Carolina Beer Guy

Exploring the Carolinas one Pint at a time

Category: Throwback Thursdays

  • Throwback Thursday – A Sense of Space

    So this week we go back to a post from March of 2013.

    One key element of the modern brewery to me is a sense of place. I mean that the brewery itself is in a sense the social object. A center where people can travel to, gather with others, and enjoy this shared bond of liking this brewery’s beer. I see it regularly here in North Carolina with Big Boss having close to 500 people on their monthly tour, Fullsteam has a number of community events weekly, or Mystery brewing having movie nights.

    Let’s consider back to the first generation of craft brewers in the 1980, two companies I can think of started out both contract brewing their product. They both grew to national attention and grew as a good pace, eventually one established a permanent home, with a smaller test batch system and place for the public to visit and tour, Boston Beer Company. While the other Pete’s Wicked Ale did well initially, never established a ‘home’ and eventually was spun off from Pete Slosberg to be killed off by Gambrinus years later. And yes there were more factors going on but this sense of place to put a face on the company is a factor among them.

    Have you driven past a InBev or MillerCoors plant? Is there anything compelling or could it be any other industrial plant along the highway? Even Guinness, for how much it has grown and been acquired it still has the old brewery for tours and a shrine where many of my friends have gone and taken the tour and enjoyed a few pints. 

    From Magic Hat’s quirky taproom to visiting the iconic Anchor brewery, it’s a sense of place that helps people find a connection to the beers they love. With all the debate of Craft vs ‘Crafty’ the last few months, this remains in my mind at least a touchstone that helps define what a brewery is.

    I still believe this post, but with the break down of in person meeting during COVID that many people are still dealing with and the need for more diverse drink options are important parts of it. A couple of breweries I was at considered coffee and day time mixed space hours, but neither location was well suited to it. Having some food in the mix helps to, but most breweries aren’t restaurant folk. The solution on that front is having a sublease space for a food truck, a commissary kitchen that people can order at the food trucks window, meanwhile staff works on the food trucks off-site events prep. A few places have been successful at this Dirtbag Brewing as example and I think it’s positive way to get permanent food in the space. Back to diverse drink options, a full mixed beverage cocktail program has been a great update to NC ABC, every brewery should jump on board.

    Next problem is rental rates, they have to be steady and locked in agreement for long term success or better yet, own the building. Lock it into a separate LLC of the same owners, it includes tax right offs and limits legal issues. Fullsteam, Big Boss, many others across the state and likely the nation have faced is being cost out of neighborhoods they helped make successful. It’s important to be mindful.

    Lastly special events to attract to the brewery, I love a good brewery tour, but the customer base is just not into it these days. But offering for accounts or VIPs is great. One recent innovative event I have noticed is BMC Brewing is Public Domain movie night, they show a movie weekly that the copyright has expired, no pesky MPAA to hassle you. The challenge with events like these is that if you are in neighborhood with multiple breweries in short distance they start copying each others events so staying ahead becomes a challenge.

    Often times breweries have been called Third space I still believe in the concept but breweries must adapt to their local market.

  • Throwback Thursday – Start of School

    Today”s post is from January of 2015 discussing Wake Tech’s Craft Brewing program. I really enjoyed my time working with the program and glad that Clay has been successful at growing it.

    Today starts the fourth section of the Wake Tech Craft Brewing class basics class. It has been fun to teach, but more importantly it is helping people prepare for careers related to the brewing industry. The other benefit is local brewers will have better trained new staff walking in the door.

    The students come from a wide range from young adults trying to get their career going to retired folks looking for a hobby. Some homebrewers take it, but over half attendees have no experience with brewing before walking in the door. 

    The class is review of the brewing process and issues in a brewery. I work to set expectations from the first day, not this is not a class on making wort, it’s about general operations. The class does make one beer on a pilot system, but this is done to make sure they understand the entire brewing process start to finish in a hands-on approach. And yes, the beer is enjoyed for the class graduation. The last big point I try to make clear is brewing is work, hard work. Long days standing getting wet in hot or cold conditions are the norm, drinking beer is often the exception not the rule.

