CIDER: CREATING

If any drink has suffered from an image problem over the last few years, its cider. For many, the image of a cider drinker is of a grey haired, long bearded chap, high on aroma and low on teeth, glugging scrumpy from a stoneware flagon as he lies rested against his sow. Cider wasn’t helped at all when in 2005, The Wurzels and British Sea Power combined to produce a song you wanted immediately to forget, “I’m a Cider Drinker.” When the moon shines on the cow shed And we’re rolling in the hay All the cows are up there grazin’ And the milk is on its way

I am a Cider Drinker I drinks it all of the day I am a Cider Drinker It soothes all me troubles away

However, makers of craft cider and other fermented fruit drinks such as – pear cider or perry (not the same thing!) – have long ago said goodbye to these stereotypes, and cruel nicknames like “trampagne” and drinkers in the know are aware of this. Many of these cider makers are either former beer brewers or are producing both at their breweries, such as Hogs Back with their award-winning cider (see April TBJ). What is an exciting trend is that the beer guys, not necessarily seeped in cider tradition, are not afraid to experiment and try innovations such as dry hopping. There is a ferocious debate rolling amongst the ‘cider intelligentsia’. Well, not exactly ferocious, but at least lively about whether cider is wine or is it beer. Of course, it’s neither – it’s cider. But the point of the discussion is to decide ciders rightful place. Is it in a goblet poured from a wine bottle at a great height and price? Or, in a handled pint glass poured out of an oak barrel at a more accessible price? In practice, like beer exists in both the premium arena and in the higher volume arena, so does cider. And, as the cider debate rolls on, it pricks the interest of conscientious drinkers and the demand for artisan cider seems to have grown where sales of big brand cider have fallen. This has happened here, Europe, the USA and even Brazil. This may present an opportunity for some brewers, because although cidermaking is definitely not the same discipline as brewing, the two do have similarities and it could be that cider made with a brewers mindset could produce some ferments with a ready market. The Cider Report, published by Westons Cider, looks at the UK cider industry, sticking primarily to big cider and giving small cider producers little notice. Although the report shows the top five producers losing some market share (combined they still control nearly 75 percent of the market), like in the USA, big cider is losing shares to small craft producers.

What you need to take away from the report is this: last year the UK’s cider industry was worth £3.1 billion – an increase of four percent year on year. Nearly £2 billion was spent on cider and perry – a strong increase – and 516 million pints were consumed – 10 million more than last year.

Westons Cider Report – available for free online – breaks down cider drinkers into five categories: fruit cider fanatics, craft repertoire drinkers, cider enthusiasts, traditional at home cider drinkers, and traditional out of home cider drinkers. Out of these five groups, a whopping combined figure of 66 percent would make up your target drinker. You will find them to be very similar to your craft beer drinkers except that there are more wom

en who are willing to try cider. Why? The reports suggests that women in the 18-34 age range prefer a drink with sweetness, flavour and taste. You have to suspect that with most of us having apple juice as a child, apple cider has a familiar smell and taste, unlike a hoppy IPA. According to the 2019 Mintel Cider Report, over half of consumers are willing to pay extra for a better-quality drink when out of home. These cider drinkers/buyers say with only a small price difference between premium and standard cider, it makes sense to trade-up to a better cider.

Atrip to Hawkes Urban Cidery in London is very likely to inspire a curious brewer. Hawkes, which is now part of Brewdog, was started in 2013 by Simon Wright. It’s the only cider maker on the Bermondsey beer mile and occupies four huge railway arches where it produces cider from scratch. From scratch means hauling apples into London from the farms, milling and pressing the apples on site, fermenting the fresh juice, and then blending and packaging. All in a railway arch.

This process might sound like a traditional cidermaking process, and in most ways, it is, but Hawkes in some ways is more like a brewing operation. Hawkes use dessert apples which are light and acidic, not cider apples which are high in tannin. Tannic cider is usually aged, partly to allow the tannins to soften, but Hawkes urban blend is packaged sooner and makes for a fresh and aromatic cider. And, this is where some similarities with brewing exist, instead of filling huge tanks once per year, Hawkes press all year round, perform a closely monitored ferment, package and then start again.

Roberto Basilico, the former head cidermaker at Hawkes and a trained winemaker, reveals an intimate understanding of the fermentation process that few other cider makers can boast. Basilico has performed the same fermentations, with the same apple varieties over and over again, many times per year and he knows its quirks. He explains to you that when making a popular Hawkes brand, Soul Trader, you watch the fermentation move along, see the gravity drop, and smell the aromas produced by the interactions between the apple and the wine yeast. But, if you wait just a few hours too long to intervene, all that aroma disappears into the ether.

