Lesson 7 - Beer Flavour and Stability SAQ

**Your marketing team wants to launch an all-malt beer showcasing a malt character. They have asked you to summarise the ways that the brewer can alter the flavour of beer using barley malt. Using tables, prepare your answer in a way that will give them a deeper understanding of malt-derived flavours.

Response:

Pale malt is used as the largest contributor of fermentable extract in beer. It contributes to the characteristic maltiness known in beer. Today, many variations of malt exist, and these are used in different beer styles, some of which require the dominant flavour to come from malt, e.g. dark lagers, porters and stouts.

The speciality malts are used in the grist, in concentrations from a few percent to 100%. Speciality malts form two broad categories differentiated by processing.

1. Kilned malts, which vary in colour and flavour intensity according to the kilning temperature and duration.

2. Stewed caramel or crystal malts, where there is sugar liquefaction in the malt grains followed by kilning.

Flavour development in malt is through Maillard reactions where sugars and amino acids react. This forms complex flavour compounds and caramelisation, which involves the action of heating on sugars. Barley malts are produced in a range of colours which in turn, contribute a range of flavours. The lighter coloured malts give subtle flavours, and the darker malts give more intense flavours, which include bitter, burnt, malty, toffee-like, bready, caramel, coffee, and roasted. The skill of the brewer is to match the beer colour with the intended flavour notes.

While these are positive flavours in different styles, the brewer can unwittingly also produce off-flavours by poor processing. Two of the main off-flavours from malt are:

• Isobutyraldehyde – giving a grainy flavour

• Methional – giving a worty flavour