Saturday, January 05, 2008

A Head of Steam

I'm sipping a glass of Eli's steam beer (not the Imperial Steam, as he corrected yesterday). Steam beers, sometimes known as California Common beers, tend to be lagered, if I'm thinking straight - but I believe this batch is an ale. Correction thanks to cptvideo!: steam beers are fermented with lager yeasts at ale fermenting temperature. Thanks!

This has a nice aroma to it, with a bit of fruitiness to the hops and just a bit of DMS (nothing like last time!). Mild sweet malt and a bit of offness that's phenolic in character. Golden amber body, with mild haze, topped by a lasting, lacing, off-white creamy/foamy head. Medium body with medium carbonation. Starts with a nice rounded soft maltiness that is gets hit pretty quickly with grassy & rubbery (phenolic) hops. Mild bitterness to finish and a fairly clean after ... a bit sweet and not very much bitterness at all. I didn't find any weird aftertaste to this one, and think that the only detraction is that bit of phenolic character. Great second beer!

2 comments:

Captain Video! said...

Hi Nate,

Steam beer is not technically lagered -- it's "brewed with lager yeasts, but at ale fermentation temperatures."

I just ran across that a couple nights ago while flipping through my old copy of TNCJHB by Papazian :)

Eli said...

Thanks Nate!