Hawkes aren’t the only UK cider makers with a toe in the craft beer scene, further west – near Bristol – in the heartland of traditional cider is Pulpt. In 2017, Al Collar and Jim Wakefield were plotting their escape from the corporate machine. Collar had a passion for great cider and had made it as a hobby; Jim was more of a craft beer fan. However, they had both watched the excitement and growth in the craft beer scene and decided to jump in – Pulpt was borne. Pulpt represents a convergence of old apple varieties and modern fermentation techniques, and the two see their market as what they call “curious drinkers” – existing or new cider drinkers who demand better.

Their cidery is surrounded by orchards of traditional Somerset cider apples, like Yarlington mill and Dabinett, and naturally, it’s these cider apples that they use for cidermaking. These fruits don’t store well, so they need to press them all in one go, in October/November when the fruit is ripe and then store all of the fermenting, or fermented juice until they deem it ready for processing. This could be anywhere from six months to a couple of years.

Pulpt has been a part of some of the biggest craft beer festivals over the last couple of years including BeaverEx, Craft Beer Rising and most recently Brew// LDN. While they accept that they are not going to be the stars of a beer focused event, they have been really excited by the overwhelmingly positive reception they get from consumers who take their drinks seriously. Additionally, some of the great breweries have looked to include Pulpt as the cider-offer in their taprooms (the minute lockdown is lifted!).

And, there is a new institutional interest in the cider industry. Members of the brewing industry, both large and small, have for many years been supported by the technical training offered by the Institute for Brewing & Distilling (IBD) and from November, professional cidermakers will be supported too.

There are no Diploma or Master qualifications yet, but the General Certificate in Cider Making is available, and it’s a very good start. The General certificate covers the definition of cider in major markets then review the raw materials, apple milling, fermentation, maturation, clarification, blending, quality, hygiene and finally overarching topics like maintenance and safety.

If you wait just a few hours too long to intervene, all that aroma disappears into the ether.” Roberto Basilico

Above: Cider fermenters at Brothers Cider

The course is headed up by Adrian James who is a drinks industry veteran of 26 years. James started his career in Burton-on-Trent for what is now Molson Coors where he completed both the Diploma and Master brewer qualifications. He then worked as a Quality Manager in cider making for Heineken in Herefordshire, he sat on the NACM (national association of cider makers) technical committee and has worked globally in education and pro-ject management – largely in cidermaking. This move by the IBD is a show of confidence in the Global cider industry. I t might seem that planting apple trees, a slow to yield crop, on expensive agricultural land would be a risky diversification for a brewer. And it would, but – as luck might have it – there is another way. Just like nobody would assume that a brewer has fields of barley ripening in the sun and a combine harvester parked idle waiting for harvest, why should a cider maker necessarily be expected to manage an orchard. Apples, like barley, are a commodity and easily sourced if you know the right person. Neil Macdonald is just such a person, and to meet him you need to take a trip to his farm at Hornblotton, near Shepton Mallet in Somerset. Neil is a long serving stalwart of the artisan cider industry. In 2004 he co-founded Orchard Pig, one of the first of the UK “craft” cider makers, and ran this cider business for 14 years until its eventual sale to C&C in 2016.

Macdonald is still very much in the cider world, but his appetite for brand building has gone and instead he now offers a vertically integrated solution for cidermaking. At the beginning, this includes selling cider apples, single variety apple juice and finished bulk cider – and at the end includes a service blending, bottling, kegging, and bag-in-box packaging at a business he co-owns called Somerset Cider Solutions.

He grows 280 acres of his own trees and manages over 300 acres of traditional orchards in Somerset, which include over 600 varieties, harvesting annually over 2,000 tonnes of apples and presses over

Left: Apples at Hawkes Urban Cidery, which was founded in London in 2013

half of this himself. Around 30 percent of the juice he presses is sold as juice, and 70 percent is fermented to be sold as finished cider for blending.

About his role in the industry, Macdonald says: “It’s such a pleasant industry to be involved in, full of characters and entrepreneurs from all walks of life. The sadness is that the margins can be slim until you reach a reasonable volume, so we try to offer some key turn opportunities for those wanting to start up or scale up. Always happy to offer help and advice and fill in the gaps of the process from bud to bottle.”

