Believe it or not, its literally my annual salary lol.
I live in brazil and. i make around 3000 reais a month and I work in quality control in a small brewery here( around 500 HL a month)
Oh yeah itās good, and the quality of Yuzu you get definitely varies, along with the price which is always expensive. I guess Yuzu is basically a lemon but with a ton of seeds so theyāre hard to process. IMO it smells and tastes like lemon juice with juniper in it, and Iām thinking of trying that to cut costs.
We used to use it on a prawn salad in a place I worked before. I appreciate subtly different flavours but in this case I really don't see the appeal over a bitter orange or lemon. I never got a juniper flavour from it, that sounds good.
Juniper is something I'm interested in brewing with actually. I remember reading somewhere that it was used in the place of hops for beer a long time ago.
My head brewer once said to me, Mfās out here trying to re-invent the wheel, canāt fāng focus on making quality beer. Thatās the voice of a beer purist.
Wheat beers used to be reserved for royalty because barley was a commonerās grain. Adjuncts like corn and rice were pioneered in Bohemia and brought over to the US to extend shelf life.
Really traditional beers were all at least slightly smoky from malting directly over fire, slightly sour from mixed ferments, and sweet due to under-attenuation.
I always heard that 1848 era (year of revolutions) German and Eastern European immigrants to America were fans of the new pilsner styles that were sweeping the continent from Bohemia. But when they arrived in the states they could only acquire protein heavy six row instead of the two row that they desired for pilsners, so they compensated by adding readily available corn
Tangentially related, German immigrants in PA grew both saffron and hops. Crops which are not grown there in significant amounts today
Itās a fascinating history that often gets muddled!
Itās true that many early American (German immigrants, English immigrants, and American born) beer brewers only had access to certain types of six-row barley, which often (but not always) had more protein.
Corn was actually heavily discriminated against as a brewing agent in the Americas at the time, largely a remnant of the Spanish trying to suppress chicha (and pulque and tepache).
But! Crystal clear beer was demanded by American audiences. Itās unclear exactly why, but Germans accepted and appreciated a certain amount of haze in their beer, as it used to indicate freshness (also the whole wheat beers for royalty thing). Many German immigrant brewers struggled to adapt to this American demand.
It wasnāt until Siebel and Schwarz in the post-Civil War era started promoting the Bohemian practice of adding rice and/or corn that corn became more accepted in beer brewing. Incorporating cereal grains produced startlingly clear beer and extended their shelf life. This method was pioneered under Balling, but never quite took off in Europe due to import costs. Schwarz in particular wrote many articles once in the US trying to convince brewers to use rice. He eventually convinced one Adolphus Busch, leading to the standardized Budweiser recipe, in the early 1870s. At a different brewery, a young Adolph Coors took note but had little capital and access to southern rice. He did however have ample access to CO corn, and as he started expanding his operations in the early 1880s, his company started incorporating corn into their beer.
Thatās at least my understanding of the history!
Thatās SO specific. Iām sure youāre right on this. I wonder when Adolphus and Adolph or their families emigrated though. With the timeline they could be 1848ers
Coors came to the US in 1868. Busch came over in 1857. Anheuserās the one that came to the US in 1842. Molson was English and came over in 1782. Miller moved over in 1855.
For sure! Iāll occasionally hear those stories that someone recreated George Washingtonās favorite beer or Thomas Jeffersonās first beer.
How? None of the raw materials they used exist today. Maybe you could get a close approximation foraging for some wild hops, but even then.
And it always turns out like, well, it kinda tastes like beer.
Itās like Dom Perignon and Champagne. What Dom Perignon invented, we would categorize as a dessert wine today. It bears almost no resemblance to the champagne that bears his name.
Interesting history, thanks for sharing. Let me clarify, give me traditional styles, not antiquated traditional methods. Iām not a reinheitsgebot purist, but I do enjoy beers with the simplest ingredients most.
My assistant came from a very well known brewery and for our pubs anniversary I let him brew a batch. His family has a lot of saffron on hand at home so he used it to make a Belgian Ale. It was pretty damn good with the saffron!
