If you pour a beer this weekend and find it’s cloudy, there may be no need to grouch. “Today, the cloudy appearance of unfined beer is seen as a mark of quality rather than being associated with poorly kept beer,” says Justin Hawke, the American owner of the Somerset-based Moor Beer Company. It’s the UK’s leading maker of unfined (unclarified) beer and, as head brewer, Hawke has helped change UK drinkers’ idea of what a good beer should look like.
PHOTOGRAPHS: MOOR BEER
On the Continent, cloudy beer is fairly common. In the UK, beer is typically fined before bottling. Hawke has been dedicated to the art of ‘clean’ brewing for over 20 years. He believes the live yeast that’s removed in the fining process isn’t only fundamental to the aroma, flavour and body of a beer, but that it’s also its ‘soul’. Not using finings means his beers are vegan, too, as most finings are animal products: isinglass is made from fish swim bladders; casein comes from milk.