Right. So a small package arrives. Obviously not a bill, tax or beer duty return, so I open it. Inside are a couple of samples of a specialist beer yeast that I want to trial a new brew on. Nothing remarkable or comment worthy so far, but I find my face broadening into a look that is normally reserved for close encounters with Aston Martins and saying ‘Ooh, lovely!’
I think I’m turning into a lab geek. This is not good.
At this juncture, I should point out that Mart’s response to this was: ‘Turninginto a lab geek?’. Admittedly there has been something of a behavioural trend in the last couple of years, but a little mild dabbling in chemistry never did anyone any real harm, and it’s not like I’ve moved onto the hard stuff like glycolitic pathways or humolone oxidation.
Well, not often.
However, my reaction did provide, in Jules Winnfield’s immortal words, a sudden moment of clarity. The simple truth is that if you want to be a brewer, there’s no way to avoid an intimate connection with biochemistry. And, if you get to see the interaction of malt, hops, yeast and water on a daily basis, it’s very difficult not to be fascinated by it.
Let me explain. The difference of a few degrees temperature at mashing in will have a huge knock on effect to the final gravity and fermentation of your brew. As will how long the mash stands, sparge volume and time, boil time, hop acid, yeast strain, conditioning and a hundred other things that you have to monitor and predict to get a great, consistent beer. It’s a process tailor made for obsessives.
But, the thing is, when this leaches into your every day life, it can rather disconcert the normal people. Checking the wort at the end of a brew and finding that the specific gravity and pH are bang on where you wanted them is very satisfying, but you probably shouldn’t punch the air and say ‘Who’s the daddy?’ unless you want to be avoided at parties. Balance is key – and it’s important to get out, walk your (eejit) labrador, scream at the rugby and, oh yeah, actually enjoy a few pints of the stuff you and your fellow fanatics have made before you turn into a cross between Bond’s Q and Gollum.
This isn’t to say that I won’t be obsessing next week when we do a trial of our new wheat beer. I’ll be pondering, calculating, revising and tweaking to my little heart’s content. You just can’t keep a good geek down. And don’t pretend that you won’t be asking to try some samples at the markets in a couple of weeks…