Today’s post is from 2013 about the title Brewmaster, while I say in the post I’m self trained I learned a lot from working with the crew at Big Boss.

I get asked it at least once or twice a week “Are you the Brewmaster?”

To which I always reply “No, I am just the lucky guy who gets to make beer around here.”

People will smile and nod, but they have a quizzical look in their eyes. Sometimes they press further then I try to explain. I don’t have enough experience to justify the title. I liken it to the difference between being a Chef and a Cook. It is not that I don’t possess talents in the brewhouse, but at best I am at the Journeyman level if we look back to the trade guilds of the past.

Another element of the title is the role of education. Traditionally a Meister should have a degree in their field of expertise. I am largely self taught. Not that this is unusual in the brewing world. Because of that I have some book hiding in my bag about beer, last month it was more technical Hops by Stan Hieryomous, this month it’s more social with Man Walks into a Pub by Brown. The key is I am constantly learning. 

So besides experience and school, what else may it take to accept such a title? One route could be to enter contests and gain recognition by peers for the quality of my beers. While there is nothing wrong with such an approach it alone would not be enough. 

In the end I think what makes someone a Brewmaster is they have trained and taught their craft to others. The process of teaching others reenforces your own knowledge base. It also makes you take a closer examination of the trade and your understanding of it. Shepherding others to appreciate and respect the craft is not easy work. 

Jiro Ono said in the documentary of his restaurant “Once you decide on your occupation… you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That’s the secret of success… and is the key to being regarded honorably.”

Perhaps one day I might be regarded as a Brewmaster, but for now I am a Pub Brewer trying to master a craft.

Back to August 2013, when I reflected to a year of working at a brewpub. It’s definitely more a social interaction as a role rather the production environment. I compared the brewhouse to Mercedes Benz and while German built it had certain quirks that made it unique. The system used a step mash rest on many of the beers, it involves start the mash (think oatmeal mixture) at a lower temperature and over time raising it. In today’s era of well modified grains it doesn’t have the necessity except for wheat beers. It was a fun system mostly automated valves. To learn it I mapped each valve and location, then sat down in the brewpub and reviewed all the brewing steps and how they would proceed through the system. I took that list and map up to the brewdeck and by the third brew I had memorized it.

Time passes so quickly, I knew my one year mark as Pub Brewer was approaching but it zipped past this week. It seems then a fitting time to write a post on what I have learned.

Production and Pub brewing are different animals, while production may have tours occasionally, a Pub Brewer is a public face to the beer. Tours and talking with people with questions is a regular requirement. Who knew giving tours of the Capitol so many years ago would have prepared me for this task. At times I can delve into brewing minutiae but most folks want the basics and be entertain on the ride. This interaction is not just limited to customers, but there is a constant cycle of trying to get restaurant staff trained on the house beers, brewing process, and other basics. So if you don’t enjoy the education aspect of brewing I would suggest a production environment is better suited to ones skills.

In previous jobs there were always smart folks around. I could ask for a second opinion and get feedback, but in the brewpub it all ends with me. It’s not to say my supervisors aren’t very helpful and supportive, but they are more than an hour away so if I am in the middle of a problem it’s up to me to diagnose and solve it. This may be the best part of the job, it can be frustrating but the joy of solving a puzzle is fun, heck it may be as joob as the brewing.

As for the brewing it has been a fun and challenging year, first I taught myself how the system worked. My favorite comparison is that the brewhouse is like a Mercedes Benz, it runs like a dream, but if you try to start it in 3rd it will kick you. We made a couple repairs when I started so it won’t be another few weeks until I hit a year brewing on the system, but then my numbers will be pretty close to the project 600 barrels a year on the system. I would perhaps brew more in a production environment but I don’t know if it would be as much fun. This year if the numbers continue on the current track I’ll probably brew more.

(Summation) hard work, odd hours, but more enjoyable than other.

Never got to 600 in the year, but I was on to the next job about four months later. The company stopped brewing operations at the location and left equipment as showpiece. They never bothered to even pull the grain from it’s storage space such the waste.

Back to a post from 2013, recently I was at an industry event, an established friend in the industry asked for tips for a new guy we were chatting with and I went with this Trust Your Gut. Anytime I have ignored it’s hurt an outcome, anytime I paid attention it’s resolved it.

It is the one thing I have learned the last few years. If my gut reads something is wrong when I check invariably there is a problem that needs to be corrected.

Case in point I brewed a beer last week and a few minor things stick out in my mind looking back. That pump is running a little louder-harder than normal. The grain bed seemed to settle in a higher and odd position to normal. My gravity during mash out was lower than normal. We get our grain pre-milled, but the shipment didn’t get milled, or crushed, properly so when I went to empty the mash tun I discovered that fact. Looking back at all these little things they clued me in there was a problem but I didn’t know exactly what until it was too late. From now on I will double-check each bag of grain to make sure it has been milled. Thankfully it was the first of a two batch session so I was able to compensate on my next wort(batch) and even them out.

