time to create different compounds adding to flavour complexity and depth. Different parts of the fruit such as the stems and seeds also have time to break down and release tannins, phenolic compounds, and acids further adding to the depth of flavour and colour.
In many ways Fruitful Pursuits: Plum is an homage to the great fruit beers of our favorite traditional breweries. There for, as you may have guessed, we used whole fruit to make this beer, which admittedly is the most labour intensive and time-consuming way to make a fruit beer. But it is absolutely worth it! Fruitful Pursuits: Plum was a lot of work, it was also a true labour of love. We’re really proud of this beer and look forward to its imminent release on Friday, August 21st. We’ll have 750ml and 375ml bottles available at our location, as well as select liquor stores throughout Alberta. We hope you like it.
Our third Monolith beer launch was actually our second blend, and the process we used required more conditioning time before it was complete. Un Petit Peu is dry hopped, meaning we added hops to the beer after it was blended and conditioned in our blending tanks. This is our first dry-hopped beer from the Monolith, and we are already planning for more as we like the unique character from the additional hopping.
Un Petit Peu was blended from the original sets of mixed-ferment barrels, the same sets that we used to create Measure of Patience and Substantially Complete. As mentioned in prior columns we use a standard process for creating wort that is put into barrels for fermentation. We get unique variation due to the natural variance in character development barrel to barrel. We use aged, whole-leaf hops in the boil during wort production, giving our beers a very low bitterness and subtle aged-hop flavour (they can sometimes be perceived as tea-like).
For our first dry-hopped beer we elected to use two fairly uncommon French hops—Barbe Rouge and Mistral. These impart subtle red berry and floral notes to the beer. We made the blend knowing it would be dry-hopped, so the goal was a more balanced, light-acidity blend. This profile enhances the berry and floral notes we knew we could expect from these hops. We are very happy with the outcome.
You will likely notice the unique art on this bottle. It’s the first in our series of dry-hopped beers and each of these beers will feature a piece of the mural on the back of the Monolith. Each of our family of beers has a consistent theme or source of art. We will talk more about these themes, as well as the actual artists doing the work on our bottles in a future story.
The 2019 vintage of Un Petit Peu is available in both 375ml and 750ml bottles and will age for up to 10 years. It will be available at our brewery and restaurant, as well as select liquor stores across Alberta.
Our second release from the Monolith is called Substantially Complete. As with many of our beers this name is a play on words. It combines references to the Monolith largely being complete as a brewery (finally), the physical manifestation of the building, and the second beer representing the realization of our objectives for the mixed fermentation program thus far. Here is the description from the label:
In the story of Measure of Patience we cover many of the same items that are important to Substantially Complete. It’s a mixed fermentation beer, it’s fermented for a year in the same type of barrels, it uses the same wort to create the base beer, and it’s about the same age as Measure of Patience. The primary difference in Substantially Complete is the approach to blending.
Substantially Complete uses similar sources of blending stock as Measure of Patience. The difference between the two beers is a reflection of the different goals we had for the blend. Measure of Patience was a blend to satisfy and impress people that have tried a range of mixed fermentation beers, while being a balanced beer that would not be overwhelming in any way for people new to these beers. Substantially Complete by comparison was blended to be more direct in both its fruit character and acidity. To do this we pick different barrels and blend them in different proportions to highlight the characteristics we’re seeking. The result is a beer that is more assertive than Measure of Patience, but also with a balance that will surprise and delight drinkers. As a beer, we feel it’s Substantially Complete.
Now that we’re entering our second calendar year of releasing barrel-aged and barrel-fermented beers it’s a good time to explain our method for the vintage (or year) dates on our bottles. Our bottled beers can be aged for many years so it makes sense to have a clear, sensible, and consistent way we label each beer for sale and future consumption. Like most things we have a process for this, and we think it’s important to share it with you.
The super-quick summary is that the dates published on the bottle are the year and exact date it was first put into the bottle. We establish consistency, particularly with our barrel-fermented beer which features a cork and crown-cap, by printing the year of packaging on the cork matching the year and date printed on the label. On our barrel-aged beers we use a type of crown-cap with a bidule, an insert that seals the crown-cap to better maintain carbonation when aging. Therefore we don’t have an option for a date inside the bottle as with the use of a cork. The labels of the barrel-aged beers do feature the date and year they were bottled.