As you might expect, the price of apples varies from year to year and between varieties, but due to an oversupply, the price of apples is currently pretty low. Last year Macdonald charged £120 per tonne for cider apples, and this year it

will probably be £90 per tonne which, depressingly for the growers, is less than the cost of production. Most apples will press at 65-70 percent efficiency, meaning that you can expect 650-700 litres of cider per tonne.

Macdonald also sells apple juice. For this he uses his belt press, a relic of the Orchard Pig days, which is rated to 3 tonnes per hour. Two holding tanks allow the milled apples to sit for one to two hours. These holding tanks improve pressing efficiency two-fold, firstly the press is never waiting for milled apples and secondly, the apples give up their juice more readily after an enzymatic stand.

He charges 18ppl for contact pressing and 38ppl for apple juice. For fermented cider Macdonald charges £45ppl for naturally fermented 6% ABV or 52ppl for an 8 % ABV plus the duty. The finished cider comes from 100 percent pressed cider apples and is used by craft cider producers as a reservoir in case they run out during the year. It is stored in 1,000 litre IBCs and each IBC can be tasted individually to find the perfect ferment.

Cidermaking, ignoring the pressing equipment, is not usually as capital intensive as beer brewing. Ripe apples mostly contain glucose, fructose and sucrose and little or no starch, so a brewhouse is not needed. Cider can be fermented in a brewery fermentor, if the brewer can bring himself to do so, and if not single-skinned wine fermenters are usually used, which are far cheaper than the insulated and jacket pressure tanks usually seen in breweries.

more expensive and complicated than fermentation. Beer ferments to a terminal gravity leaving some residual sugar, at this gravity the beer is both palatable and (relatively) stable, the beer can be left to carbonate in a unitank and run into kegs ready for the pub.

Cider generally will carry on fermenting until all of the sugar has been exhausted and leaving a very dry product. In this state it appeals to a very niche drinker, and so is common to blend the finished cider with sugar, apple juice or fruit juice to bring the sweetness back into balance. Adding back these simple sugars leaves a pretty unstable product, in that its very likely to referment, and so needs special treatment through sterile filtration or flash pasteurisation to gain a shelf life of more than a couple of days.

Solutions kegging and bottling service, whereas Hawkes cider invested in a crossflow filter from Vitikit in Exeter and kegging equipment to keep all production in the archway. A small group of cider makers attempt to arrest the fermentation early which, if successful, leaves a cider lower in alcohol and higher in natural sweetness. The technique, practiced by producers like Ridge & Furrow and Find & Foster – both from Devon – involves using apples from old and nutrient-depleted orchards, or a process of frequent rankings to keep the yeast count very low, or a combination of the two.

The idea is that apples from abandoned orchards will have the normal levels of sugar but low levels of nitrogen. This low nutrient level will give a sluggish and incomplete fermentation. It is possible to plot the gravity during fermentation and, after a few years, learn when it’s safe to bottle – usually just before fermentation has finished to give some sparkle. T here is another reason why a brewer might take an interest in a cider foray. It concerns a subject as far removed from the creativity –hopefully – and romance of craft brewing that it’s possible to get, but it’s a subject never truly off the mind of a brewer – alcohol duty. There is no small brewers relief equivalent in the cider world, though there is a growing movement to argue for it, but there is an exemption from registration that applies to produc-ers making, or planning to make less than 7000 litres per year.

This “exemption from registration” means that so long as you keep adequate records you can make and sell up to 7,000 litres of cider per year without needing to complete a duty re-turn and without having to pay any duty. The exemption came into force in 1976, when cider became liable for alcohol duty for the first time since 1923, and was designed to protect the farm producers that still made cider and

used it as wages for the farm workers. It’s now the reason why so many very small artisan cider producers can survive in the UK.

There is a caveat, Notice 162 – HMRCs excise notice on cider – which has a strict definition on what cider actually is. Fermented apple juice with the addition of any unapproved ingredi-ents – and the approved list is short – will no longer be cider in the eyes of HMRC, it will be a made-wine. Made-wine has for a long while been the source of an unquenchable irritation for the ultra-orthodox cider community, and in their defence, the cider market has become overwhelmed by big brand fruit ciders high in syrup and low in apple content. But, there is also considerable innovation in co-fermenting cider with other fruits and spices. An example is Beard & Sabre, from Cirencester, who began to specialise in blending hops into cider. Cofounder Tom Dunn has a lot to say on the madewine question.

