Monday Musings (on a saturday afternoon)

As you may well have guessed, there are a lot of great things about taking a course in brewing at a college.  There are classes on sensory evaluation, which can be wonderful or horrible depending on whether or not we are learning about beer taints.  The other day in our ingredients class we got to nibble on and discuss a whole slew of different malts.  Plus, you've noticed we get some pretty awesome field trips.

Specialty Malt; Base Malt; Delicious, Delicious Malt

 
However, by far the best thing about our program is the on-campus brewery.  This sounds like a no brainer; of course getting to brew beer is awesome.  But there is more to it than that.  There is this extra feeling of safety when brewing at school with your peers.  I am not talking about physical well being safety (though I can't stress the importance of that enough).  What I am referring to is that freedom you get from the environment at an educational institute that is somewhat different than the real world.  It's a difficult thing to explain unless you've been to school and then plied your skills afterwards at a real job.  School tries to mimic the workplace but it is sort of artificial in comparison, for us in the brewery, I think that is a great thing. 

Somewhat different than a production brewery!

Most of us have never had the opportunity to brew with real production equipment.  I know that my experience has been limited to components that I built for myself in the garage.  My Coleman cooler mash tun doesn't have steam jacketing, pumps or a million valves;  working on the brewery's equipment is a whole other world.  Mistakes are going to be made, it's inevitable.  When someone is holding a hose and another person turns on a pump, spraying beer on the ceiling (hypothetically speaking of course-though beer does make great hair gel), or somebody leaves a valve open somewhere and we inadvertently spew a few litres of wort onto the floor, no one is going to get in serious trouble.  This is a learning brewery, losses like that are built into the budget and aren't going to seriously affect the business.  Sure, nobody wants to see it happen- I mean that is beer getting wasted for crying out loud- but instead of getting in trouble for that, 13 people get a valuable lesson and the ones responsible merely feel like they have let down their friends.  The consequence is disappointment and shame, nobody is going to get fired. The next time we brew everyone is going to double check that valve, but no one will hesitate to "get in there" for fear of screwing up.

This confidence has bought us a lot of trust from the faculty as well.  We can now sign up to brew our own recipes on the the small 50 litre pilot systems.  There is still supervision in case we get in over our heads but mostly we run the brew day ourselves.  Thanks to the wonderful generosity of the industry we actually have great ingredients to play with so we are free to be creative and experiment without fear of breaking our fragile student budgets.  This allows us to explore ideas we've had but never got around to trying because if it doesn't work out then we have wasted our money.  It is the willingness to explore and try new things that has made craft beer so amazing in recent years.  The freedom that the college environment creates encourages us to take these risks and turn them into learning experiences that we will take with us out in the real world.  A small group of us were brewing an IPA the other day and realized we had a bunch of whole hops that were given to us and needed to be used up.  This motivated us to jerry-rig a filter into a hopback (to run the beer through) right on the spot, and try a new technique that we have only read about before.  It may sound like a simple thing but it was exciting, it was inspiring, and that feeling is infectious.  We felt like MacGyver brewers and that is what makes a career enjoyable no matter how many years you are doing it.  The freedom to be truly creative and the confidence from our successes are what will enable us to continue the great tradition of quality and innovation that the craft beer industry has established.
Until next time,
Cheers!

Drinking in Class

One of my courses in the Brewmaster program at Olds College is this little gem known as Sensory Evaluation.  And yes, this class is pretty much what it sounds like; we evaluate beers.  It is very easy to imagine that this class is a sort of circus with 26 people sitting around getting drunk and talking about beer.  The truth is, as lovely as that sounds, there is a lot going on in this course.  In fact, it is this course that makes me most nervous when it comes time for exams.  You might not believe me, but sensory evaluation is hard.  If we are going to be able to make good beer it is essential that we learn to recognize what it is that makes a beer good or bad.  It means being really critical about everything that is going on in that beautiful glass and training ourselves to consistently understand and recognize what it is we perceive.  It takes practice.

"Oh, good one." You sarcastically reply. "The homework must be arduous."  And yes, of course you are right.  Every time I take a sip, I do consider it homework, except, now that includes every drink of water, beer, wine, spirits, soda, or juice.  It is nearly impossible to just shut my brain off and enjoy a simple beer in peace.  Whats worse, sometimes we need to test things in class that are just down right unpleasant. It is arguably more important to be able to recognize the first indication of spoilage or contamination than the wonder of a perfect blend of hops. Now, this does not mean I am looking for sympathy here, I just want to make sure that you understand that sensory class is not all unicorns and rainbows.  Furthermore, I am going to attempt something waaaaay ahead of its time.  You are going to be able to detect and even rank some taints in beer samples that are invisible to the naked eye.  Over the Internet.  And even though I have already tested these samples, I promise that you will not get any of my germs.  Ready for sensory class? Let us begin.