The primary reason we want to communicate our method for establishing vintage dates for our beer is because we bottle condition and cellar all of our bottled beer and this process takes time. Bottle conditioning is a process by which carbonation is naturally generated within the bottle, and cellaring is the time the beer takes to clean up and age after the conditioning. For our barrel-aged beers this process can take as long as a few months, while our barrel-fermented beers can take much longer. For example, in our mixed-fermentation beers the process normally takes at least six months and our spontaneous beers will take even longer. Because of the time put into conditioning and cellaring, many of our batches will not be released in the year that is displayed on the bottles. We take this extra time because we want you (the consumer) to know that we feel that the bottle conditioning is complete, and that it has had the appropriate amount of time cellaring. You can be confident that each batch released is ready to drink as soon as you get it.
That’s the summary of our approach to bottle vintages. It’s an important topic for us (and you!) because unlike most beers, all of our bottled beer can be aged. We want you to be fully informed about what you’re buying and when it was made.
One of our goals when we established Blind Enthusiasm was to create high-quality barrel-fermented beers using a variety of techniques and methods. We didn’t know that it would take us nearly five years from the start of the project to the release of Measure of Patience, our first beer from The Monolith. It took a long time and the successful navigation of many challenges to get to this point, but, when we taste the beer, it is all worthwhile.
Measure of Patience is a mixed-fermentation beer, meaning that we pitched a variety of microorganisms (both yeast and bacteria) into cooled wort that was then put into barrels for fermentation. We used 375 litre Marsala barrels imported from Sicily for the first round of mixed-fermentation batches. Barrels and prior contents can add some inherent character, as well as being a perfect vessel for long fermentations due to the shape, and the porosity of the oak. The wort itself is noteworthy as we use a turbid mashing technique that creates a nutrient rich, proteinaceous, and complex carbohydrate wort that promotes a slower fermentation that favours the use of multiple different microorganisms and the development of a complex flavour profile.
After at least a year, when fermentation has slowed or stopped and the barrels have developed positive characteristics, we taste each barrel and then blend a select few to achieve a desired flavour profile. We have a decent inventory of barrels to choose from, so we have moderate flexibility on what we create. When blending, one can have a target in mind, or evaluate the barrels and blend in a way that will best highlight the characteristics of certain barrels. In the case of Measure of Patience, we wanted to create a beer that was very balanced with light fruit character and medium-light acidity, so we chose barrels accordingly. The goal was for Measure of Patience to satisfy and impress people that have tried a range of mixed fermentation beers, while being a balanced beer that would not be overpowering in any way for people new to these beers. We’re happy to report that we think we met that mark.
One last thing to note is that we expect this beer to age well for up to 10 years. If you are planning on aging the beer we recommend using the 750ml bottles as they tend to age better than the smaller format 375ml bottles. To promote the best conditions for aging we used a crown cap and cork method to ensure stability of the package over the long term. It’s also important you age these beers on their side as that maintains hydration of the cork. If temperature control is available, we recommend a temperature of 10-12°C.
The live microorganisms in the bottle promote flavour development and long-term stability of the beer, but, can create some challenges for serving the beer. These organisms will create a sediment layer on the bottom of the bottle when stored on its side (also referred to as lees). When you are pouring the beer be careful not to disturb the sediment as it is undesirable. The sediment is fine to consume, but it will subdue some of the flavours of the otherwise bright and fruity beer and can add an undesirable texture. For best pouring results we recommend one maintain the storage angle of the bottle to reduce the amount disturbance of the sediment during the pour. Avoid tilting the bottle upright between pours as this will mix in the lees. In our restaurant we use a special tray to hold the bottle at an angle from opening to completion of the bottle to keep the sediment in the bottle. When you pour out the very final contents from the beer using this method (the last 25mL), you will see the difference.
That’s all we’ve got to say about Measure of Patience. It’s been a labour of love, and we’re really happy with how it has turned out.
Enjoy!
As we approach the launch of packaged beers from both the Monolith and the Market (the brewery in the Ritchie Market) we’d like to discuss the difference between barrel-aged beers (from the Market) and barrel-fermented beers (from the Monolith). First, we’ll delve briefly into the brewing process in order to provide the necessary background for our explanation.
When we make a beer the initial output from the brewhouse is called Wort. Wort is liquid that contains grain sugars and is nutrient rich, that is then fermented with microorganisms to make beer. In typical modern brewing Wort is transferred to a stainless steel tank where it’s carefully inoculated by a single yeast culture. Depending on the type of beer, and a brewery’s preferred processes, after primary fermentation beer may be either packaged and sold, or it may undergo additional cold conditioning or lagering, also typically in stainless steel.
