Anniversary Beer 2024
A tale of early starts, 1832 German texts, and boiling the whole mash. The inside story of brewing our Augsburg Export 5th Anniversary Beer.
With our fifth birthday on the horizon we wanted to mark the occasion with something very special, a truly unique beer. So, after a 2 year hiatus, the brewing team decided the time was right to have another go at an ‘Augsburg’ mashed beer!
Brewer Simon Shakespear with the early hops
For those of you who remember, in 2021 our Augsburger Festbier (affectionately known as ‘Auggie’) used a historical brewing process, whereby the entirety of the mash is boiled. The Augsburger brewing process was described as an alternative to decoction or infusion mashing.
When you boil the mash more proteins and polyphenols are released into the wort which contributes to the mouthfeel, foam, and overall character of the beer. It seems that industrialisation ultimately led to the demise of this intensive brewing technique, and we haven’t been able to find any record of another commercial brewery using this method. Naturally, any technique which could fundamentally change the flavour of the finished beer is incredibly exciting to us – and it’s not often that we, as brewers, have the opportunity to bring a style back from extinction.An extract from the 1832 text i… ..
An extract from the 1832 text ……
(Die Bayerische Bierbrauerei - Friedrich Meyer 1832)
Now recreating a process which was already antiquated 150 years ago isn’t without challenges, and that first brewday took us over 18 hours, and by the end we weren’t convinced that the beer would be any good. Luckily the beer came out great, our craving was satisfied, and we’d proved that it works - but as time passed, the memory of that beer and the incredible brewday has become something of a legend around here. Most importantly though, the insight gained from that first brew gave us the confidence that we could do it even better next time around and that it would be a perfect celebration of our 5th Anniersary
Brewer Ben Bourn giving the boiling mash a stir with our now infamous decoction stick.