Steam Exchange – Steam Ale 4.8% Alcohol
November 18, 2009 – 12:14 am
Steam beer as a style is fairly old and harks back to the early days of the Californian Gold Rush. In the 1840′s the popularity of lager beer was growing and after a hard day trying to strike their fortune in the hills a good portion of the miners wanted a nice refreshing crisp lager to unwind with. The problem was lager requires cold temperatures during its fermentation and maturation and California in the days before refrigeration didn’t have have access to the same climate as the caves found in lager’s native Germany. Brewers therefore eventually got desperate and tried using lager yeast in their brews anyway whilst fermenting as normal at the same temperatures Ale is made at, resulting in the creation of Steam Beer! Some people didn’t mind it in the end, and in some areas it even caught on and became sought after.
The Steam Exchange brewery is situated in South Australia at Goolwa and given the name of the brewery it seems only appropriate for them to make a “Steam Beer”. Decanting a bottle into a glass displays a clear bronze coloured liquid, with a fairly high level of carbonation and a nice large creamy head riding atop. The head ended up being 3 – 4cm’s tall and took a good 5 minutes to die right down to a nice lace covering.
This beer is brewed in open fermenters which i think contributes a lot to the complexity of the brew’s aroma. It is sensational with toffee, caramel, mango, melon, nectarine, floral and citrus notes being fairly easy to detect. On the palate this beer is big and malty with a big hop hit that starts at the front of the palate and seems to increase all the way to the back. A lot of the flavours are contributed by the malt with butterscotch, caramel and brown sugar leading the way but herbal and citrus notes also accompany.
Verdict: Great aroma, very easy to drink yet complex enough to keep you interested. I loved this beer very tasty!
Rating: 8.1 / 10
Link: http://www.steamexchange.com.au/
Tags: Goolwa, Open Fermentation, SA, Steam Ale, Steam Exchange
2 Responses to “Steam Exchange – Steam Ale 4.8% Alcohol”
By Cre8ive Commando on Nov 22, 2009 | Reply
Sounds like a goody to try …
Where do I get my hands on one of these?
By admin on Nov 30, 2009 | Reply
As far as i know you have to order them from the brewery directly, they haven’t made it as far as Sydney yet