What makes beer beer? The Germans and their Reinheitgebot law were certain they knew. Water, hops and barley. What happens if you can’t tolerate one of those ingredients? Do you give in and live a dismal existence existing on cider and wine like peasant? You do not. You use the might of technology and science available to you and you learn how to make beer with no barley and to hell with the 16th century Bavarian bureaucrats. And you do it well.

We welcomed a new member to the club who brought along a couple of very unusual beers. Gluten free brews made with sorghum and millet. It was – to be honest – a little trepidation I tried them and was pleasantly surprised. They were both beer, light in colour, hoppy in aroma, quite dry but very crisp. Great brews.

This brought the discussion around to gluten-free beers styles. With the pallet of colours and flavours that maltsters offer the brewer – how to make something other than a light coloured and flavoured beer using alternative cereals and ingredients. Give it some thought – this will definitely be a monthly challenge probably early next year. How would you make a full bodied stout or an ESB?

As well as the gluten-free beers we had a great selection of hop driven brews to sample. Pale ale, NEIPA, Grapefruit-IPA and Tropical Storm the Black-pale ale served at the WeBrew beer festival.

The range of hop flavours on display – including the intensity of a NEIPA made with Cryo hops got the technique discussion and comparisons flowing. The use of hop spiders, magnets and marbles(!), time and temperature there are so many levers you can pull to get the most out of the hop aromas and flavours. Swapping stories and techniques is – as always – a great way to spark ideas and prompt change in your own routines.

So this leads nicely into October’s meeting, planned for Wednesday 26th, we’ll be taking advantage of Owen’s flavour training kit again to look at the hop flavour components. So getting to know the following hop oil components; Myrcene – (fresh resinous hop character), Linalool – (spicy hop character), Geraniol – (floral hop character) and unfortunately Valeric acid – (cheesy, stale hop flavour).

Cheers!