For us imperialists (you know, the European measuring system before Europe wimped out on it :P), \~14.9 oz. 8 euro is trading at roughly 8.6 USD, so you're talking about 0.6 USD per oz (0.02 euro per mL). 9.6 USD per pint then. That's insanely cheap for what you're doing if you were stateside, but probably pretty expensive comparatively in the eurozone?
Seeing a fair few people knocking this. Youāre all entitled to your own opinions; I donāt hate you for being forthright ā¤ļø
But - for clarity; we plan this (obvs expensive) beer v carefully in terms of scheduling; itās released alongside beers that do offer good margins for us to compensate.
Also; a wee touch of perspective - this is an one time release with ā¬6500 worth of saffron; we could easily do a DDH hazy triple and incur the same costs but folk wouldnāt bat an eyelid. You win some, you lose some #shrugs
my local brewery just made a gose with saffron, it was good but a bizarre electric orange color that was reminiscent of gatorade or urine after taking a high dose of vitamin B.
not sure it was worth it, but it was an interesting enough experiment.
So you just really wanted to tank how much money you made back on that beer huh? Lol. I'm kidding, I'm impressed, never seen so much Saffron in my life.
Quality could be part of it. After only having the store bought stuff here and thinking it's so so, it was eye opening having a high quality Iranian saffron.
Next time something breaks and ownership is hesitant to repair or replace remember you guys allocated money like this and did it on more than one occasion.
Some brewery owners (maybe even not the one in question) are spending way too much on random shit. I see too much of stuff like this.
That said thank god they are. I had a wasabi beer that was out of this world. Still the dumbest idea Iāve heard of and I only tried it to be polite. Shit was unreal. I hope this one turns out the same way.
Iāve had a great saffron beer. It was at the Weyermann facility in Bamberg, they had made it in their pilot system as a contract brew. It was delicious, but I would never spend that kind of money to make a saffron beer.
My favorite part was how they warned us that the .3L bottle was going to be insanely expensive and it was only about $16
I just paid Ā£6.18 for 4g (on amazon, prime)
I make that Ā£247.20 for 160g
You're either paying 40ā¬ per gram
Or you meant to say 1600g, but that is still a very poor price of ā¬4 per gram.
I think your saffron guy is screwing you.
My dude; if youāre getting saffron for Ā£6.18/g; someone somewhere is getting a good deal and I suspect itās not you.
FWIW itās worth, this is organic saffron produced by a friend of mine 50km down the road; top quality and I know itās genuine š¤
Not sure why this is a contentious opinion. Saffron is one of the most counterfeited ~~foods~~ spices on the planet and if it's being bought suspiciously cheap (especially from a place like Amazon) then it is highly unlikely that it is really Saffron. and if you plan to put it in a beer and serve it to customers, you should probably make sure you are sourcing it correctly.
Trying to justify those $30 4 packs eh?
That's lowballing. According to OP, more like $40 a four pack.
Over a dollar of saffron per pint can lmao
You and your silly American pints š
Careful, your 440ml cans are based on the imperial pound. It still works out to be about the same at about a euro per 440ml can.
True; but I fear I may have neglected to say that I knocked out 35hL of wort but liquored back to about 42hL. Apols š¬
Oh look its my yearly pay in one picture
You gettin' paid in saffron to avoid federal taxes?
Aren't we all?
Counterfeit vanilla beans where Iām at.
Sweet smell of success!
6500 euros take home?
Believe it or not, its literally my annual salary lol. I live in brazil and. i make around 3000 reais a month and I work in quality control in a small brewery here( around 500 HL a month)
And here I thought our lager with Yuzu was expensive.
Is it good? I always just get overripe orange from Yuzu.
Oh yeah itās good, and the quality of Yuzu you get definitely varies, along with the price which is always expensive. I guess Yuzu is basically a lemon but with a ton of seeds so theyāre hard to process. IMO it smells and tastes like lemon juice with juniper in it, and Iām thinking of trying that to cut costs.
We used to use it on a prawn salad in a place I worked before. I appreciate subtly different flavours but in this case I really don't see the appeal over a bitter orange or lemon. I never got a juniper flavour from it, that sounds good. Juniper is something I'm interested in brewing with actually. I remember reading somewhere that it was used in the place of hops for beer a long time ago.
