THREE KINGS - MUNICH, MUNICH, AND MUNICH
Hello and Welcome,
I never receive direct feedback on these posts from the general public, but I’m going to assume you all loved my last two tea posts and are dying for a third. Good news: you’re in one.
While I’ve used these teas before to evaluate different base ingredients more or less before using them, or perhaps out of a sheer sense of curiosity, this time my motive was one of vindication and redemption. I’d used a particular, quirky type of malt as the core of two completely different beers, and both beers had come out drinkable, but absolutely bizarre - simultaneously sickly sweet on the front and almost tart, but with a fairly normal finish. I assumed that first beer was just a catastrophic failure on my end, either super unhappy yeast or an out and out infection, or even potentially severe oxidation, but upon brewing a second beer with this malt for which literally every variable was different (fermenter, hops, yeast, fermentation temperature), I grew deeply suspicious that this malt was somehow profoundly flawed.
Interestingly, the malt in question was, on paper, extremely standard. It’s a version of Munich malt (a malt originating from, you guessed it, Munich, which is famed for its amber color, complexity, and deep maltiness) made by a very reputable maltster, Weyermann (arguably the superlative German maltster), with a single tweak: the Barley varietal is different from the standard one. Is this enough to essentially ruin a malt? And while we’re at it, what did the “dark” Munich malt I used add to the beer?
Following the same protocols as last time, I conducted what amount to mini-mashes, broke out a notepad, and jotted down my thoughts, which I’ve tossed below without any editing
Standard Munich
Appearance
Bellini; pale amber, vague pink perhaps
Aroma
Almost cheeze it, toast, welsh rarebit
Savory biscuit, maybe triscuit
Grainy, slight cheese perhaps, like parmesan
Flavor
A touch of chain restaurant salsa; triscuit, whole grain toast
Beautiful; bready, bread crust, malt bomb, a touch of the goldfish, slight toffee and nut (perhaps hazelnut; vague nutella)
Plausible black currant or grape, if so very quite; not much else in the way of fruit; perhaps apple fruit leather, actually
Barke Munich
Appearance
Virtually identical to that of the standard Munich
Aroma
Quite subtle; buttered whole grain toast, perhaps, not much else
Flavor
Quite a bit funkier, almost blue cheese
A vague acidity, almost
Much lighter on the bread notes
There's almost a very quiet rancidity
In a saison or dark sour, I can see this working gangbusters, but I have no intention of using this in any other beer in the near future
Appearance
A porter on the paler side
Aroma
A lovely, bracing dark aroma - dark rye toast, parmesan crisp, candied ginger
Flavor
Bracing immediate slight astringency, black currants, pumpernickel, slight acidity, demarara sugar
My beer!
Aroma
hard to place; funky fruit mixed with a copper-y maltiness; almost a weird, funhouse mirror bitter
Flavor
Pennies, dark toast, marmelade, slight bubble gum, mineral water, blackstrap
Conclusion
While it can be fun to try new ingredients and special varieties, clearly there is some risk involved in deviating from the tried-and-true classics. While I’ve had great luck using floor-malted British base malts, for example, I also ruined two beers with recipes so simple they’re otherwise impossible to truly mess up using this insane malt. And even then, I should note that I think this malt would be a wonderful, small percentage of a jazzy Bock or a Flanders Red or Oude Bruin, so there is some value to rolling the dice and brewing a beer blind, but even then, the more of these teas I do, the more I’m convinced of the wisdom in evaluating ingredients before using them. Crazy idea, huh?
Cheers,
Adrian “Brewer of Botched Beers” Febre