    Teaching the class makes me focus on the basic elements of the brewing. As the adage goes you only really know a skill when you teach it to others. Standing up in front of 20 students helps me practice on public speaking which is under appreciated but often needed skill when opening a brewery. All those funny odd skills from cleaning to electrical repair to public speaking that go into brewing that people never stop to think of, but perhaps because it does require so an odd mixture of skills that makes the life so appealing.

  • Throwback Thursday – Beer Basics

    Today’s post is from Sand & Pine from February 2023. Italics means an after edit.

    What Makes Beer Beer?

    With the start of the New Year, I thought I’d get back to the basics. What is beer? It seems like a simple enough question. The answer involves a short list: a combination of water, malt, hops and yeast. So, let’s dig into these ingredients a little deeper.

    Water

    Dave Berry once wrote, “Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.” Water makes up over 95% of beer – a straightforward thing at first glance, but that’s deceiving. Where does the water come from? Is it collected rainnwater or does it come from a stream? Or perhaps it was pulled from wells deep within the earth. Depending on the source, there are different chemical compounds and salts present. Is the water hard or soft? All this information can be impactful.

    Guinness, for example, uses soft water to make its famous Stout, which helps give the beer its roasty character. Burton on Trent, however, uses hard water to make its India Pale Ale shine.

    Today, most brewers have the advantage of reviewing their local water report and adjusting the chemical makeup of the water to fit the beer profile they are brewing. 

    Malt

    John Mallett, author of the book Malt, calls malt the “soul of beer”. Malt is a grain that has been steeped, germinated and dried. Barley is the most commonly used malt, but wheat, rye, and other grains can be used.

    Barley – the seed of the barley plant – must be specially prepared by a malster for use in brewing. The sugars inside the seed are not available to the brewer while the seed is in its native state. Only after the seed has been transformed, or tricked into thinking it’s time to grow into a plant, are the sugars readily available for the brewing process. So the malster steeps the barley in water to get the the seed to begin to sprout, and then bakes the sprouting seed to lock in the sugars in a fully usable form.

    Malsters and breweries historically were co-located until industrialization and the relocation of breweries to urban centers caused their separation. German brewing schools still teach brewing and malting in a unified program.

    Depending on the beer, generally 80-95% of the grain used in a beer is made up of base malt. The skill of the malster is fully realized when malts roasted or caramelized into specialty grains. These specialty grains may constitute the other 5-20 of the total malt, but they transform a simple beer into dark, roasty stout or sweet Amber ale. And note, it’s not the color of a beer that determinesthe strength. It’s the quantity of base malt that controls how much alcohol is in a beer.

    Hops

    Hops are the dried female flower cluster (cones) of the common hop plant. They contain a number of oils like myrcene, humulene and farnesene. Roughly 66% of the world’s hops are grown in the United States and Germany. Of the hops grown in the United States, 99% are grown in just three states: Washington, Idaho, and Oregon.

    Hops don’t make an ideal crop in North Carolina because of the latitude, and because the ground doesn’t get cold enough for the plant in Winter. Hops impart two important characteristics. First, early in the boil of a beer they add bitterness to balance the sweetness from the malt; and second, they can aid if added late in the boil (or even afterward). These aromas may have an earthy quality like a classic English Pale Ale or in your IPA, where tropical and fruity aromas prevail.

    Yeast

    Yeast are fun  guys, excuse me, fungi. They are single-cell organisms that consume simple sugars and are what makes fermentation happen.

    Ultimately, a brewer can only make wort. Wort (pronounced wert) is the brew of water, malt and hops. Yeast feasts on the wort, giving off carbon dioxide, heat, and yes, the alcohol that makes beer such a lovely beverage. Yeast used in fermentation breaks beer into generally either ale or lager.

    Ales historically have been more popular, but in the last few hundred years, lagers have come to dominate. Ales (Saccharomyces cervevisiae) are fermented at warmer temperatures, a process often referred to as top fermenting, producing a fruitier character. The result is our IPAs, brown ales, hefeweizen and stouts. Lagers (Saccharomyces pastorianus) ferment at lower temperatures, said to be bottom fermenting, and have a more crisp and clean character. Examples of lagers would be pilsner, bock, and Baltic porter. Mass-produced domestic lagers fall into this group as well. While their origin hasn’t been completely explained, it’s believed they started in the caves of Germany and the Czech Republic.

