Tag Archives: damian mcconn

Summit Union Series #3 – Southern Cape Sparkling Ale

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Beer styles emerge for many reasons. Ingredient availability, Sparkling Ale, the native-born style of Australia. From the earliest days of the Australian colony, beer was seen as a more wholesome and less intoxicating alternative to rum, whiskey and other spirits. A strong brewing industry, it was believed, would also have a favorable economic impact on the new colony, providing jobs and promoting agriculture. Brewing was encouraged and even subsidized with government grants.

Brewing in Australia was a difficult proposition at the time. Ingredient supply was sporadic and the warmer climate than that “back home” in England led to beer that was often subpar. This led to the closure of many of these original breweries. Those that survived sometimes adulterated their beer with opper sulphate, tobacco and cocculus indicus (a very bitter poison) to make up for their shortcomings.

Australian beer gained a negative reputation, leading to a growth in the market for imported beers, including the newly-rising lager beers. The warm climate created a demand from consumers for lighter, more refreshing brews, and lager beers filled that bill. Like the inventors of cream ale in the United States, ale brewers in Australia responded by creating a light, effervescent ale that came to be known as sparkling ale.

The style’s popularity was short lived. As lager beer continued to dominate, sparkling ale breweries closed, eventually leaving only one – the Cooper’s Brewery. Cooper’s Sparkling Ale is still available and until very recently was the only version of the style to be had in this country.

With its newest Union Series beer – Southern Cape – Summit Brewing Company has brought us another, at least for a limited time. The Union Series is designed to showcase new and lesser known ingredients. In this case these new ingredients all hail appropriately from the southern hemisphere. Malts come from Australia and Chile, hops from New Zealand and South Africa. Here is Head Brewer Damian McConn giving an introduction to the new ale.

Here’s my notes:

Summit Southern Cape Sparkling AleSouthern Cape
Summit Brewing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota
Style: Australian Sparkling Ale
Serving Style: 12 oz. bottle
ABV: 4.4%
IBU: 47

Aroma: Malt centered with underlying fruity hop and ester compliment. Honey – like a sheet of beeswax. Fresh bread and graham cracker. Juicy fruit gum. Dried apricots. Light white-wine vinous notes.

Appearance: Medium gold and clear. 1 inch, creamy, white foam with excellent retention.

Flavor: Malt centered with more-than-balancing bitterness that lingers into the finish. Same honey notes from the aroma. Graham cracker and low toast. Sweetness is low. Hop bitterness comes midway, hitting the back of the tongue with a cutting sharpness. Hop flavor is low, providing a bit of spice and limey citrus. Subtle stone-fruit esters round it out. The end is all hops, with long-lingering bitterness dominating the dry finish.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light body. Medium-high carbonation. Light astringency.

Overall Impression: Delicate but forceful somehow at the same time. A super-dry finish and slightly higher-than-normal carbonation keeps it light and lively on the tongue. The waxy honey notes ground it. Bitterness is stronger than I personally would prefer, but not enough to stop me from drinking it. For some reason I have the urge to make salad dressing with this. Hmmmm…..

Summit Unchained #6: Gold Sovereign Ale

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Photo by Mark Roberts

Deadlines! Deadlines! I’ve had a lot of writing deadlines lately; deadlines for pieces that require me to taste certain beers. Meanwhile, many new and new to Minnesota beers have been sitting neglected in my refrigerator, begging…no, crying out for my attention without satisfaction.

Those deadlines have been met, at least for a few days. I can finally get to the bottle of Summit Unchained #6: Gold Sovereign Ale that has been waiting in the fridge; the bottle that has been taunting me since last week when I interviewed brewer Damian McConn at the brewery.

I have been especially anticipating this Unchained Series release. I am a fan of English style pale ales and IPAs, more so than their American counterparts. I also have a more than passing interest in the history of English beer and brewing. The idea that McConn would reach back into old brewery archives to craft something according to a 19th-century recipe intrigued me to say the least. His decision to put a modern twist on it by using only recently available ingredients made it even more interesting.

McConn said that he was led to that decision by the practical impossibility of replicating an old recipe. “The problem with recreating a beer like that is that we can get a pretty-good, rough idea of the hopping rate, the original gravity, fermentation temps, mashing programs, and stuff like that, but we can’t replicate the ingredients.” He also cites modern brewing equipment as an impediment to accurately recreating these beers. Different processes and fermenter types will yield different tasting beers, and modern breweries are very different from their 19th-century predecessors. “The more I investigated beer from that time, the more I thought that I just wouldn’t be able to do it justice. I’m an all or nothing kind of brewer. I thought, ‘if I can’t do it as closely as possible to what it would have been like back then, then I want to try and put an interesting spin on it.’”

Although the ingredients and processes are new, they do cast an eye back to the old. McConn chose organic, floor-malted barley to reflect the labor-intensive malting practice that would have been standard at the time. In a nod to the cask-conditioning of beers, which was the norm back in the day, he opted to leave the beer un-filtered. The bit of yeast remaining in the bottle will allow the beer to further condition. It’s up to you whether or not to pour the yeast into your glass.

Here’s my notes:

Gold Sovereign Ale
Summit Brewing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota
Style: 19th-Century English IPA with a modern twist
Serving Style: 12 oz. Bottle

Aroma: Bready yeast comes first. The malt gives a light touch of grainy sweetness. Fruity hops are dominant, but not intense; orange citrus and stone fruits. A background of earthy hop aromas keep it grounded.

Appearance: The ample, rocky, white head sticks around for a while. Deep golden color, veering toward orange, with a dense haze (I chose to pour the yeast).

Flavor: Hops are the star of the show, starting with a sharp, crisp bitterness that carries through and is accentuated by a dry finish. The beer is bitter, but the emphasis seems to be on later-addition, flavor hops. Juicy fruits explode from the glass; tangerine, oranges, and peaches. Especially peaches. Malts form a grainy-sweet, graham-cracker crust beneath the fruit. The malt character was so clearly expressed that it reminded me of chewing on grains of malted barley (without the husk). Faint, earthy, hop flavors appear in the finish.

Mouthfeel: Sharp, dry, and crisp. Medium carbonation.

Overall Impression: If this is what East India Pale Ale tasted like in the 19th century, then it is no wonder that English expatriates rhapsodized about it. Gold Sovereign is an extremely well-made beer; crisp and clean, with distinct layers of flavor. This is one of the best of the Unchained Series beers.