FMBeer.com – Beer News for Fargo, Moorhead and beyond!
Beechwood Aging
Beechwood aging has nothing to do with adding flavor to the beer. Beechwood was actually chosen for its very lack of flavor. Its real purpose is to provide greater square footage at the bottom of the fermenter on which the yeast will settle, so the yeast cake is spread thinner allowing the yeast to ferment the beer more quickly and efficiently. The additional yeast also helps to clean up off flavors created during the fermentation process. This is just a simple case of making the process more efficient and getting greater production out of the equipment they have.
Triple Hopped
Hops are added to beers for 3 reasons, bittering, flavor and aroma. Hops added at the beginning of the boil add bittering to balance the sweetness of the malt. Hops added in the last 15 minutes of the boil left impart hop flavors to the beer. Hops added right at the end of the boil give hop aromas to the beer. Thus most beers are triple hopped and it is nothing new or unique to the beer that uses this in their advertising.
Light Beer
Light beers were originally created as Diet Beers and marketed to women. They never caught on until they started using retired sports stars and debated less filling or tastes great. They use an enzyme that prompts yeast to digest all the starch found in malt, resulting in beer with no residual carbohydrates and with less calories. Most calories in beer actually come from the alcohol and with light beers having almost no sugars or starches left, almost all their calories come from alcohol so often light beers are also low alcohol beers.
Drinkablity
A beer that has good ‘drinkability’ is the one that is easy to drink and invites the drinker to take another swallow. The heavier the beer, the less drinkable it would be thus the lighter the beer, the more drinkable. But keep in mind, water is the most drinkable beverage so the more drinkable the beer is, the closer it is to water. The same thing is true with calories, beers advertise they have the lowest number of calories but all that does is make them closer to water.
Cold Filtered
This is a specific process licensed from a Japanese brewer where the beer is filtered cold (not like any filtering is done when the beer is warm). It is intended to remove any particulates and the yeast and halts the fermentation process. It is alternative to the pasteurization process. Pasteurized beers are quickly heated to 140-174°F to which stabilizes and sterilizes it but it may effect the flavor.
Frost brewed
It is hard to tell what this means. All beer is made by boiling the wort, cooling it down and adding yeast. Then for an American Lager, it is fermented cool and then conditioned even colder, at a temperature just above freezing.