In a barrel-aged beer, after primary fermentation in steel, the fermented beer is transferred to a barrel for additional aging, usually to add flavor or texture from the wood of the barrel, and/or from the liquid previously in the barrel. (E.g. when you put a beer in a recently emptied bourbon barrel it will typically pick up some wood, and bourbon character). There isn’t typically any fermentation in the barrel in a barrel-aged beer. We do our barrel-aged beers (and non-barrel beers) exclusively at the Market Brewery.
In barrel-fermented beer, Wort is put into barrels after an inoculation step so that primary fermentation takes place in the barrel. There’s no barrel-aging step, but instead there’s an extended period of fermentation facilitated by the characteristics of the barrel. This process is quite slow (taking months to years) and leads to complex flavor profiles and sometimes hard-to-predict results. We do exclusively barrel-fermented beers at the Monolith.
Barrel-aged beer may take as short as 3 months in a fresh-emptied barrel, but often can take 6 to 12 months. Barrel-fermented beer may take as short as 10 months to finish, or as long as 4 years in complex fermentations. There isn’t a “better” way to make beer, and each lead to beers with completely different character. We’re excited to shortly be bringing you beer using both processes!
A question I commonly get asked is the origin of the name Blind Enthusiasm. Choosing a name is something every business needs to do, and one can take a variety of different approaches in how to select the ideal name to reflect what you’re hoping to create. Naming a brewery is no different, but brewery names often fall into a few common categories: a reference to geography, a landmark, or person (e.g. South Edmonton Brewery Company, Whyte Ave Brewery, or Joe’s Brewery), a comment on process or purpose (Hop Crazy Brewery or Good Times Brewery), or a more esoteric loose association of words that may reflect their origin story (Blind Enthusiasm Brewery).
The name you choose can sometime suggest your aspiration as a brewery, though if there’s one thing that’s become quite evident in the craft brewing business, it is that there are no hard and fast rules. I chose the more esoteric/loose association path for our name as I didn’t want us to be limited by geography, and I didn’t want to dictate process as we aspire to explore a wide range of methods in making beer and running our business. By a process of elimination I ended up in the loose association category which has the unique challenge of no specific starting point to reference when coming up for names.
I considered the motivation, intention, and feeling I had in creating a brand new brewery from scratch without professional brewery experience (and no partners or team members in the initial stages). I did have some experience adjacent to the professional brewing space operating The Beer Diaries (a YouTube channel where I interviewed professional brewers at their breweries), as a beer writer at AskMen.Com, and later as the Executive Director of the Alberta Small Brewers Association. All of these roles helped me learn about the industry, but none were actually working within a brewery making or selling beer. And, rather than starting on the safer, more sensible path of starting small and building up based on prior success I jumped right into building at showpiece brewery at the Ritchie Market in Edmonton, and shortly afterward (even before opening our first brewery) started the construction of a brewery dedicated to spontaneous, mixed and natural fermentation all in wood. Most people in the industry would likely declare it a foolish path, and perhaps say I was blindly enthusiastic and lacking common sense. And that’s where the name came from.
It was pretty clear to me that if I was defined by blind enthusiasm, I needed to counteract that by finding strong partners and a great team to keep things balanced as we created the breweries. I set out to find the best people possible to take care the essential roles in the business, so when I was off the rails doing blindly enthusiastic stuff I had good advice and counsel from people that could keep the business within the realm of reality. I feel like we’ve been quite successful in this regard, and at this point I feel strongly that even though we exhibit plenty of blind enthusiasm we’re quite practical and systematic about how we operate. Based on our principles we still do things a little differently than other breweries (see future blogs on this), but there’s always a good reason behind our decisions.
One last comment on the name Blind Enthusiasm is that it also happens to be an homage to a moderately obscure set of characters created by the late Sci Fi author Ian M. Banks. Mr. Banks wrote a series of books in a setting called the Culture, a futuristic Earth-based environment where AIs transcended humanity and acted as protectors and managers of humanity’s expansion. These AIs also had a sense of humor, and in selecting their names tended to choose clever and ironic personal titles like “Lucid Nonsense”, “Flexible Demeanour”, “No More Mr Nice Guy”, and my personal favorite “Zero Gravitas.” The name Blind Enthusiasm is right in line with the ironic names of the great AIs of the Culture, though we’ve got a long way to go to match their cold, calculating methods.
