Flaked Barley In Dry Irish Stout - Does Guinness really use it?

[Sean_SA]

Recently I watched this video from Get Er Brewed on YouTube on their tour of the Guinness brewery in Dublin as well as some recipe tips from their "brewing technologist" on brewing a Guinness clone towards the end of the video -

Of course, the majority of Irish stout recipes online feature flaked barley. Beersmith's blog outright states that Guinness uses flaked barley - Brewing an Irish Stout Beer Recipe

BUT...

In the Get Er Brewed video, the brewing technologist basically states the beer is basically just base malt and roast barley. I commented on the video and asked Get Er Brewed if they perhaps asked the guy if they use flaked barley and replied saying that he did indeed ask that question and they said they do not use flaked barley or any crystal malt...

Now of course Guinness wont give away everything and perhaps they have left out those two vital secrets intentionally. I'm wondering if anyone brews irish stouts without flaked barley and what their results are like when served on nitro? For me, I have always had good results with it, so why change it... but I'm still curious as to what the results may be like when flaked barley is omitted.

Cheers guys

 

[mabrungard]

I would be surprised if Guinness uses a flaked barley. I am more inclined to believe that they would use a raw or chit barley that they manipulate in their brewing process. What is fairly sure is that they do use a raw barley product to provide the beta glucan content that boosts the overall body and mouthfeel of this otherwise small beer.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Its pretty well documented that flaked barley was used in making Guinness for a long time, initially for tax reasons, partly at least, but it may well not be an ingredient now.

They've stopped using soured wort and now just add acid apparently. They've created 0.0 Guinness. So they innovate and change production. Flaked barley will boost the body of the beer but there are other ways to do that. As a homebrewer its probably simplest to use flaked barley or other unmalted grain. Some people use maltodextrin.

When I make stouts I make them between 4 and 6% but I use grains like amber malt, brown malt and crystal to add dextrins. And sometimes flaked oats, wheat or barley. I don't use nitro.

Not much use sorry, just some thoughts. I do add acid. Usually lactic but I've tried citric too.

 

[mabrungard]

I don't believe that St James Gate brewery ever used soured wort for their Guinness Flavor Extract (the roasty stuff).

With the very low alkalinity Wicklow water that brewery normally receives, just steeping the roast barley in the water results in an extract that has a pH in the low 4 range. No souring needed.

 

[Spivey24]

You probably won’t match their process even given the exact recipe, so at the home brew level, you may need some deviations and get it as close as you can. My clone recipe uses roasted barley and Carafa III so that helps a bit with body.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

This article quotes from a Guinness brewery document from 1939. Interesting. Old acid beer was one of the constituents parts of Guinness.

https://boakandbailey.com/2018/08/the-magic-guinness-blend-c-1939/
Here’s the section on ‘Making Up’:

Beer in storage vats [after fermentation] is quite flat and is cloudy and bitter and uninteresting to taste. Before it is ready for sale it must be ‘Made up’… Beer from say six different brews forms the basis. These are chosen in such proportions that when mixed with unfermented beer (i.e. wort that has been pitched but not allowed to ferment) known as gyle, their residues added to the fermentable matter of the gyle will give a suitable ‘Prime’. ‘Prime’ is the fermentable matter in beer after making up just as ‘Residue’ is the fermentable matter as the beer enters the storage vat. It is measured as the difference between the present gravity of the beer and its perfect primary.
In addition to these beers there are added:–

1. Barm beer: this is the beer which is skimmed off from the skimmers with the yeast and is separated from the yeast in a filter press. It is intensely bitter but adds very materially to the flavour of the flat, uninteresting storage vat beer.
2. O.B.S.: old beer storage is old acid beer that, like barm beer, improves the flavour of the finished beer although it is itself very unpleasant.
3. Drawing: these are residues of made up beer which was not bright enough to put into the trade without further treatment. It is exactly similar in composition to made up beer.
4. Finings: this is a solution of isinglass in storage vat beer. Only minute traces of isinglass are required but it brings about the very rapid sedimentation of all the floating particles which make the beer cloudy.

All the constituents of the make up are pumped into a ‘Racking Vat’ together and there allowed to stand for 24-48 hours.

 

[patto1ro]

Its pretty well documented that flaked barley was used in making Guinness for a long time, initially for tax reasons, partly at least, but it may well not be an ingredient now.

They've stopped using soured wort and now just add acid apparently. They've created 0.0 Guinness. So they innovate and change production. Flaked barley will boost the body of the beer but there are other ways to do that. As a homebrewer its probably simplest to use flaked barley or other unmalted grain. Some people use maltodextrin.

When I make stouts I make them between 4 and 6% but I use grains like amber malt, brown malt and crystal to add dextrins. And sometimes flaked oats, wheat or barley. I don't use nitro.

Not much use sorry, just some thoughts. I do add acid. Usually lactic but I've tried citric too.

Guinness didn't use flaked barley for tax reasons. There weren't any tax advantages in using unmalted grain. They used it because it was cheaper than malt. I think they only started using it in the 1980s.

Flaked barley was once common in UK beer. But only because brewers were forced to use it by the government during WW II. Everyone dropped it as soon as it was no longer compulsory.

 

[duncan_disorderly]

Guinness didn't use flaked barley for tax reasons. There weren't any tax advantages in using unmalted grain. They used it because it was cheaper than malt. I think they only started using it in the 1980s.

Flaked barley was once common in UK beer. But only because brewers were forced to use it by the government during WW II. Everyone dropped it as soon as it was no longer compulsory.

Cheers Ron. I didn't realise they only started using it as late as that. Think your second para contradicts your first?! Guinness the exception presumably....

 

[patto1ro]

Cheers Ron. I didn't realise they only started using it as late as that. Think your second para contradicts your first?! Guinness the exception presumably....

There's no contradiction. Guinness, I assume, had to use flaked barley 1941 to 1948, and dropped it when they could. Only to adopt it again when that crook Raunders was in charge in the 1980s,

 

[duncan_disorderly]

There's no contradiction. Guinness, I assume, had to use flaked barley 1941 to 1948, and dropped it when they could. Only to adopt it again when that crook Raunders was in charge in the 1980s,

?
You said everyone dropped it when they could. Then said Guinness only adopted it in the 80s.

Now you say they used it in the 40s.

I'm just a bit confused sorry. Probably me.

 

[patto1ro]

?
You said everyone dropped it when they could. Then said Guinness only adopted it in the 80s.

Now you say they used it in the 40s.

I'm just a bit confused sorry. Probably me.

Everyone had to use a certain percentage for a period during the war and immediately after. I'd forgotten that this rule applied to Park Royal. That's why I said only in the 1980s. Pretty sure that the statement is correct for the Dublin brewery.

 

[Bassman2003]

Guinness does have or I guess had depending on the product a sour or curdled milk flavor component. Reminds me of the German sauergut flavor. An outside process that becomes a flavor characteristic.

 

[patto1ro]

Guinness does have or I guess had depending on the product a sour or curdled milk flavor component. Reminds me of the German sauergut flavor. An outside process that becomes a flavor characteristic.

Bottle-conditioned Guinness (RIP) had a definite lactic tang to it. I pity those that never got to taste this wonderful beer. Total world class. And available in every pub in the UK back in the 1980s. Draught Guinness is a very poor replacement.