OnTap Magazine

I magine growing up in a South Africa where red wine didn’t exist. Imagine if, in every bottle store and every restaurant, the only wines available were white wines, and of those the vast majority were Chenin Blancs – unwooded ones at that If you’d spent your life that way, you could be forgiven for believing that you’d always had quite a lot to choose from. After all, the bottle store shelves were full of different brands of wines and – if you were of an adventurous persuasion – you might well have enjoyed Chardonnays, Rieslings, Sauvignon Blancs and more in addition to the ubiquitous Chenins. Now imagine that in other parts of the world, there existed a whole different branch of wine - red wine! Imagine that slowly, red wines were introduced into the local market, offering entirely new and exciting experiences to wine drinkers. How amazing it would be to suddenly have the option of dozens of novel sensory delights. If this sounds implausible, ridiculous even, then consider the fact that in terms of beer, that’s exactly what almost every South African aged 30-plus has experienced. Up until about 10 years ago, pretty much all beers on the market were lagers; and more specifically, variations of the Standard American Lager (a fairly flavourless, if highly quaffable beer usually featuring maize or rice alongside malted barley). Yes, we had the choice of many brands and maybe some other types of lagers such as Pilsners, but for all intents and purposes, every beer on every shelf was pretty much the same - yellow, clear, crisp and refreshing. Every beer on the shelf was basically the equivalent of an unwooded Chenin Blanc. Luckily, recent years have brought us something new, something with which to expand our beer horizons: ale. YEAST MATTERS As you may have surmised from the lengthy metaphor above, ales represent the red wines in the story. But what - you ask - is the difference between an ale and a lager? The short answer is “the yeast”. And now, the world’s quickest beer production lesson: Brewers steep malted barley in hot water to extract sugars, which are then metabolised by yeast to produce alcohol and a few other by-products. That’s it. For the purposes of today’s story let’s pretend hops don’t exist. Perhaps I’ll regale you, dear reader, on the wonders of hops some other time. Lager yeasts tend to produce fewer by-products when they metabolise sugars than ale yeasts do. Lager yeasts also like to ferment at cooler temperatures than ale yeasts, much like white wine’s cool fermentation temperature compared to red. This results in a “cleaner” tasting beer. Ale fanatics might go so far as to say lager yeasts result in a “more boring” beer, in the sense that the by-products of ale yeast fermentation often add additional flavours or aromas that are absent in lagers. This is completely intentional for both lagers and ales and it’s probably the main reason why lagers took over as the world’s most popular beer style. In a rough parallel to wines, lagers - like white wines – are often pale in colour, they have a crisper, more refreshing flavour and they are lighter bodied and very drinkable. Ales – like red wines – are generally darker in colour, more full-bodied and have more complex flavours. Both lagers and white wines are generally served colder than ales and red wines, paralleling their respective colder fermentation temperatures. Of course there are plenty of exceptions to this analogy, but as a general rule of thumb, the above stands. DRINKABILITY VS COMPLEXITY South African big-brand lagers – like those elsewhere in the world – tend to prioritise drinkability as their primary objective. It makes good business sense to produce beers that are sessionable; where you want to crack open another of the same as soon as you’ve finished your last one. Lagers do this very, very well because of their light, crisp character. When it’s a hot day and you’re thirsty, there’s nothing quite as refreshing as an ice cold lager. The trade-off is usually complexity and outright flavour intensity. A drinker’s palate tends to become fatigued from more complex, richer flavours, so if one’s business objective is to sell as many beers as possible, it’s best to avoid palate fatigue by making “clean,” crisp, light beers. Ale yeasts usually produce chemical compounds called esters in addition to the alcohol that they make when they metabolise sugars. These esters are what produce the typically “fruity” flavours found in many ales. A brewer can then combine this fruity ester flavour from the yeast with a huge assortment of barley malts, hops, fruits and other ingredients to create any number of ale styles. As a result, there are nearly three times more official ale styles than lager styles. Accordingly, ales present the beer fan with a wonderful opportunity to explore flavours andaromas that simply aren’t apart of the lager’s profile. From the humble pale ale, with its slightly fruity flavour and easy- drinking nature. From strong, sweet, full- bodied barley wines; bitter and aromatic IPAs; to dark, rich, chocolatey stouts, ales offer the beer drinker exceptional variety. So next time you’re in your local bottle shop, head on over to the ale section and begin exploring. At the end of the day, the most important quality in a beer is that you enjoy drinking it. So while it’s great to know that there are different beer types, and what causes said differences, the most important thing is simply to enjoy whatever you pick; and if you learn to like styles from all across the beer spectrum, that’s an added bonus. There’s nothing quite as refreshing as an ice cold lager Ales present the beer fan with a wonderful opportunity to explore LAGERYELLOW, ALE BROWN? There’s a commonmisconception that lighter-coloured beers are lagers, while beers that are amber, copper, brown or black are ales. But the colour of a beer comes from the malt and as we’ve seen, the ingredient that differentiates lager from ale is yeast. This means that lagers can come in any hue, from the familiar yellow-gold of an pale lager or pilsner to the amber- coloured Vienna Lager or the deep brown of a German Schwarzbier (literally ‘black beer’). Alcohol content is likewise no direct indicator of whether a beer is an ale or a lager. Many English ales fall below 4.5% ABV, while the average pale lager is usually around the 5% mark. There are a number of ale styles that inch towards double digit ABV percentages, but lagers too can be very boozy: Samiclaus, a bock beer from Austria, is a whopping 14% - and yes, it is a lager! ontapmag.co.za | Autumn 2022 | 49