Monday Deep Thoughts With Jeff

As the first cold snap of the season plunges the Pacific Northwest into a deep freeze, I have slipped into a winter’s reverie to consider matters mysterious. (All right, not a deep freeze—but it is actually freezing as I write this, and Portlanders are well-known weather wimps.) So pull out your hot cup of joe and join me in pondering these important issues.

Why Does Malt Warm?

Alcohol, as everyone knows, brings a literal warming sensation to tongue, stomach, and, eventually, extremities. It’s why people fight the chill with a nip of something potent (though if you’re really cold, that’s a bad idea). Alcohol causes a physical response, so that all makes sense. However, it’s also the case that flavors and sensations in beer seem to cool or warm the body, even though they are purely evocative. Why, for example do darker beers seem to warm the body, while paler ones seem to cool it? What is it about carbonation that seems cooling and “refreshing?” In fact, “refreshment” itself seems like an entirely invented concept, and yet there’s nearly unanimous agreement that about which beers create it.

There’s no question which one of these is more “warming.”

In the matter of “warming” beers, dark malt seems to be a big part of the answer here. Compare and contrast two Bavarian classics: a light, crisp helles on one hand and a full, sweet dunkel lager on the other. They are nearly identical in formulation and execution except for the presence of dark malt. And yet on a chilly day like we’re having now, it’s no contest: give me the dark. Over the weekend, I enjoyed a Blocktoberfest festbier from Block 15. It was on the lighter side, with a deep golden/amber hue, and yet the malts tasted of toast. To my palate, that seemed like the perfect liquid distillation of autumn, and the toast seemed to raise my temperature as effectively as a crackling fire. The wind was swirling around that night, and as darkness descended, my need for more “warming” beer—read, dark—deepened. I followed the festbier with a porter, and that mental fire roared.

I assume this has to do with maillard reactions created during the malting process. By kilning barley to darker colors, maltsters produce savory food-like flavors of bread, toast, and roast. I suspect those flavors link somehow in our brains to food flavors, to browning, and ultimately, to fire. Perhaps it happens at a pre-conscious level, an almost a cellular one. Our use of fire is ancient stuff, going back a million years or so (and by us I mean our distant hominid ancestors). Perhaps the receptor in our brain that recognizes those toasty and roasty flavors go back so far we can’t even identify them cognitively. Perhaps we can’t help but connect darker malts to fire and warmth.

Whatever the cause, on a day like today, don’t hand me a pilsner or IPA. Something dark and malty, please.

Are Pints the New Normal?

This morning, as I was transferring empty cans to the recycling bin (including the Bloctoberfest), I noticed that not a single one was the traditional 12-ounce vessel favored by breweries for the past eighty years. They were all pint-sized, which is increasingly the choice of the smaller brewery, usually sold in clusters of four, rather than the traditional six. This 33% increase in standard can size is actually kind of a big change, and it has happened so subtly I hadn’t really taken serious note of it.

The new pounders? Source: CraftBeer.com

Traditionally, 16-ounce cans/bottles were vanishingly rare. Back in the last century, Rainier used to package its beer in what we called “pounders,” and it was a notable point of differentiation. They weren’t especially popular among my friends because the larger size allowed the beer to warm more before the drinker reached the end—an unfortunate development when consuming mediocre light lagers. It didn’t catch on, either—Rainier has pounders all to themselves.

When the first of the four-pack sixteens first appeared a few years ago, I had a moment of concern. A lot of the beer packaged thus is boozy, and I worried about the bigger size. Would I end up drinking more beer? In my case, no—I actually drink less. Instead of two twelves, I often stop at a pint, especially with big beers.

Still, I wonder. This is a big change, and it will inevitably lead to different consumption patterns. How many people will end up drinking more, as their nightly 24 or 36 ounces becomes 32 or 48? What are the unintended consequences here?

Your thoughts? Ruminate, meditate, opinionate, and share. And have an excellent week.