I taste like beer!

I taste like <censored>

Here are two typical samples of beer (well, after I've tasted them that is).  One of these beers has been spiked with salt, the other has not.  Can you break the Internet and tell which one tastes like the ocean and could make you want to be sick? If you are really not sure, you can highlight the space under the picture for the answer.

You're impressed, right?  Now lets up the ante.  Each one of these beers has been spiked with a varying amount of sulphur (and yes, that tastes as good as it sounds).  Your task is to rank each sample from the lowest to the highest intensity of unpleasantness.  I was going to write some fancy html code that would allow you to actually move the samples but that would have delayed this blog by a month or more, so just do it out loud and forget whatever the people around you might be thinking.

Sulphury,        Sulphuryer,            Sulphuryerer,               Sulphuryest!

Well, there you have it.  You can actually taste beer over the Internet.  Don't you just feel like a brave, new pioneer?   Don't worry, I'll try to have something that tastes a little better next time.
Until then, Cheers!

Malterior Motives

Okay, okay, no more puns. I promise... actually, I can't promise that, but I will show some restraint in the future.

The other day our class got to take a trip to Rahr Malting in Alix AB.  I have a special place in my heart for maltsters and not just because they turn boring old barley into brewing gold.  You see, several years ago I spent an entire autumn driving a combine for a farmer.  I spent hours and hours and days and days watching that giant machine devour row upon row of wheat and canola.  At the end of the harvest I asked for a bucket of the wheat to take home with me because I was just getting into home brewing and thought, "How hard could it be to malt this wheat and make my own beer from scratch?"  Turns out- harder than you'd think.  I sprouted the wheat berries in large plastic tubs then arrested them at the appropriate time with my oven and a food dehydrator so I could get different types of malt.  Then I spent days knocking off all the little rootlets and then cleaning my kitchen of all the little rootlets before breaking the wheat up very coarsely with my coffee grinder a 1/4 cup at a time.  Did I mention this took days? Or how messy it was?  In the end I brewed a beer that...well... maybe it wasn't the best wheat beer ever, but it sure was drinkable and I was immensely proud to have taken it from the combine to the cup all on my own.  And now I was going to get an opportunity to see how the big boys do it.

On the way to Alix we stopped at a local farm and watched them harvesting wheat.  The combine was twice as big as the one I drove and totally decked out with GPS as such.   I was impressed.




 Rahr itself is impressively large although I am told it is only a fraction of the size of the facility in Shakopee, MN.


After donning our very stylish hardhats we ascended to the top of the malting tower in an elevator.  The malting tower is a cool concept because it allows a lot of the work to be done by gravity. First things first though, the grain has to get through the door.  Rahr is extremely picky about the barley that they accept.  This is really good news for brewers and is one of the reasons why a good portion of their malt is shipped to Japan (as a nation they are very particular about the quality and consistency of their malt).  Once the barley has been tested and approved it goes through a rigorous cleaning process and then is moved to one of several vessels in the top floor of the tower.  Here the grains are soaked to allow the barley to begin taking in the water it needs to germinate.  The vats of grains are filled with water and drained several times so that the barley doesn't drown and die. After a day or so, the barley from the different vessels all drops into one large tank in the floor below where the process is repeated for another day. Next, the thoroughly soaked grains are dropped into one of three very humid rooms where they are allowed to germinate- partially. There is a brilliantly complex looking computer monitoring the entire process but our host knew when the barley was ready for kilning just by squeezing the kernels in his fingers.

Barley laid out in a germination vessel almost ready for kilning- Notice the acrospire is nearly the full length of the kernel

Once the germination has reached this stage, it must be stopped so the little grain's embryo doesn't consume all of the goodies that we brewers want.  This is achieved by kilning.  The kiln is another large room that smells wonderful.  Here the barley is heated and dried.  The type of malt produced is dependent on the temperature and duration of the kilning; darker malts are kilned at higher temperatures.  At Rahr they only do pale malt which typically makes up about 95-98% of the malt in your beer.  After malting, the barley is cleaned and tested again to ensure it is good to brew then it is loaded into rail-cars and shipped out.  The whole operation takes 5-7 days and a new batch is started every single day- yep, all 365 of them.
So that's that.  Now you know how malt is made; you go have a drink and think about what you've learned.
Until next time, Cheers!

Hopportunity Knocks.

I hope you like pictures.

School had barely started for our class of brewers before we all crammed into a couple of vans and headed off on a 14 hour journey to Yakima for our first field trip. This may seem like a strange thing to do but I assure you there was good reason. You see, Yakima is one of the most important hop growing regions in the entire world. Seriously. About 40% of all the hops grown in the world are in the USA and about 80% of those are grown around Yakima, WA, and we were going to be there for the harvest!

