New Zealand’s self-professed biggest user of lactose (milk sugar) in the brewing process is set to find new customers after creating a lactose-free, vegan-friendly smoothie sour.
The use of lactose in dessert beers, ice cream sours, smoothie sours and milkshake IPAs has always been problematic for lactose-intolerant and vegan drinkers, but Duncan’s in Paraparaumu — renowned for just these types of beers — has found a way to deliver the same texture and flavour without lactose.
The change was spurred by the recent Beervana festival which attracted three German breweries, including Sudden Death, who have a similar love of smoothie sours and dessert style beers.
When Duncan’s got the chance to do a collab beer with Sudden Death, founder-brewer George Duncan said there was one problem — Sudden Death is a vegan brewery.
“There main thing is they don’t brew with lactose so we had to ask: ‘how to do we brew the same beer without lactose?’ We ended up using a combination of maltodextrin, coconut milk powder and some salt, and that created the same body we get from a pastry beer — and we’re really happy with the result,” Duncan says.
He said the idea of using coconut milk powder didn’t come from Sudden Death, but rather that it was something he’d been exploring already — especially after discovering his own health concerns.
“Ironically, I’ve just been diagnosed as lactose-intolerant myself.
“And we’ve played with coconut milk powder before for flavouring but not as brewing aid. When we did it, Sudden Death were surprised and said: ‘We’ve never thought of doing that before’.”
The Mango Pudding smoothie sour features malted barley, wheat and oats in the grain bill, mango and passionfruit fruit additions, coconut milk powder, maltodextrin, hops, natural flavours, salt, and yeast.
To produce a great vegan beer is a major breakthrough for Duncan’s as they get a huge number of people saying: “I’d love to try your beers but the lactose thing…”
“But it was also about trying to do something different. And it’s not as if the beer doesn’t stand up next to our other beers — it’s really good.”
Not using lactose was a revelation for Duncan in terms of the flavour profile as well.
“I knew lactose added body, but I always wondered ‘how much sweetness does it really add?’. And after brewing that beer I’m now thinking it doesn’t add that much sweetness — if you get the acidity right. If you adjust the acidity, you can maintain a semi-sweet beer.”
To that end Duncan’s have also changed their brewing technique for the fruit-driven beers, abandoning the traditional kettle souring process, where the pH is lowered pre-fermentation. Instead, they are now doing a post-fermentation dosing with lactic acid.
“With using a lot of fruit you can get variations in acidity post-fermentation, so it’s good to do your final acid adjustment once the fruit’s in. That way you get an idea of how the beer is tasting first. It’s like adding seasoning to food. And that’s how we do the salt additions as well. It gives us flexibility.”
The proof, so speak, was in the pudding, with Duncan noting they “got great results at the NZ Beer Awards with post-ferment adjustments”.
They got five medals from five entries in the Speciality & Experimental class with gold medals for Satellite Grapefruit Hazy IPA and Feijoa Crumble Ice Cream Sour, silvers for Boysenberry Waffle Pastry Sour and Passionfruit & Lime Ripple Ice Cream Sour, and bronze for the Juniper IPA.