“We began making cider in 2015 in Cirencester, Gloucestershire – with an ultra-traditionalist methodology, only fresh pressed apple varieties, blended in different ratios to create different brands.

Hopped cider is a young idea in the United Kingdom.” Tom Dunn

Below: Cider at Hawkes, based in Bermondsey, London

We felt pressured by CAMRA and traditional cider communities, who are often very vocally opinionated, to only create these ciders. We hit a wall with sales, while the old folks in straw hats advocated for production of conservative ciders – despite this causing their own market to become saturated with ciders consumers didn’t really enjoy.”

Between 2016-18, Dunn began to experiment with fruit ciders, or made-wines. His orderbook was filling exponentially, but making these ciders didn’t fit in with his ethos and mission, so he spent time researching how to craft unique ciders from exclusively apples. Then, in late 2018 Tom had a revelation when he began to blend hops into his cider.

in the States, mainly as they are not hindered as we are by hopped cider being classified as a made-wine equivalent. Our main brand is Dolores, a Cascade dryhopped (hops added in after the blend) medium, 4% ABV. It is by far the highest quality cider we have made to date, but sales in our standard medium are higher – purely, in our opinion, due to price, as we pass the duty savings on to the trade,” says Dunn,

“We pride ourselves on leading the way in UK hopped cider innovation and are at present the only cidermaker to specialize in producing hopped cider. There are a few quality cidermakers in the country who run a hopped line, but our focus is based entirely on creating the best and most innovative hopped ciders the UK craft cider community has to offer. “Our ciders are all crafted from a 6% ABV naturally fermented base (wild yeast), with apple juice added to sweeten and to meet the 4% ABV duty limit. We have experimented with whole hops, hop pellets, hop essences, different addition ratios and infusion times, different pasteurisation temperatures, carbonation levels and how these all interact with cider blended with hops. “We are in it for the long run and have had to accept that, unless the government would like to support the craft drinks industry by creating more detailed duty bands, we will always have to deal with made-wine duty.” Madwine duty was introduced in the 1990s as a tactic to kerb the rise of cheap alcopops and the harm they were doing in some communities, and so the tax is high!

Cider, wine and made wine-duty is not directly proportional to the alcohol level – like beer is – it’s banded so all drinks within the band pay the same duty. With cider, the lower band runs from 1.2% to 6.8% ABV, with all cider in this range paying £0.4038 per litre in duty. With madewine duty, the bands are tighter so, for example, a hopped cider at 4% ABV will be lia-ble for £0.9168 per litre in duty, at 5% it will be £1.2608 and at 6% ABV it will be £2.9757. Ouch! O utside of the UK – which most see as the spiritual home of cider and the consumer of 37.5 percent of global volume – pockets of artisan cidermaking have been emerging. These New World producers began mostly in established apple growing regions, although they now also exist in a format where they are closer to the drinker than to the orchard. Many of these cidermakers are either

breweries as well as cidermakers – or they use brew-ing equipment to make their cider.

An area that few of us would associate with cider is Brazil, which has a growing cider indus-try. An example is Morada Cia Etílicas, a gypsy brewer from the state of Parana in southern Brazil, and since 2016 also a gypsy cider maker. [A gypsy brewer has no facility of his or her own. Instead, the brewer travels to a functioning brewing facility and pays for use of the space to produce their own beer or cider.] Speaking to its founder and head brewer André Junqueira reveals the motivations behind his cider project.

“I started by making beer and spirits, then I studied ciders and mead. I like cider because it is very versatile and has high drinkability. We launched our line of ciders in 2016. I always thought it was an interesting product to introduce in Brazil, although we have bad memories of low-quality ciders made as cheap substitutes for sparkling wines.” The south of Brazil is a big apple producer – it produced 105 million tonnes in 2018 – and André uses the Fuji and Gala apples, which are the most common commercially grown vari-eties, for his cidermaking.

As Moranda Cia Etílica is a gypsy project, they don’t have our own brewery or cidery. The brewing and cidermaking take place separately, actually nearly 600km apart, with the cider produced at a winery in the mountains near the town of Caxias do Sul, in the state of Santa Catarina. Does Andre use his brewing experience to make better cider? “Not in terms of technique, but in terms of building flavours. I believe from my brewing expe-rience I have all the ideas I need to build the new products. For the

launch of the first line of artisanal ciders in the country, I believed that the use of local ingredients, like pineapple, and the local Amburana wooden barrels, would help people better understand the product.”

