352: Chris Lohring of Notch Wants You to Brew More Distinctive Lager
Notch founder Chris Lohring loves the fact that more craft brewers are embracing lagers\u2014but he has some strong opinions about the best way to brew them.
\n\n\u201c\u2018Crispy boys\u2019 don\u2019t exist,\u201d he says. \u201cLagers aren\u2019t dry. Clean lager yeast is boring to me.\u201d
\n\nRefinement and distinction are his goals, not minimalism, and he and his team use all the tools in the brewer\u2019s toolbox to achieve them\u2014such as adjusting mash schedules and malt bills to build body in low-ABV beers; moving lager mid-fermentation from quasi-open fermentors to conicals before later moving to horizontal tanks; reducing and timing decoctions to fit the goals of individual beers; and considering the impact of mash rests on fermentability, among many other things. It\u2019s not one thing, after all, that makes a lager distinct\u2014in his words, \u201cthere\u2019s no magic bullet.\u201d
\n\nIn this episode, Lohring discusses:
\n\n- \n
- why Czech pale lager is a category, not a style \n
- how variable processes in the cellar lead to different expressions of diacetyl \n
- manipulating a mash schedule to build body and character with more expressive lager yeasts \n
- what decoctions do and don\u2019t do for lagers \n
- using small percentages of crystal malt in Czech-style pale lagers \n
- fermenting with no head pressure, and skimming to optimize flavor and hop character \n
- the difference between \u010dern\xe9 pivo and tmav\xe9 pivo \n
- using American hops in Czech-style lager \n
And more.
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