At this point we’ve largely had positive feedback on the name Blind Enthusiasm, and we’ll do our best to be true to our name by staying excited about what we do. The only drawbacks so far have been that it is a fairly hard to spell, makes a very lengthy email or web address, and that it can sometimes be hard to say after a few beers. Other than that, it suits us just fine.
One thing we take very, very seriously at Blind Enthusiasm is the quality of our beer. In fact, our entire operation is designed to provide you the absolute best pint possible. We’ll break it down in more detail here.
By serving beer on-site from our own tanks and lines we can ensure they are clean and optimized for the quality of the beer. Perhaps you’ve had the experience at a bar or restaurant where you’ve had a very familiar beer on tap but it didn’t taste right. Perhaps it was downright bad. Well, there are many, many explanations as to why that could happen:
It could be the glassware: if your glass wasn’t cleaned, sanitized, and rinsed properly you could be tasting some soap, or even remnants from the last beer in that glass.
It could be the beer lines that deliver the beer to the draft tap. Beer lines need to be cleaned at minimum every month, but best is to clean them every 1 to 2 weeks. Not many people do this, and some never clean their lines. If your beer tastes weird, ask when the lines were last cleaned.
The beer itself could be bad for a variety of reasons: the gas blend used to serve the beer could be wrong, leading to an overly carbonated or flat beer. The beer itself could be “off”. Beer is actually perishable! If the a keg is old, it’ll taste oxidized (papery) and the hops will turn to a licoricey mess. There are also brewing flaws that can create a bad beer, e.g. packaging a beer before fermentation is complete, or secondary infections from a microorganism other than the yeast the brewer selected can both spoil a beer. This is still only a partial list, but one key point is that many of these issues are preventable if the brewery is diligent and cares about the beer it is making and selling.
Our care and attention to our beer starts right at ingredient selection. We’re always picking the best, freshest, and highest quality ingredients for our beers. You can take shortcuts by using cheaper or older ingredients, but it’s always going to show in your beers. We also aim to use science and quality testing to ensure we’re brewing well. We test water chemistry and adjust the water based on the results and the beer we’re brewing, we monitor pH’s and gravity closely during and after brewing, we do microbiology testing to ensure our procedures are clean. We’re far from alone in this disciplined approach to brewing; one of the reasons there is so much good beer around these days is many breweries are taking a more serious and disciplined approach to quality control.
One of the greatest tools we use to our advantage is time. For many breweries time is the enemy; they need to brew beers as quickly as possible and keep the beer flowing out the door to fulfil their contracts. Our obligation is to our customers; we only want the best quality beer to serve to our customers. We have the luxury of multiple fermentation tanks (11 in total) where we can shift beers off crashed yeast and take time to lager and cold condition beer until we reach our flavor and clarity targets. Some of our beers are very clear, yet we don’t filter them. Filtration removes flavor compounds but allows you to ship beer faster and on a tight schedule. We prefer a gentler process where beer clarifies naturally, using cold temperature and time, and we think leads to the tastiest result.
We also have high quality standards for the finished beer, and when they are compromised we don’t capitulate and instead make the right decision for the consumer. Even though we’ve only been brewing a few months, on a few occasions we’d have to pour out a batch of beer when it didn’t meet our quality standard. We could have sold those batches, and people probably would have drunk them, but they were as good as they could be. It’s painful pouring thousands of dollars down the drain, but it’s the right thing to do for our long term brand and our relationship with our customers. We’re also patient, and sometimes these beers will turn around in cold conditioning, but sometimes they won’t. We focus on the long term, and as long as we’re learning and getting with each batch we’re going the right direction.
After a beer has reached our high quality bar, and we’re serving it we still maintain vigilance on how it’s tasting. One of the huge benefits of serving beer from our location is that it’s never out of our hands and we can make sure it’s testing right. That also gives us a point of reference for beers that we may be selling to third parties for consumption at other locations. We can generally compare to the very same beer to determine where the flaw may originate.
We have started shipping our beer to bars and restaurants within Edmonton, and we’re doing so with close partners that we know will take good care of our beer. We’re selective, and fortunately there are many other venues that have care deeply about customers enjoying the beer they serve. So, if you see our beer at Biera, or somewhere else, you can be confident that a lot of effort and consideration went into ensuring that you’ll be getting the best pint possible and that we stand behind it.