    Of course, there are other things like fruit, kid’s cereals, or even pickles being added to beer these days. But when we are discussing the essentials, water, malt, hops and yeast are the foundation.

  • Throwback Thursday – Brewing in Mexico

    I wrote this after returning from Mexico in March 2017, not certain it was ever published. I’ll say I have been told they have since closed not because of economic reasons but the cartels, I tend to believe it.

    A rooster crows next door, the rhythmic thumping of truck air brakes slowing for speed bumps roar on the highway outside, and the room is filled with the aroma of mash just doughed in and converting. The morning air is cool and fills the room. The traffic is just a constant background noise. It’s just another morning brewing in Salvaterra Mexico.

    Whenever I tell Americans I am going to Mexico to work they laugh and say enjoy the beach. But the truth is in central Mexico we are about as far from the beach as possible, smack in the middle of the country. The state of Guanajuato which is one of the more industrial states in the country. Familiar names like GM, Mazda, and Honda all have production facilities just down the road, plus a very active agricultural sector. While I see lower income areas, I have also been to a malls that rival any in the US and restaurants that could compete for a James Beard award.

    So what is making beer like? Different. Okay that is a cop out, the brewhouse is a Speidel Brewhouse 200L system. While some liken it to a boil in bag system large scale, it reminds me of an old school coffee percolator system. The mash tun is the percolator and the wort is recirculated through a pump through it. After mashing we hand crank the mash tun up allowing to drain and we do a light sparge, I’d like it with 80C water but for the moment it’s just tap water. 

    Then naturally we come to a boil. But it isn’t quite the rapid boil as brewers like to normally think of, Guanajuato is around Denver elevation and the electric heating element works okay, but between the two factors a fierce boil isn’t a reality. So we cover with a lid until we hit our first hop addition and then uncover just a bit to allow steam and DMS (the cooked corn flavor) escape but keep as active as possible boil. Another brewery in the region made a beer and it was obvious they had the lid on the whole time, all I could smell and taste was DMS in it.

    We ferment in just over 3 barrel fermenters so we double batch to fill them. I am trying to talk the owners into a Hot Liquor tank (HLT) or even a home hot water heater so that we could double batch in a single time. Currently the brew kettle is our only large scale hot water device so doing a double batch in a day is a 14-16 hour day is my rough guess.

    So how is brewing in Mexico? It’s more work and things are at a slower pace. It is frustrating to someone who is used to busier pace for breweries. I have been told ingredients would be here when I arrive and they weren’t. So we grabbed a truck then went and bought enough ingredients to get our first batch running. In the middle of brewing that batch the ingredients I was told would not arrive until next Monday showed up. We didn’t have a sanitary pump when I was first here, so I rigged our Premier Stainless manual keg cleaner pump to be our CIP pump, we use it for transferring wort to the fermenter too. It doesn’t have a speed regulator so we control that with the valve at the kettle, it can’t be good for the pump but it works for now. Finding access to simple things like washers, faucet wrench, and other parts can be a few days shipping to near impossible to find locally.

    Air conditioning is opening the roll up door to the highway outside so even though my assistant I am training here is good on his cleaning there always seems to be a fine layer of dust on everything. 

    Speaking on the assistant, why spend the money to send a brewer from the US? They had a brewer nice guy, initial part owner but after a few years he decided to move on, brewing wasn’t in his blood. Then they hired another fellow who supposedly had professional experience, he got drunk crashed the company vehicle and filed a false police report on the crash, so I don’t know where he is but the authorities down here would like to know if you have any tips. That left them without a brewer. So I have come down to help get production going and train the assistant, nice kid good heart, he has lived in the US, but his English skills are poor but he is learning. Being my second trip to train I have him doing most of the work, supervise and make suggestions but leave him to do it himself and try to protect him from doing something stupid. 

