Filtered Beer

[Paddy]

So a number of weeks back I had a few drinks with a friend at our local (or being Ireland, one of our many locals) the other day.

Being an avid home brewer and lover of real ale I had a pint of the guest ale - which I can't for the life of me remember the name off though it was pretty good. But I do remember my buddy (being neither of the aforementioned) had a Stella.

I couldn't help but notice it was advertised as triple filtered! And I thought "they've gotta be kidding!"

But then I took a step back and felt my reaction was fueled by my prejudice against large corporate beers (who are known for filtering the hell out of their beers).

Then I was thinking that the only reason I think filtering is bad is because someone once told me such. And he was told by someone, who was probably told by someone else and so on and so forth which seems to have created this cultured hatred of filtered beer.

I don't doubt filtering does have an impact on Beer (and I feel "triple filtered" should be considered a crime). But just 'how much' of an impact are we talking about here. Maybe I'm wrong but I would have thought pasteurization and other chemical processes performed by large corporate breweries would be the largest contenders for flavour neutralisation.

Maybe it's the conspiracy theorist in me talking here but if I look at brewing from a large corporations point of view I would feel that instead of all the costs involved with maintaining the endless list of variables in brewing so as to consonantly reproduce the same beer with the same flavour, it would make more economical sense to institute processes that remove 99% of the flavor so that the beer will be the same each time it is brewed no matter what. And maybe filtering is one of those processes.

But would filtering in a home brew environment be all that bad? I mean has anyone conducted an experiment. Brew one batch, filter half and don't filter the other. Then say for a fact, "I can confirm with confidence that filtering had a detrimental effect on my beer." If anyone has, I can't seem to find it.

I want to clarify that I have no trouble with cloudy beer whatsoever and in fact on many occasions enjoy a lovely cloudy ale. But there are times when one wants to produce a clean, crisp lager/pilsner and Irish moss and fine tuned sparging technique just doesn't cut it, or one doesn't have the patience to wait 3 months for the sediment to fully form, or one does not like adding beer finings (which I have read also has a negative impact on flavour...).

It's easy to say something is bad when you haven't even tried it for yourself. If anyone has filtered their homebrew before with any success I'd love to know. Maybe I will conduct such an experiment with my next brew.

 

[Aleman]

There is no doubt that filtering a beer will remove bittering compounds . . . Will we notice it? No

As long as we are not filtering with a 0.1 micron absolute filter then the 'damage' that is being dome is not huge. I have used a 1 micron nominal spun polyprop filter cartridge to filter my beer, and yes there is a difference before and after . . . but then I can always compensate for the reduction in bittering by adding a few more hops at the beginning

 

[desmosteve]

So a number of weeks back I had a few drinks with a friend at our local (or being Ireland, one of our many locals) the other day

Being an avid home brewer and lover of real ale I had a pint of the guest ale - which I can't for the life of me remember the name off though it was pretty good. But I do remember my buddy (being neither of the aforementioned) had a Stella.

I couldn't help but notice it was advertised as triple filtered! And I thought "they've gotta be kidding!"

But then I took a step back and felt my reaction was fueled by my prejudice against large corporate beers (who are known for filtering the hell out of their beers).

Then I was thinking that the only reason I think filtering is bad is because someone once told me such. And he was told by someone, who was probably told by someone else and so on and so forth which seems to have created this cultured hatred of filtered beer.

I don't doubt filtering does have an impact on Beer (and I feel "triple filtered" should be considered a crime). But just 'how much' of an impact are we talking about here. Maybe I'm wrong but I would have thought pasteurization and other chemical processes performed by large corporate breweries would be the largest contenders for flavour neutralisation.

Maybe it's the conspiracy theorist in me talking here but if I look at brewing from a large corporations point of view I would feel that instead of all the costs involved with maintaining the endless list of variables in brewing so as to consonantly reproduce the same beer with the same flavour, it would make more economical sense to institute processes that remove 99% of the flavor so that the beer will be the same each time it is brewed no matter what. And maybe filtering is one of those processes.

But would filtering in a home brew environment be all that bad? I mean has anyone conducted an experiment. Brew one batch, filter half and don't filter the other. Then say for a fact, "I can confirm with confidence that filtering had a detrimental effect on my beer." If anyone has, I can't seem to find it

I want to clarify that I have no trouble with cloudy beer whatsoever and in fact on many occasions enjoy a lovely cloudy ale. But there are times when one wants to produce a clean, crisp lager/pilsner and Irish moss and fine tuned sparging technique just doesn't cut it, or one doesn't have the patience to wait 3 months for the sediment to fully form, or one does not like adding beer finings (which I have read also has a negative impact on flavour...).

It's easy to say something is bad when you haven't even tried it for yourself. If anyone has filtered their homebrew before with any success I'd love to know. Maybe I will conduct such an experiment with my next brew.[/quote]

Paddy, you've made my day with those Irish turns of phrase, thanks! :party:

 

[Paddy]

Thanks for that info Aleman :thumb:

I would really like to test it out myself so I am going to experiment with a batch soon. Maybe split it in three, one unfiltered and 2 others filtered to varying degrees. I will be sure to post the results.

Interesting that it is just the bittering that is noticeably effected. Those particles must be bigger than the other compounds, which would explain why they don't boil off.

You learn something new every day.

Glad to be of entertainment value desmosteve :)

We are a strange bunch indeed :whistle: