EPISODE S.4, E.1

Grant (00:09):
Happy New Year. Welcome to season four of the BrewDeck podcast. I’m Grant Lawrence joined by my hosts, Cheyenne Weishaar and Heather Jerred. How’s it going, y’all?

Cheyenne (00:19):
Pretty good.

Heather (00:20):
Pretty good. How you doing?

Grant (00:21):
Doing all right. Yeah, I’m excited for this episode. It’s kind of become a tradition here at the BrewDeck.

Heather (00:28):
Yeah, it’s mine and Cheyenne’s first one doing this kind of wrap-up episode.

Grant (00:32):
Right on.

Heather (00:33):
So pretty excited, it was really fun looking back on this season. It was my first season with the BrewDeck podcast and it was kind of nostalgic.

Grant (00:44):
Absolutely. It’s been a good season to have both of y’all on. It’s been really fun. And for those out there listening who’ve never kind of heard our season wrap-up episode today, we’re going to rank and recap our most popular episodes from last year. So here we go. I’ll lead us off. Number 10, most listened to episode of season three, is episode 13, North America’s Next Top Model.

Heather (01:08):
Hat model.

Grant (01:10):
Hat model.

Heather (01:11):
Yeah. This is our-

Grant (01:13):
I messed up the pun.

Heather (01:18):
You messed up the pun.

Grant (01:18):
In this episode we’re talking about tap room experience and breweries across North America and what goes into creating this unique environment for craft beer lovers. We had some great guests on it. We had Proof Brewing and Manhattan Project on as well. And yeah, it was cool. It was neat to just hear from two kind of experts that are known for their atmosphere, their unique tap room environment and how that draws in more patrons.

Heather (01:46):
We did a poll on Instagram for this episode so we could kind of find out what was most important to people when they’re picking a tap room that they want to go hang out at. So yeah, this clip is us talking about staff education and training with Proof Brewing.

Grant (02:03):
And also kind of atmosphere and remote work environment that Manhattan Project’s been able to cultivate at their tap room.

(02:12)
Yeah, that’s great. And as mentioned, we’ve had several folks mention the tap room experience and specifically what’s coming out from you guys at Proof Brewing? I’ve seen pictures, unfortunately I haven’t been able to make it out, but I have it on my list here. One of the things that stood out and as Heather mentioned is y’all have an extensive training program, slash offering for not only your tap room staff, but just your general staff there at the brewery. And I think it’s something that both breweries and actually the customer base as well I think is very helpful. And I think for the listeners out there wanting to learn a little bit more about how they can do that and other breweries that kind of integrate training programs for their staff would love to hear about it. So why’d you all decide to do this, and why do you think the training side of things is important for your staff?

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Having a knowledgeable staff, I mean, you have to have that in this day and age, we always look at the thing that we are trying to create, whether you’re drinking beer that you bought at the store, whether you’re coming into the tap room, is a great customer experience and the way we create that great customer experience is by having staff that can walk people through, that can really help navigate people through the… We have 20 plus taps on at any given time. We do also wine and liquor, so it’s a lot of offerings. And so people come in, they might be intimidated by all the beer on there, that might be their first time we’re in a college town, so we get a lot of people who, this is their first time in a brewery. So having staff that knows how to talk to people, knows how to communicate about beer, knows the history of beer, the brewing process, things like that, that’s really, really important to that customer experience.

Grant (04:07):
That was a great clip. Yeah, good points, all about just really, I just think about this from a brewing perspective, but it’s like having an SOP for your staff, kind of what’s expected, what’s kind of able to optimize your tap room customers’ experience?

Heather (04:30):
100%. And I think we talked through that episode that we all had these horror stories of going into a tap room and them not being able to even describe a style of beer and how that really takes away from the experience of being in the tap room.

Grant (04:45):
Right. I think you said, Heather, one time you asked to see somebody’s brew rig and the bartender just gestured vaguely to the glass behind him.

Heather (04:58):
“It’s just over there.”

Cheyenne (05:01):
When I was doing production, one of the things that we liked to prioritize was doing cross-training on the brew house with our tap room staff so they could actually come back, and we would do it a couple times a year. We would bring the tap room staff back to brew with us so that way they could kind of get a hands-on experience for what brewing actually entails. And they could answer those questions. You know, you get asked, “What size is your brew house? How many fermenters do you have?” So having the folks that represent us up front, having an inside knowledge of that is really important.

Heather (05:29):
Yeah, it all lends to the atmosphere and the experience.

Grant (05:33):
Yeah, completely agree. It was like every new employee when I was brewing, they did one of the days in their first week on the job was to do, to kind of shadow a brewer on a full shift just to see everything and take some notes. Yeah, exactly like what you were saying, Cheyenne, I think it makes a huge difference.

Cheyenne (05:50):
Definitely.

Heather (05:51):
All right, well number nine on our list of top 10 episodes of the year was “Look What you Made Me Brew.” This was a fun one for the whole month of March, I kicked all the guys off the podcast and brought in some women that work for CMG. So on this episode I had my co-host Britney Drennan, who is a sales rep with CMG, and we were talking about the Pink Boots Brew.

(06:20)
So we had guests from Boomstick Brewing, Ivanhoe Park Brewing, Motorworks Brewing, and Born Brewing, and they were all over North America and I think this was the first episode we’ve ever had anybody from Newfoundland on. So we’ had Boomstick brewing from Newfoundland, which was a lot of fun. But yeah, I can take a listen to Amanda Mailey, who is the head brewer at Ivanhoe Park Brewing and she’s also the Florida Pink Boots chapter president, and just chatting about recipe building with the Pink Boots blend and what they were brewing for that year, as well as some of the fun names that she comes up with for these beers. So being the head of the Pink Boots chapter, what does that entail for you?

Amanda Mailey (07:01):
So I was the co-chapter leader for the past two years and now I’ve been doing this for a year and a half, just kind of claiming events, doing all the brew days, making sure everyone, because our chapter’s the whole state, so it is kind of hard to make sure everyone feels not hard, but I just want to make sure everyone feels involved. So we do, my goal for the year was 20 Brew Days. We did 16 last year and we’re already at 22.

Heather (07:26):
Blew it away.

Amanda Mailey (07:29):
Yeah, right? And then yeah, just planning member socials kind of little get-togethers and between our meetings. So very casual, just networking in a good way to get other new members [inaudible 00:07:40]

Speaker 2 (07:40):
It’s definitely the most active chapter I’ve been a part of because I’ve been to in San Diego chapter and Portland chapter and this is definitely the most active one I’ve definitely been in. So it’s pretty awesome.

Heather (07:54):
Can you tell us a little bit about the beer you’re going to be brewing this year?

Amanda Mailey (07:59):
So this year for my Pink Boots Collaboration Brew Day, I’m probably going to do a New England IPA. I feel like the hop blend would work really well with that. So yeah, pretty excited about that. I don’t have a name picked out yet because I am horrible at that.

Cheyenne (08:15):
I feel like that takes a special person. I see some of the names, I’m like, “I would’ve never thought of that.”

Amanda Mailey (08:20):
Right. And then so last year I did Wild Child. The year before that I did a Sad Girls Club, and then I’ve done six Sad Girls, and they’re like, “Girl, you okay? Stop doing such depressing names.”

Heather (08:33):
So you need something really positive this year?

Amanda Mailey (08:36):
Yeah, probably. Especially, I just came out with a beer called Crybaby for Valentine’s Day.

Heather (08:41):
I love all of these. I think you’re really good at it, it’s just…

Amanda Mailey (08:44):
Well, thank you.

Heather (08:47):
So what was it about this particular hop blend that made you think New England?

Amanda Mailey (08:52):
The hop blend I really like in it is laurel, which is kind of funny. I think this will be the third year that Pink Boots has picked that for their brew or for their blend. So I guess everyone in Pink Boots loves laurel but yeah, I just like the really citrus floral notes in it, so I feel like it’d be good in a New England.

Heather (09:09):
What did you brew last year?

Amanda Mailey (09:10):
Last year I also did a New England.

Heather (09:12):
Let’s probe Cheyenne as she used to be a Pink Booths chapter president as well.

Cheyenne (09:20):
Yeah, my time in the Seattle chapter, I was the chapter leader. It was actually kind of a funny time because I got elected chapter leader right before COVID hit, so I didn’t get to do that much, which was kind of a bummer. But it was fun still getting to reach out and talk to all the folks who are in the chapter. And I planned a handful of Pink Boots brews with the brewery that I was brewing at. So that was super fun to get to host everyone at your brewery. And it’s just kind of a big gathering of all the people that you know in the industry, and it’s a great way to get everyone together. And it’s, what is it, January 13th now, and I’ve got people who are starting to plan this year’s Pink Boots Brew. So I’m really excited to attend some brews this year.

Heather (10:01):
Yeah, this is going to be a really great year for getting back out there, kind of post COVID and getting a lot more time in the brewery for these Pink Boots brews. So I’m pretty excited. Cheyenne, what kind of went into your recipe building when it came to making the Pink Boots recipes with the hot blend?

Cheyenne (10:25):
The hop blend, honestly, so when I was brewing I think I hosted maybe four or five brews. And at the brewery that I was at, we actually did the same recipe every single year. So that was kind of a fun thing for us to do. And the only thing that would change would be the blend. We did a double IPA, I named it the Alpha Female.

Heather (10:42):
Nice.

Cheyenne (10:42):
And we do it every single year, just this big bold double IPA. And we’d do some first wart hopping and just dry hop it and it was very fun, and it was fun to see how it changed over the years. And then the other cool thing that we did with it was we barrel aged it in brandy barrels and stuck and cherries in there as well.

Heather (11:03):
Oh, wow.

Cheyenne (11:04):
So yeah, that beer kind of evolved and had its own life, so that was really cool to see.

Heather (11:09):
Oh, that’s awesome.

Cheyenne (11:09):
Yeah.

Heather (11:10):
I’ll do a plug now for the Pink Boots blend. I know pre sale is obviously over, and the hops are starting to ship out now, but we do have some spot available, so make sure to reach out to your sales reps and they can help you get your hands on that.

Grant (11:26):
For sure. I look forward to Pink Boots beers every single year. The blend is always great, and I love when breweries do what Cheyenne said where they kind of keep the grist bill and the brew the same and just it’s a different blend. I know this one, if our listeners out there are unaware, this one features heavily with HPC 586 so really looking forward to trying these resulting beers here in the next month or so.

Cheyenne (11:51):
Awesome. Well, coming out at number eight in our top 10 countdown, we have actually our very first episode of 2022. It was “Brew Year’s Resolution.” In this episode we shared the Brew Year’s Resolution that you set. We had many resolutions come through our inbox, including some about sustainability goals, packaging expansions, and in this next clip we share Route 66 Old School Brew’s resolution about expanding, planning, and forecasting.

Grant (12:16):
All right. Yeah, our next Brew Year’s Resolution comes from Polly [inaudible 00:12:22] And again, apologies if we get any of these names pronounced incorrectly. But Polly is coming from Route 66 Old School Brewing in Wilmington, Illinois. And they are a tiny nano brewery in the Chicago beer scene. And their Brew Year’s resolution is that they want to expand the brewery. That means more accounts, expand distribution and have more people coming into the tap room.

(12:47)
The biggest brewing lesson they learned in 2021 is making sure they have a good supply chain. They said they’re really having fun as a brand new brewer and don’t have the goal of winning any awards, just trying to be humble and I guess serve some good beer to some good people.

(13:05)
Yeah, short and sweet who doesn’t want to expand and get more in the tap room, that’s to be sure, especially after these last two years.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Yeah, and I’m sure as a lot of people are seeing, locking down that supply chain and making sure you’re planning and with enough time and getting the right ingredients and the right timeframe is so important. And I think a challenge for a lot of, not only new breweries, but well established ones as well.

Grant (13:30):
It’s pretty tough thing to plan for, right, this just in time thing versus ordering early. A lot of it hinges on your distributor and when your distributor pays you, and that can be the struggle, but I guess as long as you plan for it when you start your brewery, you’ll be in a better spot to plan to have cash on hand to be able to buy early, right?

Speaker 3 (13:54):
Yeah. And I mean, in my experience, just having that relationship with the person you’re getting your ingredients from. Because at the end of the day, we’re all just people in these positions trying to figure things out and communication’s only going to help everything.

Grant (14:09):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
So, definitely encourage that back and forth.

Grant (14:12):
Forecast with your suppliers when you’re able to.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Definitely.

Grant (14:18):
Cool.

Heather (14:18):
That can be everybody’s New Brewer Year’s Resolution.

Grant (14:20):
Yeah, right?

Cheyenne (14:21):
Forecast, forecast, forecast.

Grant (14:23):
I mean, talk about something that was true then and even more true now.

Heather (14:28):
Forecast. Forecast. Forecast. I’ll quote myself here. This is fun. This is my first episode that I was on for the BrewDeck podcast, so that was kind of fun for me. I think we had a lot of really good New Year’s resolutions. Did Cheyenne, did you make any New Year’s resolutions this year?