14 hours crammed into a little van with people I hardly know didn't sound like a recipe for awesome. Luckily, we got to break up the trip with a very pleasant tour by the very pleasant folks at the Fernie Brewing Company. http://www.ferniebrewing.com Everyone talked to us and treated us incredibly well, a theme that was to be repeated the entire trip as it turned out. Also, First Trax Brown Ale.

After a couple of delicious samples and stimulating conversations we headed out once more. I knew we had arrived even though I could not see a single farm in the darkness because the familiar and intoxicating aroma of hops filled the air. Ahh, Yakima.

We started off at a great place called Hopunion- http://www.hopunion.com They explained to us how their collective worked to give the local hop farmers a bigger voice and ensure that the brewers got exactly what they needed. They showed us their giant machine for turning whole hops into the little pellets I have been home brewing with for years. However, the highlight was the moment our guide opened the large door to their cold storage warehouse. I swear I could hear the smell of the hops washing over me and it was angelic. The bales of hops towered above us and the floral, citrus smell of the hops was almost (but not quite) cloyingly sweet. We didn’t need to turn on any lights in there because the whole place was lit up with grinning faces like you would expect to see on Christmas morning.

If only computer monitors had a "scratch and sniff" option!

Our next stop took us a few miles down the road to one of the larger hop farms in the area. How big was it? Well, New Zealand as a nation plants about 800 acres of hops a year. This farm had about 900 acres. Not too shabby. They very graciously took us through the entire operation of harvesting and processing hops. The hop bines grow up strings made of coconut fibre and are harvested by cutting the whole string off the support. They are taken by truck to the processing facility where a worker lifts and hooks each 100lb length of bine onto a chain that takes it to the machine that strips the hop cones. This sort of medieval chain flail type thing takes most of the leaves and hop cones off the bine which is then mulched and returned to the field as fertilizer. Meanwhile the leaves are separated from the cones by a series of angled conveyors which basically roll the cones away onto another conveyer headed for the kiln.

The hop cones and leaves are stripped...

...and separated before kilning.

I had to stitch five photos together to show you the kiln's hop bed in all its glory!

This gorgeous pile of cones is heated from below in a giant bed about 3 feet deep to dry out. After the drying they are allowed to cool before being packaged into large 200lb bales. The whole process is loud, scary, dusty, hot, and mighty impressive. Plus, have I mentioned the smell? Bliss.

I know my explanation and the pictures can be a touch confusing so here is a short video I edited together. Yes I did film it with my phone. How did you know?

After this tour we stopped at Bale Breaker Brewing Company http://balebreaker.com/index.html located right on the family farm. How is that for direct from the source? The owners gave us a wonderful tour and considering the brewery is less than a year old, their beverages were top notch. Don't believe me? Try their Topcutter IPA.

Our second day saw us visit Puterbaugh farms. http://www.hopsdirect.com This place was even larger than the last with over 1,100 acres of hops. They even have their own pelletizer so they are able to take hops from the field to finished products for the end user right on site. They treated us like kings by offering free swag, answering questions, showing us around and introducing us to Belma – one of the newest additions to the hop family. This new hop breed just magically showed up on the farm one day with its delicious and unique aromas such as strawberry.

Hops at Puterbaugh farms

Too soon we left the delightful aroma of hops behind but not without one last stop at Kootenai River Brewing Company. http://kootenairiverbrewingcompany.webs.com The owner was very accommodating and even gave us a sneak peek (or taste) of their latest brew aged in a whiskey barrel from Dry Fly Distilling. If you are anywhere near Bonners Ferry this winter you had best stop in for a sample of that one.

So that's hops. Maybe next time I'll introduce you to some maltsters.

Until then, Cheers!

Gone Brewing.

Welcome friends and fellow denizens of the Internet!  Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been loitering around as much lately so I decided to start this little blog to let you know why.  "But Garret, why does something like that deserve a blog?"  Because, concerned citizen, I have dropped everything and gone to Olds for Beer school!  I am one of the 26 students who have been accepted by Olds College to be a part of their inaugural Brewmaster and Brewer Operations Management Diploma program.  My days are going to be spent learning the ins and outs of brewing while getting to work in a real teaching brewery on campus.

This beautiful shot is right from the Olds College Brewmaster facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OCBrewmaster

To be truthful, classes have already started.  In fact, yesterday was the official opening of the Olds College Brewery which saw the attendance of people from all across the industry and this country.  Maybe you even saw us on the news last night and maybe I am just shamelessly plugging.  At any rate I hope that you will visit me in the future as I talk about the incredible experiences and opportunities that come out of this journey.  Speaking of journeys, we just got back from a trip to watch the hop harvest in Yakima, WA.  As soon as I get my pictures sorted out I'll take you on a tour of a hop farm!
Until then,
Cheers!