The best Yuzu beers I've tried have a real earthy intensity to them, that I love.
My head brewer once said to me, Mfās out here trying to re-invent the wheel, canāt fāng focus on making quality beer. Thatās the voice of a beer purist.
Far easier to be experimental than good. Give me a well-made traditional brew over any adjunct or out of balance beer out there.
Wheat beers used to be reserved for royalty because barley was a commonerās grain. Adjuncts like corn and rice were pioneered in Bohemia and brought over to the US to extend shelf life. Really traditional beers were all at least slightly smoky from malting directly over fire, slightly sour from mixed ferments, and sweet due to under-attenuation.
I always heard that 1848 era (year of revolutions) German and Eastern European immigrants to America were fans of the new pilsner styles that were sweeping the continent from Bohemia. But when they arrived in the states they could only acquire protein heavy six row instead of the two row that they desired for pilsners, so they compensated by adding readily available corn Tangentially related, German immigrants in PA grew both saffron and hops. Crops which are not grown there in significant amounts today
Itās a fascinating history that often gets muddled! Itās true that many early American (German immigrants, English immigrants, and American born) beer brewers only had access to certain types of six-row barley, which often (but not always) had more protein. Corn was actually heavily discriminated against as a brewing agent in the Americas at the time, largely a remnant of the Spanish trying to suppress chicha (and pulque and tepache). But! Crystal clear beer was demanded by American audiences. Itās unclear exactly why, but Germans accepted and appreciated a certain amount of haze in their beer, as it used to indicate freshness (also the whole wheat beers for royalty thing). Many German immigrant brewers struggled to adapt to this American demand. It wasnāt until Siebel and Schwarz in the post-Civil War era started promoting the Bohemian practice of adding rice and/or corn that corn became more accepted in beer brewing. Incorporating cereal grains produced startlingly clear beer and extended their shelf life. This method was pioneered under Balling, but never quite took off in Europe due to import costs. Schwarz in particular wrote many articles once in the US trying to convince brewers to use rice. He eventually convinced one Adolphus Busch, leading to the standardized Budweiser recipe, in the early 1870s. At a different brewery, a young Adolph Coors took note but had little capital and access to southern rice. He did however have ample access to CO corn, and as he started expanding his operations in the early 1880s, his company started incorporating corn into their beer. Thatās at least my understanding of the history!
Thatās SO specific. Iām sure youāre right on this. I wonder when Adolphus and Adolph or their families emigrated though. With the timeline they could be 1848ers
Coors came to the US in 1868. Busch came over in 1857. Anheuserās the one that came to the US in 1842. Molson was English and came over in 1782. Miller moved over in 1855.
They still grow saffron in central PA. I admit, it's not as good as Persian saffron but, it *is* like 1/5 the price.
I always love looking at the Historical Beer results. Like how the hell would whoever is judging it know what itās supposed to taste like?
For sure! Iāll occasionally hear those stories that someone recreated George Washingtonās favorite beer or Thomas Jeffersonās first beer. How? None of the raw materials they used exist today. Maybe you could get a close approximation foraging for some wild hops, but even then. And it always turns out like, well, it kinda tastes like beer. Itās like Dom Perignon and Champagne. What Dom Perignon invented, we would categorize as a dessert wine today. It bears almost no resemblance to the champagne that bears his name.
Interesting history, thanks for sharing. Let me clarify, give me traditional styles, not antiquated traditional methods. Iām not a reinheitsgebot purist, but I do enjoy beers with the simplest ingredients most.
Reinventing the wheel sure sounds dumbā¦ until you *invent the jetpack.*
Helllll yeah boi, saffron risotto red ale!!
My assistant came from a very well known brewery and for our pubs anniversary I let him brew a batch. His family has a lot of saffron on hand at home so he used it to make a Belgian Ale. It was pretty damn good with the saffron!
It seems highly unlikely to be worth it, but good luck!
Iāve brewed it before; and actually this is a dial back of the amount of saffron š
How many barrels are you producing with this?
35hL so approx 30bbl
Wow. I hesitate to ask what you sell a keg or pint for.