Cheyenne (14:49):
I don’t typically make resolutions in the traditional sense, but I do like to set more fun goals for myself. So I live up in the mountains, I snowboard real regularly and one of my goals this year is to try skiing, so.

Heather (15:04):
Oh, wow.

Cheyenne (15:04):
I totally… No stakes on this one. Not urgent, but just something fun to do. What about you, Heather?

Heather (15:14):
Honestly, not really. I asked the question and I had nothing to answer it with, so I honestly did not really make any New Year’s resolutions this year. I should probably get [inaudible 00:15:26].

Cheyenne (15:25):
Try more beer, go to more breweries.

Heather (15:31):
Go to more breweries. I mean, if I go to more breweries, I think that’s going to be kind of scary. That’s a lot. Yeah, I want to do a bit more travel this year, I think is kind of the thing now that we can really fully get back into it. And I turned 40 this year, so the kind of big…

Cheyenne (15:49):
Happy birthday.

Heather (15:50):
Thank you. [inaudible 00:15:52] My birthday twin. So the big plan for this year, I guess, is to go to Belgium. So to go to more breweries and travel more, I guess would be a really good one.

Cheyenne (16:02):
Go to more international breweries.

Heather (16:03):
Yes. Yeah. Go to the home of beer, go check out Cantione.

Cheyenne (16:08):
Awesome.

Grant (16:09):
That’s very cool. Always wanted to go there myself and have never made it, so I hope you get there this year.

Heather (16:14):
I hope so too.

Grant (16:18):
Well, next up, number seven most popular is episode number nine. “That’s the All, Folks.” In this episode. We had Brian Perky from Lallemand on, and we were just talking about what thiols are, how they work, thiol precursors, and just kind of how it’s become a hot topic over the past year, year and a half, it was really fun.

Brian Perkey (16:45):
I’m still learning stuff. This whole topic of thiol is really an opportunity for anybody who’s been in the brewing game to learn something new and achieve a deeper understanding of what’s going on in the tanks.

Grant (17:03):
Well, I guess we just dive right in. And so the first question I wrote on here, and it’s a terrible question, but it’s a valid question. What the heck is a thiol and how did this become a hot topic? Mic drop shows over. That’s it.

Brian Perkey (17:21):
Yeah, yeah. No, that’s a great question, is what that is because again, it is so new, and when I say new and we’re talking within the last couple of years, it kind of is a buzzword. What thiols are really, when it comes down to it, they’re a class of some really potent sulfur containing compounds, and they can exist in both a free and a bound form. And we’ll talk a little bit about that in a bit and what those forms are. They’re similar to glycosides. Now glycosides are what we’ve all been jumping in on when it comes to the topic of bio transformation, right? We’re releasing hop aroma compounds from a bound molecule and this is what the whole late addition or hot side, not hot side, hot side on the fermentation side prior to the crash, addition of hops to get these big juicy bombs. And this comes off the ass end of the New England IPA craze.

Grant (18:44):
It still is, I would say, one of the hottest topics in brewing right now. I mean, it’s something I still see a lot of and I don’t think it’s stopping any anytime soon. It’s like everybody’s trying to buy all the things and get the most that they can out of their expensive hops.

Heather (19:02):
For sure. All right, number six on our list is “The Ultimate Summer Beer.” This, honestly, I went back and re-listened to this one and it was one of my favorite episodes that we did for the year. We brought on some members of our CMG team to debate what was the best summer beer. So I think Cheyenne, this was your first episode?

Cheyenne (19:30):
This was my very first episode. It was right after I started, and it was fun to get to hop on here and talk about some of my favorite beers.

Heather (19:37):
So we were debating the gose, Belgian Wit Dark Lager and the shandy or radler, yeah. So it was just kind of fun because I think we’re like, “Okay, everybody go argue about what your favorite beer is.” And somebody would explain why it’s their favorite beer, and everybody would be like, “Oh yeah, no, maybe I want to switch.”

Cheyenne (20:00):
It was the kindest argument ever.

Heather (20:02):
It really, really was. So yeah, go take a listen. We had some pretty great quotes come out of this. I think Patrick talking about getting into the beer industry was one of my favorite.

Patrick (20:15):
I remember calling my mom and being like, “Mom, I got a job opportunity. You’re not going to like it. I’m dropping out of college and I’m going into the beer industry.”

Heather (20:25):
Cheyenne, also discussing the gose.

