17 Oct My Dream: Dirty Scotch Beers & Dirty Scottish Terriers
By Mark Lasbury for Indiana on Tap
When it comes to malty beers, and especially to my favorite Scottish or Scotch beers (wee heavy), I like them dirty. This is a description I made up all on my own…. OK, maybe I co-opted it from Founders’ Dirty Bastard, but think the term is apt. There are several types of smoked malts that give you the aroma and flavor of smoke, like the meaty-like qualities from the liquid smoke you might use in the kitchen. However, few smoked malts can provide the earthy aroma and flavor that comes from peat-smoked barley malt. It’s dirty and I love it.
Think about the smell you get after a rain in the forest, or the aroma and taste you get in your nose and throat when you spread cypress or pine mulch around the flower garden. That’s the sensation I get when I drink a restrained wee heavy in which the brewer has gone off the board and added some peat-smoked malt. I don’t know if it is an evolutionary throwback to hunter-gatherer days or just that I like to garden, but it makes me feel at home.
Smoked malts can utilize a number of different grains and one or more of many types of wood or other combustible materials, even grapevines. In the case of peat-smoked malt, it is peat moss that is heated to just under the combustion temperature and the smoke that is produced is then passed over the malt after it is kilned, but usually not roasted. I like most of them, but not necessarily all. In most cases it is how restrained the brewer has chosen to be – 3F did a Smoked Ham on Rye a few years back that made feel like I was the poor guy at the bonfire that, no matter where I stood, I always ended up directly in the line of the smoke from bonfire.
Peat bog layers grow about 1 mm each year, so a one-meter thick peat layer would be approximately 1000 years old. The low pH also preserves anything organic thrown into it, including dead bodies in their clothes. Bog bodies have been found with hair and clothes intact. Notice the rope around the neck. People were sacrificed to the gods thought to live in the bog by strangulating them and tossing their bodies into the peat. Photo credits: national Geographic and wired.com.
“Peat moss” is a mass of partially decomposed moss plants that have compressed over time after growing in a peat bog (a wetland that accumulates dead plant material and is too soft to support heavy weight). The peat is only partially decomposed because it packs so densely that oxygen can’t penetrate and is so low in pH that bacteria cannot grow; oxygen and bacteria being the two most important factors in decomposition of plant material. The preservation of the plant material means that once it is dried, it is combustible but burns slowly and gives off a lot of smoke because of its high density.
Peat moss is important in the production of Scotch whiskey, especially single malt Scotch. In olden times, the Scots would use peat as a combustion source for heating the pot stills in whiskey production. However, this, in and of itself, does not add to the flavor of the whiskey. Neither does using water that has run through a peat bog to make the whiskey give it an earthy taste. The water may turn a dark color, but it doesn’t have enough peat to affect flavor. It is the malted grain that is dried or slightly roasted over a peat fire that imparts the desired flavor to the whiskey. No self-respecting distiller of Scotch whiskey would eliminate the peat smoking of malted grains. Some single malt Scotch producers use a lot more smoke and impart more flavor, but all use at least a bit. On the other hand, peat-smoked malt is apparently a huge no-no in Scotch style beers – so I was lectured recently.
Walter and I were at the Whitestown Brewfest in the middle of September, and talked to a brewer prior to sampling their Scottish ale. I asked if it was nice and peaty and he got offended. Peat-smoked malt is not to style for a Scottish light, heavy or export (Section 14a, b, and c of the BJCP style guide) or wee heavy (aka Scotch ale or a style of British Strong Ale, section 17) he said. He said his beer would not include things that were not called for. Well he’s right – technically. The BJCP Style guide goes so far as to state that smoked peat malt is inauthentic and inappropriate in Scottish ales and wee heavys. Along the same lines, brewer and author Jamil Zainasheff in Brewing Classic Styles (2007, Brewers Publications) states that Scottish brewers did not historically use peat-smoked malt in the Scotch or Scottish ales. Zainasheff also calls peat-smoked malt in a Scottish or wee heavy beer inappropriate. I wanted to delve into the subject with said brewer, but Walter said to just walk away. She’s smart like that.
I wanted to say – so what? I find “inappropriate” to be an oddly unsuitable term here; perhaps it is not historically accurate, but if adding peat-smoked malt creates a version of the beer that people like, then how is it “not appropriate?” I (and a lot of other folks I have talked to) don’t care if it is historically accurate, we like the taste, mouth-feel and aroma of Scottish beers that include at least a bit of peat-smoke malt as a specialty grain. Unless the brewer at the Whitestown fest brews with the style guide in one hand and the paddle in the other, he is most likely adding adjuncts that he sees as inventive, but others see as contaminations or inappropriate – please your patrons for gosh sakes no matter what you add.
Bloomington Brewing made a smoked porter in 2015 that used a lot of peat-smoked malt. Earthy enough to grow plants in a pint of the beer – ya gotta love it. Photo credit: Indiana On Tap
Some brewers are sticklers for brewing true to style – and I have no problem with that; adjunct crazy beers sometimes make it hard to pick out for what a brewer is aiming. More is not always better. Unfortunately, I got the feeling at Whitestown that this individual thought less of me as a craft beer fan for enjoying a so-called adulterated style. Never mind that plenty of brewers do add a bit of smoked peat malt to their Scottish ales and smoked porters; if I like it that way and look for examples of the style that include it, should a brewer tell me that I’m wrong? I wasn’t telling him that he had to make a dirty ale, only that it is one specialty malt that I admire in that type of beer. Without the smoke and peaty overtones, many Scottish ales turn out thin to me, especially those that stick more to the base malts and use only a bit of roasted malt for color.
Perhaps I am a hypocrite; I know that I like my hefeweizens very conventional, hazy with suspended yeast with a good amount of banana and clove esters. This is as true-to-style as they come and I don’t appreciate adjuncts in my hefes. On the other hand, an expansion of the style for Scottish Ales or wee heavys has increased my interest and appreciation. The same thing happened with IPAs for me – when people started kettle souring and adding Brett to their IPAs, they became much more palatable to me. I guess you like what you like, regardless of who tells you what is shouldn’t be in it. Maybe it’s just that I don’t like being told that what I like is wrong.
This is the American Hairless Terrier, one of several new breeds in the Westminster Dog Show in 2016. I know a lot of hairless Americans – but few are as cute as this dog. The point is – new variations don’t have to be bad, they can go mainstream. Don’t call my peaty wee heavy wrong. Photo credit; American Kennel Club via AP.
In the past three years twelve new breeds have been added to the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. They were all considered inappropriate or adulterations of existing breeds, but there they are now, strutting their stuff and being fed liver bits in order to stick their butt out at the right angle. Sometimes styles can change or expand over time, or become a new style all together. Next time you are out drinking Scottish ales, see if one or two show a definite tip of the hat to the peat malt addition – do you like it? If we band together, maybe we can introduce a dirty Scotsman into the style guide and then drink a hundred peat moss beers at GABF in the coming years. It may be just a dream, but at least it’s my dream.
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