Talk:Bright beer

Any chance a guy can finish writing an article before others start editing it and thus causing confusion?

There's no real way to prevent that, other than writing all that you have to say prior to posting the article. Daykart 10:37, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

you can put a comment in the edit summary to let people know there'll be more edits in a minute or so. Malcolm Farmer 10:41, 19 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I see that you can't tell when an article is written unless you go into History. On the other hand, if you guys are "old hands" or editors; you might give it half an hour or so to let someone re-read it and check for typos; and for what links work and to where.

Does this really exclude pasteurised beer? According to the Leeds CAMRA beer glossary: [1]

Bright Beer An ambiguous term that might mean beer that has been pasteurised (see keg beer) but which is also used to describe real ale that is transfered to another container before serving. This latter may be done if the beer is going to be served in a location where it will not be able to settle, such as on a train.

--Dforest 01:05, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Though local CAMRA branches have websites they are no more authoritive than speaking to a bloke in the pub. Indeed, they are written by that bloke in the pub! They are blogs rather than well researched sources. Bright beer is beer that looks bright and clear because it contains little or no yeast sediment. Pasteurised beer is beer that has been pasteurised by a heating process. When a beer has undergone that heating process it is no longer termed bright beer by the brewing industry nor the consumer. There are three standard states of beer: unfiltered, in which the beer is still in contact with yeast - active or not; bright or filtered, in which the beer is no longer in significant contact with the yeast (and there are several intensities of filteration); and pasteurised, in which the beer has been heat treated. I think the guy in Leeds may have been getting his Bright beer and his Brewery-conditioned beer mixed up. A brewery-conditioned beer may be filtered and pasteurised or just filtered. SilkTork 19:56, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bad Move

SilkyTork's move from Bright beer to Filtered beer was sub-optimal. The terms overlap but are not identical. "Bright beer" is indeed a non-global term, and applies mostly to the British real-ale context, and should be defined in those terms. Anyone else support reverting the move? BrendanH 10:16, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

IMHO, this leading sentence does not work:

Filtered beer, also known as bright beer, is beer which undergoes filtration, but not pasteurisation.

Certainly not all filtered beer is unpasteurised. According to Leeds CAMRA (see above), bright beer can also refer to pasteurised beer. I am for moving this back and defining it as beer rendered sterile by either filtration or pasteurisation. --Dforest 10:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Sterile" is perhaps too strong, particularly if bright beer includes settled beer transferred into another container without filtration. Indeed, much filtration will not be sterile filtration either. See [2] for a good example of real-ale use of "bright beer". The term is used more generally to refer to visually clear beer, ready for packaging or serving. BrendanH 10:56, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're probably right there. I meant sterile in the sense of not being able to sustain further conditioning. I do recall it being defined to include settled & racked beer. There seems to be a difference between the colloquial and beer industry uses of the word, which should be explained. It is used outside the UK among beer enthusiasts, so we should include a comprehensive definition. But including it with 'filtered beer' complicates matters; as you say they are not identical.

An example in a non-UK context:

Unlike a homebrewer, we can't afford to let a beer settle for 2 to 3 months to produce a bright beer. We serve the beer unfiltered and fresh from the aging tanks after 3 to 6 weeks of aging. [3]

--Dforest 11:32, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How about something like this? BrendanH 12:29, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bright beer is visually clear beer ready for packaging or serving. The clarity can come from the natural settling out of yeast and other particulates, but may also involve light or sterile filtration, and perhaps pasteurisation. These practices will reduce or eliminate yeast, and sterile filtration and pasteurisation will also elimanate bacterial contamination, extending the shelf-life of the beer.

Without a significant yeast population, the beer is not able to undergo a secondary fermentation in its container. This means it is "flat" as it is no longer producing its own CO₂. To replace this, CO₂ is added artificially to the beer. Often the beer is served using CO₂ pressure; which means that the amount of CO₂ in the beer is, in fact, more than would be present in a beer undergoing secondary fermentation.

Non-filtered, non-pasteurised bright beer is common from real ale brewers and some micro-brewers. Real ale is sometimes allowed to settle completely and then decanted into a new container, without carrying over any sediment, in order that it can be served in circumstances where settling is not possible (paradoxically, bright beer of this sort has a very short shelf life, as it lacks the yeast population to resist oxidation). Brewpubs often serve unfiltered beer direct from large ageing tanks, where it falls bright naturally.

Not bad. But I think the third paragraph is slightly problematic in that if Real Ale is settled completely and racked, it is no longer Real Ale.

Mr. Wizard says: the key factors for unfiltered beers are microbiological contamination, oxidation and yeast autolysis. [4] --Dforest 13:02, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've moved it back and put in much of the version above (slightly modified wrt real ale). BrendanH 13:24, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bright beer and filtered are one and the same. There are several ways of filtering a beer, it would be unhelpful to have an entry for each one. Certainly in the beer industry, a filtered or yeast free beer is a bright beer. It seems odd to me to have a redirect from Filtered beer to Bright beer if the intention is simply to talk about a specific British Real Ale use of Bright Beer as being that of decanting a settled beer into another container, when that is a filtering method among several others that produce a bright or filtered beer. And then leave Filtered Beer empty. There seems also to be some muddling with the notion of a "clear" beer or a beer that has "dropped bright". SilkTork 19:56, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is simply not correct. Filtered beer has been, well, filtered, in the case of sterile beer microfiltered; in a beer that has been dropped bright the yeast has flocculated and fallen out of suspension on its own. --Stlemur 17:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeast extract

Should there be any mention in this article about what's done with the yeast once it's been filtered from the beer? I don't really know enough to write a description myself, but I believe that's the source of yeast used in things like vegemite, and perhaps it also has other uses. Any thoughts? --Daniel11 06:13, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It goes into Marmite, yes, but this is not unique to filtered beer; breweries which never filter still send their excess yeast to farmers and to yeast extract factories. --Stlemur 06:53, 24 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]