If you didn’t clean it, assume it is dirty. 

If you didn’t check it, assume it didn’t get done. 

In the end you have to remain mindful of your surroundings not just to get the job done right, but also safely.

This week we go back to April of 2012 at Redhook a keg exploded while being cleaned. It inspired the article below. While plastic kegs do exist still they are generally one time use only and far safer than what was on the market then. It’s a good thing the industry has largely walked away from the reusable plastic kegs, they never had the durability of steel.

The number of brewers has risen from 2000 to now around 9000 so I think safety is still not given the priority it should to be but Master Brewers and Brewers Association have both stepped up and offer much better safety education than back then.

I was at brewery recently and asked where the Material Safety Data Sheet(MSDS) were for their chemicals. I was told they would have to call their chemical vendor for copies. I know the vendor and as company policy they recommend that 2 copies be kept printed on site, 1 to take to the hospital in event, 1 to remain onsite. Last thing in event of accident is having to call your vendor asking for something you should already have onsite. So there is still work to do.

The Redhook tragedy this week resonates a major concern of mine in the brewing industry, Safety and Training issues. I have had the experience to work in a couple of industries and by far brewing more lax than most when it comes to these issues. Don’t get me wrong my boss believes in safety and makes it a priority, but when I bring up training and how they interrelate I get a blank stare.

Look at the following examples…

Ninkasi

Otter Creek

Fraconia Brewing

These are not isolated events, I hear a story like this about once a month. I know a brewer who nearly took his head off when trying to prep a barrel improperly. 

Brewing can be dangerous work and as an industry we need to do a better job watching out for each other. The current growth phase of craft beer makes these events likely to become more common rather than less. In 2008 we had 1,483 craft brewers, today we have at least 1,938 probably more since the Brewers Association did the total. So roughly 500 new breweries plus another 900 in the planning stage, but where did these people come from? What training did they get? Schools like Siebels and Davis can only train so many, but even then most graduating don’t get hands-on training. So roughly a quarter of the breweries in the US are using staff that are undertrained and may not be aware of all the safety issues at hand. Look at the ProBrewer forums and you will see how many head brewer positions asking for less than 5 years experience. Factor in the breakneck speed that craft beer is growing with people are buying larger tanks or often times inferior *cough*Chinese*cough* equipment. All this builds to Safety and Training issues potentially becoming a major industry blackeye over the coming years.

The Brewers Association could spend less effort on brewer’s profiles and play an important role in focusing attention on these important matters. Industry promotion and customer education are important topics. But a single panel on Safety at the CBC each year though isn’t nearly enough attention. There needs to be staff time dedicated to improve practices.

Breweries need to make this a priority, the Brewer’s Association needs to step up, and as brewers we need it to watch each other’s back. It is too important not to and in the long term it will help our industry’s success. Safety is too important to be left to chance.

We have work to do but overall we are in a better place than then.

Back to 2017 again, more discussion of travel. I think much of this stands, for all the bad of social media and smartphones, it has made the issue of international travel easier. That’s a small benefit in the mix.

Recently for work I had to take a trip to Mexico, mind you not a regular business trip of fly in, stay a few days then fly home. Since I was brewing and the brewery hadn’t been in operation the last few weeks, I spent 3-4 days organizing and cleaning, then filled the fermenters, packaged one of the beers we brewed and left. The whole trip took about 3 and half weeks.

It was the longest I had been outside of the US in probably 20 years. But what I found significant about the trip was the lack of isolation and how it handles learning a language. I did have Rosetta Stone and was using it, my reading is coming along at a reasonable pace. Frankly my speaking is still horrid, I made another trip to this brewery 2 years ago and I felt better prepared this time. Listening cognition was okay, for work or some business things it was fine and even food I understood what people were saying. Speaking remains a disaster, my accent has improved but even when I felt I knew the proper vocabulary I ended most sentences finishing in German.

People seemed to respect me trying to use Spanish as much as possible.

The other big thing when living alone in another culture for any length of time is the isolation, when I was a student in Germany I had a radio but besides going out with other students, a weekly chat with family, or the occasional letter I was alone. This time, between modern cell phone with text messaging and Facebook it felt like I wasn’t far removed from family and friends. Sure we couldn’t meet at the pub, but I could post my side trip to Guanajuato or wish people a Happy Thanksgiving. I did also have a TV in my hotel room and kept it on with Spanish language channels often with shows I knew from the US so I had a better base of understanding of what was going on and the language used. Though honestly I am not sure it made that much of a difference. Lastly with my cell phone I had Google Translate app loaded. This was particularly helpful when I was trying to have a business discussion with someone while our translator didn’t understand the technical terms. Often when they would be having long conversation over what should have been a simple concept, I would type the explanation in English and press translate, then show the manager and his face would light up with understanding. 

Overall it was a good and productive trip, but I think for all the bad rap cell phones and social media get, they were the things that helped bring the language and isolation barrier of being far from home.

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.

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.

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.