I’ve been enjoying every moment of The CONNOR’S Experience for the past 2 months (read about my journey here) . Since then, I’ve developed a keen interest in understanding how the CONNOR’S Stout Porter brew is made. Luck was on my side as I was invited to visit the brewery last weekend. If you ever wondered how CONNOR’S Stout Porter is made, let me bring you on a visual tour here. Before I go into details of the brewing process, just a quick recap about the history of this famous brew. CONNOR’S Stout Porter is a brew inspired from the 1700’s British Stout Porter recipe with perfectly crisp texture, creamy foam and gentle roasty undertone.
After a briefing session together with the members of the media, we begin our journey into the brewery and our guide for today is Mr Joash Ethan, Brewery Publicity Officer. A charming fellow, he explained to us the 4 main ingredients to make the right brews.
Finishing this session, our next journey brings us to a closer look how CONNOR’S Stout Porter is being brewed and which are the KEY Ingredients that make CONNOR’S Stout Porter so unique and balanced in taste. As we gathered in the room, we were introduced to Mr.David Bidau, Supply Chain Director of CONNOR’S Stout Porter whom explained in great detail the brewing process of CONNOR’S Stout Porter.
The first thing we learn was to achieve the perfect brew, CONNOR’S Stout Porter uses only premium and high quality ingredients such as Lager Malt, Caramel Malt, Brown Malt and Roasted Barley.
With the combination of these malts, CONNOR’S Stout Porter unique balanced taste is achieve. How? Lager Malt is used to enhance the malty flavour, while Caramel Malt is added to give its signature bittersweet aftertaste, Brown Malt provides the intense dark color with chocolatey flavour and lastly Roasted Barley is used to give a roasty undertone.
First step of the brewing process is to blend the 4 different types of malt and physically crushing the malt kernels into smaller particles in preparation for mashing.
Next, add water to the crushed malt and starched will be broken down to simple sugars that will give its natural sweetness. Using a mash filter, a clear wort will be produced.
The wort from the mash will then go through a boiling process where hops will be added at a later stage to develop the unique flavours. In this room, they’re only able to demonstrate the milling, mashing and boiling process. For the next brewing process such as cooling, fermentation and filtration we have to head over to the brewery room.
When we arrived at the brewery room, we were required to put on our safety gear and no pictures are allowed in here.
Here’s the Brewhouse where the actual milling, mashing and boiling process is done. In here, the clear wort will be put in a cooler to be chilled to the right fermentation temperature. When it hits the right temperature, yeast will be added and it’ll take 5 days to produce the alcohol. Following suit, it’ll take another 10 days for maturation to set in and we will have a perfectly balanced enriched malt flavour. This process is known as the fermentation and maturation period.
The final step is filtration, whereby the mature stout is filtered under close monitoring. The stout will only be released for packaging after all quality and tasting evaluation has been conducted. Quite amazed by the process and detailed CONNOR’S Stout Porter put into creating the perfect brew.
This is not the end of our journey as we headed back to learn the art of pouring the perfect CONNOR’S Stout Porter pint. Unbeknown to most consumers, CONNOR’S Stout Porter is only available in draught only. A perfect pouring skill is required to have the creamy head foam. This isn’t as easy as it looks!
Firstly, hold the glass firmly at 45% degrees exactly 1 inch under the tap. Next, pull the handle fully forward and slowly straighten the glass as it fills. Following suit, let the stout run straight down into the middle of the glass while maintaining the distance of 2 – 2.5 inches between the surface of the stout and the tap.
Finally, fill the glass until its full then leave the surge to settle allowing the creamy head to foam. Here’s Mr Alvin Yap, Draught Beer Services Manager of Carlsberg Malaysia demonstrating how to tap the perfect pint. This is truly a work of art and it does take some time to perfect your pouring skills.
Thanks to great team from CONNOR’S Stout Porter team whom hosted us for the day.
Yup, now I can sit back and relax with my favourite CONNOR’S Stout Porter. I always have a sensory experience drinking this brew. At the first visual sight, be captivated by the gas bubbles dancing and traveling in the glass. Second, is the smell. Take a good sniff and I’ll find roasted notes with hints of chocolate, toffee and malt. Next, is the taste where the caramel sweetness with roasty undertones sits gently on my tongue. The last would be the unique after taste filled with right flavours that makes me want to take another sip. Doesn’t it sounds yummy 😀
It was definitely a fun filled informative day for me to learn about the brewing process of CONNOR’S Stout Porter. Let’s keep my finger crossed, that next round I can learn how to cook dishes infused with CONNOR’S Stout Porter.