The CONNOR’S Stout Porter Brewery Tour Experience

The CONNOR’S Stout Porter Brewery Tour Experience

Recently, we were invited for the The CONNOR’S Stout Porter Brewery Tour. The brewery visit is to get to learn more about the brewing process of CONNOR’S Stout Porter. CONNOR’S Stour Porter is inspired from the 1700’s British Stout Porter recipe, crafted to suit today’s consumer’s taste expectations.

The CONNOR’S Stout Porter Brewery Tour is all about discovering and learning. We get to see the behind of the scenes of each brew, how does the flavours come about and how many process does it go through before it is shipping out for our enjoyment.

We get to meet Mr. David Bidau, Supply Chain Director of Carlberg Malaysia during the brewery tour. According to him, the colour and flavour of stout begins with malt, which is produced from barley. CONNOR’S Stour Porter is made of a unique blend from 4 key different types of malt, Lager Malt, Caramel Malt, Brown Malt and Roasted Barley.

Basically, the lager malt ties the stout by enhancing the body and mouthful substantially and it contributes to give the brew a nice malty flavour. Caramel malt is added to give its signature bittersweet after taste as well as the gentle notes of caramel. The brown malt provides the intense dark colour to the brew and also the hint of dark chocolate flavour. Lastly, the roasted barley is used to give the brew the slight gentle roasty undertone.

The steps of brewing CONNOR’S Stout Porter as follows:

The first step is milling the malt. The malt is delivered in containers from overseas and stored in concrete silos, then pneumatically transported to the milling machine to break open the malt’s tough outer surface.

The milling process is to crush the malt enough so that it exposes the starch for subsequent conversion to sugar in the mash kettle.

Then the milled malt will move to large vessel and it will be mixed with hot water to form the mash. The natural enzymes within the malt will be activated under hot water to break down the starch into simple sugar that will give its natural sweetness. This is how you get the sweetness taste.

Brewer will monitor the mash temperatures closely to control the type of sugar to be produced by the enzymes.

The whole mashing process takes approximately 1.5 hours for enzymes to finish converting starch into sugar. The final mash will then be filtered to remove the spent grain, leaving behind a sweet solution called wort.

Wort will go through the boiling process in the ‘wort kettle’ for the period of an hour. The reason is to sterilize and clarifies the brew.

Hops, female flowers of a vine-like climbing plant, are added at the later boiling stage to develop unique aromatic character to the brew and the bitterness that is desired. This is how the bitter sweet taste is created.

Thus, the clear wort then pumped through the wort cooler to chill down from 100 degree Celsius to the right fermentation temperature about 13 degree Celsius before yeast is added.

In the fermenter, the yeast converts the malt-sugar to alcohol, aroma and carbon dioxide. The yeast is removed after days of fermentation process and the brew is ready for maturation.

Cold maturation of the brew takes place at -2 degree Celsius for at least 1-day to give the brew’s final flavor characteristics before the filtration process through a candle filter to remove yeast cells and proteins.

From the filter, the brew is transferred into a Bright Beer Tank ready for packaging to deliver.

This is the complete CONNOR’S Stout Porter’s brewing process. It is really a learning experience for us. After that, we get to learn about the art of pouring the perfect CONNOR’S Stour Pint.

The Art of Pouring the Perfect CONNOR’S Stout Pint

There is always a secret technique behind a perfect pint. To create a Perfect CONNOR’S Stout Pint, you need to 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. 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 and that’s how you get the foamy ‘crown’.

We learned so much about CONNOR’S Stout Porter during the brewery tour. It was indeed a great learning process as well as mind blowing experience too.

We enjoyed the drinking session with our friends and we ordered Grab to go back home. Remember to drink responsibly, don’t drink and drive. If you don’t have a driver, it is okay as you can order Grab to send you home safe and sound. With Grab, you have a peace of mind and keep on drinking.

Wilson Ng