Around 1500 km up the Atlantic coast in Rio De Janeiro is Psydra, a cider company co-owned by Mark Philip. Psydra is a long way from any apple orchard, being based in the trendy Santa Teresea district of Rio. But, it is surrounded by a potentially large cider market. Philip says: “I am originally from London, so have the habit of drinking cider – especially in the summer – but have been living in Rio de Janeiro for 10 years. I got talking to my business partner Icaro, who had also got a taste for cider while abroad, and we came to the conclusion that it was the perfect drink for the yearround hot weather of Rio de Janeiro. The infinite types of fruits growing in Brazil

We see the hopped cider as a ‘gateway drug’ into cider,” Mark Philip

Psydra makes a hopped cider, and you have to wonder if this is a good tactic to present ci-der to a beer audience. Philip sheds some light on this. “We make one traditional cider and one hopped cider commercially at the moment, we also make small batch special editions at our lab which we sell directly to our customers at our monthly Psydra Garden event which combines food, drink and live music in an atmospheric garden in the historic neighbourhood of Santa Teresa.

“We see the hopped cider as a ‘gateway drug’ into cider, something that the consumers of the very well developed craft beer market can relate to. Typically, the 20 or so tap craft beer bars go for barrels of our hopped cider, while restaurants and bars opt for bottles of our classic cider. Many beer drinkers have tried cider in Europe before so they have a vague idea of what to expect but they are still pleasantly surprised.”

Psydra, like Morada, use dessert apples, and though they might look at using tannic cider apples in future, they find that dessert apples actually make a cider that is particularly well adapted to the hot weather. They use 100 percent juice in their cider, meaning no dilution, concentrates or flavourings and they leave it unfiltered. The cidermaking happens at a local brewery. About this relationship, and any conflict, Philip says: “We obviously don’t use any of the brewhouse equipment, but we use the same fermentation tanks and the bottling and canning equipment used for beer production without any problems at all.

“Breweries in Brazil tend to have top of the line equipment and processes, so it has all gone incredibly smoothly up until now. We haven’t had any problems at all. The breweries have absolutely no experience in making cider, so we have to take quite a hands-on role making the cider and explaining the processes but apart from that we have managed perfectly using the brewing infrastructure.”

In the States, Boston Beer’s Angry Orchard – the largest cider producer in the US – has been controlling the market for the past five years, and sells in the UK at Tesco’s. Last year Angry, which showed a slight decline along with Anheuser-Busch and Miller Coors’ ciders, still made $226 million. The next cider down, Bold Rock, made $27 million. “Those brands are hurting,” US Association of Cider Makers executive director Michelle McGrath told BevNet Magazine. “The success of the Angry Orchard Rosé had them grow-ing temporarily, but the rosé trend has passed on from Angry Orchard to regional brands.”

Nevertheless, McGrath said local and regional brands have grown considerably over the past seven years, increasing their volume share from eight percent in 2012 to 34 percent last year, reported BevNet. Industry insiders say that Angry Orchard’s success is down to it making very consistent, very drinkable ciders that range from sweet to dry. Because it would be impossible for it to source from US farms all the apples Angry requires, it uses concentrate from Europe. US small craft cider makers are able to source local apples and turn this to their marketing advantage.

Right Bee Cider from Chicago, run by Katie Morgan and Charles Davis, are just such a pro-ducer, they buy fresh juice from Michigan. and use a blend of apples for consistency all year round. The exact blend depends on the brand, their SemiDry and Dry are only apple based, but our other offerings include various other fruit/spice/herb additions. And what does the US craft beer scene make of craft cider? Morgan explains.

“Beer drinkers enjoy our cider. The biggest reason why people love our cider is because it isn’t too sweet. All of our styles are on the drier end of the spectrum. Cider drinkers love that, and beer drinkers love it too! It is easy to get them interested in it, all it takes is convinc-ing them to try it. Some beer drinkers here in the USA have a preconceived notion of what cider is like, without the knowledge that there are many different types, and usually it’s the assumption that it’s incredibly sugary. Once they know it isn’t, they’re more likely to give it a go, and they are always pleasantly surprised with our cider.”

Companies such as Virtue Cider and Seattle Cider Co. stemmed from craft breweries, Goose Island Beer Company and Two Beers Brewing Company, respectively, while other companies such as Colorado Cider Company were launched by former brewers.