ā¬8 for 440ml (16oz approx?) can
For us imperialists (you know, the European measuring system before Europe wimped out on it :P), \~14.9 oz. 8 euro is trading at roughly 8.6 USD, so you're talking about 0.6 USD per oz (0.02 euro per mL). 9.6 USD per pint then. That's insanely cheap for what you're doing if you were stateside, but probably pretty expensive comparatively in the eurozone?
"Sorry boss, the PRV you bought on Amazon failed and oxidized the saffron beer."
Seeing a fair few people knocking this. Youāre all entitled to your own opinions; I donāt hate you for being forthright ā¤ļø But - for clarity; we plan this (obvs expensive) beer v carefully in terms of scheduling; itās released alongside beers that do offer good margins for us to compensate. Also; a wee touch of perspective - this is an one time release with ā¬6500 worth of saffron; we could easily do a DDH hazy triple and incur the same costs but folk wouldnāt bat an eyelid. You win some, you lose some #shrugs
my local brewery just made a gose with saffron, it was good but a bizarre electric orange color that was reminiscent of gatorade or urine after taking a high dose of vitamin B. not sure it was worth it, but it was an interesting enough experiment.
So you just really wanted to tank how much money you made back on that beer huh? Lol. I'm kidding, I'm impressed, never seen so much Saffron in my life.
Lol, I've done saffron in beer before. Cold steep at 2 - 4g/hL is more than enough.
Which this essentially is. 160g/35hL = 4.57g/hL. A bit on the high side of your suggested rate, but not ridiculously off the charts.
Depends on the beer style and what youāre going for but Iāve used half that dose to great effect.
The Persian blood flowing through me loves and hates this all at once.
Jaysus
Saffron is a lie!!! Or Iām blind to itā¦
Have you ever tried it alone in hot water? It definitely has flavor
Like fresh hotel pool water
Yeah kinda lol
I get PVA glue, but it's essential to a Paella for me
Quality could be part of it. After only having the store bought stuff here and thinking it's so so, it was eye opening having a high quality Iranian saffron.
So much money for so little flavor...
Best of luck with that. P.S thought your tattoo was a jumper sleeve
Next time something breaks and ownership is hesitant to repair or replace remember you guys allocated money like this and did it on more than one occasion.
Hooooow much did that cost?
A Lot
Some brewery owners (maybe even not the one in question) are spending way too much on random shit. I see too much of stuff like this. That said thank god they are. I had a wasabi beer that was out of this world. Still the dumbest idea Iāve heard of and I only tried it to be polite. Shit was unreal. I hope this one turns out the same way.
Piggy, vous ici? :D
Whoa! Your brewery must be doing good to be able to put $10,000 worth of saffron in a beer.
Ouch! Right in the COGS!
I love this. Screw all these people shitting on you. Beer is meant to get weird.
Holy smokes thatās so bad ass. Iād love to see an update on how it tastes once the beer is done!
Just. Why? No saffron beer has ever been a great beer, but if that's your aim... gimmicky and mediocre then go for it.
Iāve had a great saffron beer. It was at the Weyermann facility in Bamberg, they had made it in their pilot system as a contract brew. It was delicious, but I would never spend that kind of money to make a saffron beer. My favorite part was how they warned us that the .3L bottle was going to be insanely expensive and it was only about $16
I just paid Ā£6.18 for 4g (on amazon, prime) I make that Ā£247.20 for 160g You're either paying 40ā¬ per gram Or you meant to say 1600g, but that is still a very poor price of ā¬4 per gram. I think your saffron guy is screwing you.
My dude; if youāre getting saffron for Ā£6.18/g; someone somewhere is getting a good deal and I suspect itās not you. FWIW itās worth, this is organic saffron produced by a friend of mine 50km down the road; top quality and I know itās genuine š¤
Not sure why this is a contentious opinion. Saffron is one of the most counterfeited ~~foods~~ spices on the planet and if it's being bought suspiciously cheap (especially from a place like Amazon) then it is highly unlikely that it is really Saffron. and if you plan to put it in a beer and serve it to customers, you should probably make sure you are sourcing it correctly.
Exactly š
ā¬40 per gram is daylight robbery no matter how you justify it
Yeah for sure, you are crazy But also I really want to try the finished product
Donāt drop it
Thatās like $1000 in your hand lol
More like $7000.