    The test will be in a weeks after I leave when he will brew without any supervision. The first one is a recipe we have done before, a beer he likes, he has progressed to the point he seems to understand the steps well enough and he has SOPs in English and Spanish (thanks google translate) so hopefully he will do a good job. Time will tell.

    Ultimately my work in Mexico has demonstrated I could probably make just about anything work for making beer anywhere, which is satisfying. I have made some new friends and had some interesting experiences, so it has been quite the adventure.

  • Throwback Thursday – Barrel Aging

    These posts highlight a story from the past, mine for now, it originally was produced for Sand and Pine for December 2022.

    The days are getting shorter, there is a briskness about the air that wasn’t present at the beginning of November and the decorations are everywhere. It’s the return of the holidays and for brewers it means we can take a break from the IPA fanatic pace and focus on something a little dark, richer, and just perhaps a bit more on the boozy side of the equation.

    At Hatchet Brewing we have been playing with a barrel aging program for the first time. I am a big believer that in making beer it is a combination of Art and Science. Working with barrels falls firmly into more of the Art side of the equation. Barrels can be bought new, but far more often we get them second hand from another producer. Bourbon and whiskey manufacturers are the most common source for barrels, but they could have been used for rum, mescal, tequila, wine, or heck even maple syrup even made a recent appearance at a broker house. If you get the barrel fresh from a distillery often you may get the ‘Angel’s share’ or a wet barrel. A wet barrel still contains some of the original product aged in the barrel. This always makes the brewery staff happy because we can conduct a ‘quality’ inspection of the origin of the barrel and see what character will likely emerge from the barrel. And yes, I mean drink a sample. First use of the barrel you have the character of the spirits that have resided in the barrel before our use, on further uses while the spirits will have faded the toasted oak character becomes more dominant. 

    Each barrel has its own unique character that will emerge over time. Time is an important factor in barrel aging a beer. The beer absorbs the barrels character, this happens through as the barrel is exposed to temperature variations that causes the wood to draw the beer in and out. While a fresh barrel the spirit character may become evident in a short time, further uses require months for the condition to become apparent. 

    This process is a big commitment for a smaller brewery. It requires specialized equipment to prepare and fill the barrel for use. The barrel takes up space in the brewery that could be put to other use. Lastly is the cost. Used barrels start around $150 but rapidly increase if the barrel comes from a highly sought distillery. Then there is the cost of making a high gravity beer which will have typically a lower yield per batch than an average beer like a pale ale. It’s a bit of a gamble for a brewery that typically takes two or three weeks to bring a batch to market, to make an investment that won’t be returned for months or even a year.

    Larger breweries dedicate entire buildings to barrel programs like Wicked Weed in Asheville or Goose Island in Chicago. Black Friday, while known for early morning shopping deals for TVs or other bargains, for beer lovers they will often line up for the limited release of Goose Island’s Bourbon County Stout. This beer release has gotten to be so large that they need to source barrels from 4 different distilleries.

    So as we were planning to dip our toe into a barrel program, when a friend offered us some barrels that he had finished using. We took advantage of the whiskey barrels that we have filled with a Winter Warmer. Winter Warmer isn’t a formal style but a range of ideas. It has a wide range of ABV (alcohol by volume) between 5.5-10%, usually on the darker side, and often is spiced to help warm you during the winter months. In our case we made this ale with honey I have from Combat Farms. This honey goes into Hatchet’s Combat Honey ale, but I wanted to make something that could really showcase the rich flavor and higher alcohol. Beside the honey notes there is a rich malt character with hints of vanilla. It will be going on tap in early December.

    This was just the start of our barrel adventures. Now I am working on Death Machine Belgian Tripel and paired it with a Rum barrel. Death Machine is a golden ale that has a light body and drinks deceptively smooth. It hides its 9% abv well with spicy and banana notes. I think it will finish having a Banana Foster like character with notes of butter and vanilla from the oak, plus just a hint of cinnamon. Plus of course a good dose of rum. As we finish off the Winter Warmer in January expect the barrel aged Death Machine will hit the taps.

    So watch this Winter to see what barrel aged beers make it to your favorite beer destination, they may be more pricey than your regular pint, but they are worth the expense. Happy Holidays!