Collaborations between local breweries and cider producers are becoming quite common, with cross-over in techniques taking place, such as dry-hopping cider. Colorado Cider Company’s Grasshop-Ah (6.5% ABV) is made with lemongrass and dry-hopped after filtration. It was one of the first commercially available dry-hopped ciders and is still one of the cidery’s best-selling products. The flagship cider at Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider (Portland, Oregon), Hallelujah Hopricot (6.7% ABV), is steeped with coriander, bitter-orange peel, and paradise grains, fermented with a Belgian saison ale yeast, and finished with pure apricot juice and Oregon-grown Cas-cade and Amarillo hops. Owner Nat West calls himself a die-hard craft-beer revolutionary and has experimented with beer yeasts, wild yeasts, Belgian ale spices, hops, and local fruits and flowers (including watermelon and elderflower) to craft his off-the-wall ciders.

Some cider makers are experimenting with Brettanomyces and Lactobacillus. Four years ago Portland’s Swift Cider released a single-varietal, 100% Brett fermented cider as a limited release, which is what it’s remained and is not a core cider.

So there is a little more to fermenting apple juice than meets the eye, but as long as you know your excise notices and you can manage the practical conflicts between cidermaking and brewing, doing so could be worthwhile distraction for a microbrewery. The fermentation equipment is fairly common for both industries and packaging is easily out-sourced if needs be. Some of the customers are the same, so a brewer may find that their existing customers have an appetite for cider – this is very likely true away from the tradi-tional cider making areas, where competition is lower. There is opportunity to hybridise, and co-ferment barley and apple and there is opportunity to innovate in what has been quite a stiff industry. It must be true that, good or bad, a brewing mindset can add something to the cidermaking process. So is the opposite also true? Can a journey into the world of cidermaking bring something new the brewing process? It looks likely we won’t have to wait too long to find out. u

THE IMPACT OF FILTRATION ON HOP INTENSITY CHALLENGING ASSUMPTIONS

IS THE ASSUMPTION THAT STERILE FILTRATION STRIPS BEER OF ITS HOP AROMA WELL FOUNDED? OR IS THIS PERCEPTION NEEDLESSLY HOLDING SOME BREWERIES BACK IN ADOPTING MORE EFFICIENT NEW TECHNOLOGY? PARKER ANALYSES THE ISSUE.

REFERENCES

1.Julio Romero Johnson, Brewlab, 2019 Impact evaluation on hop intensity from filtration and pasteurisation. 2. Parker Bioscience Filtration, May 2018. The Sterile Filtration of Beer - Keeping up with Consumer Trends retrieved from http://blog.parker.com/the-sterilefiltration-of-beer-keeping-up-withconsumer-trends

With the rise in popularity of craft beers – often noted for their strong, hoppy aromas – the reorientation of the beer market around premium products and distinctive brands has continued apace. Smaller, independent breweries have risen to prominence, with their products often finding their way onto supermarket shelves or bar cellars thousands of miles from where they were originally brewed. Larger breweries, in an effort to claw back market share and reverse the trend of declining beer sales, have remodelled their brands to appeal to modern tastes and in many cases, they have acquired popular craft breweries.

The battle to please the more sophisticated palate of today’s beer drinker is raging. The emphasis is firmly on taste.

Although beer is acidic, alcoholic, anaerobic and contains hop compounds that act as preservatives, there are some microorganisms that can survive through this and thrive on beer’s nutritionally rich properties. These microorganisms can cause spoilage of beer in the form of a haze or sedimentation, a sour or rancid taste and over-carbonation. The main spoilage culprits are: u Lactic acid bacteria (Pediococcus and Lactobacillus) u Wild yeast (Brettanomyces) u Brewing yeast (Saccharomyces)

If beer is to last more than a few days once packaged, then care must be taken to either completely eliminate or control these spoilage organisms using microbial control.

More breweries are turning to cold stabilisation (sterile filtration) as a means of ensuring the microbial stabilisation of beer.

The sterile filtration process takes place in a hygienic and sealed environment, which uses polyethersulphone (PES) membrane filter cartridges to remove spoilage organisms without affecting flavour and characteristics of beer. In a landscape where many breweries are exporting their beers to far flung markets, a long shelf life is essential. Sterile filtration increases the shelf life of a product. In addition, the filters used in sterile filtration minimise adsorption of desirable components and help to protect beer head retention.