Cheyenne (20:29):
One of my first years in the Pink Boot Society, the style suggestion was the gose. And I was like, what is a gose? I had to do a lot of research. I’d never heard of it. And yeah, I love the beer. I love, it can be a little polarizing because people either love it or hate it, but it’s a pretty heavy on the wheat beer. So it’s usually about 50% malted wheat in the grain bill. But the thing that makes it really cool is it’s a kettle soured beer that’s soured with lactobacillus. So it has this really refreshing tartness to it, which I love for the summer. But the thing that’s really special about it is that it’s brewed with salt. So it has just a hint of saltiness to it, which I think is the thing that can be polarizing for people. But yeah, I love it and I love how versatile goza can be.

(21:20)
So you know, you have a lot of room for creativity when you’re brewing gose. And you can play with the salt levels. It also has coriander in it traditionally, so you can play with that, and that gives it kind of a fun herbal finish. But you can also add fruit purees to it. And so when I was brewing it, so I used to work at Drew Brew and Snoqualmie Pass, Washington and we would add organ fruits, passion fruit puree to it. And it gave it a super cool color and awesome flavor. So I love kind of going out in the summer and getting to see what brewers are doing with their goses.

Heather (21:54):
And Brian discussing his choice, his kind of odd choice of the dark lager, which was great. So let’s take a listen.

Brian (22:01):
I’ll dive in real quick just to, do a little bit of a change of pace from some of the lighter fruitier tart styles into, well, dark lagers. I guess I should specify a little bit. I’m not talking about a Baltic porter or a doppelback. Definitely some more of the sessionable, approachable, dark lager styles like a Czech dark lager or schwarzbier I find I’ve never been a really big fan of hoppier styles, which is probably pretty blasphemous to say, but I know a lot of brewers kind of appreciate the more approachable styles. And I’ve always been a big fan of traditional beer styles and Czech dark lagers, Schwarz beers. They’ve always been really fun to play around with and brew and kind of look into some of the history of that. But I’m just a malt head. I love drinking malty beers, dark beers, stouts and porters.

(22:56)
But again, I don’t want a big 10%, 11%, 12% Imperial stout when I’m dealing with 102 degree weather in the Southeast in the summer. And I’ve been extremely happy to see how many breweries have started putting out dark lagers, kind of part of the broader trend towards experimenting with more craft lagger styles. They’re great. I mean, they’re not as roasty, they’re not as high ABV or intense as you know as get with the big stouts. They’re going to have some nice rich malt character, but they’re not going to be so sweet or malty that you don’t want to have a couple of them.

Grant (23:38):
Well, I’ll say this about summer beers. One of my favorite things about them when you listen to all the different folks we had on that episode and what they were defending is none of them had gummy worms or Oreos or something like that in there. They were all just classic styles, which makes me really happy.

Cheyenne (23:57):
Definitely. And I will say hearing Brian talk about the dark lager, it’s January, it’s dark, it’s cold here, and I could really go for a nice schwarzbier or something like that right now.

Grant (24:09):
I have that on tap right now. That was my latest kind of home brew. So that’s what I’m been sipping on.

Heather (24:14):
Nice.

Cheyenne (24:16):
I love a good dark lager.

Grant (24:17):
Using that [inaudible 00:24:19] black.

Heather (24:20):
Oh wow. They’re the roasted black. Nice.

Grant (24:25):
Yeah, about, I want to say I wanted like 9%. Yeah, about 9%. And then just pils and Munich and that’s it.

Cheyenne (24:29):
Very cool. All right, we are about halfway through, coming in at number five, we have episode number four, Pink Boots Collaboration Brew. Now this was another episode that came from the Women’s History Month where Heather was hosting. Guests on this episode include United Malt Group, Great Western Malting, Pink Boot Society, and the folks over at Yakima Chief Hops. In these clips we have Kelly Lohrmeyer from YCH talking about how YCH got involved with the Pink Boot Society.

Heather (24:58):
Can you speak a little bit, either one of you, speak a little bit to how Yakima Chief got involved with doing the Pink Boots blend and working closely with the Pink Boots Society.?

Kelly Lohrmeyer (25:08):
I can take that one. It was pretty exciting the way we got involved. Whenever I got hired for Yakima Chief, I moved out to San Diego blindly. I didn’t know anyone. I just got the school job and I was like, I’m going to move to California. I lived in St. Louis, Missouri at the time, so it was quite an upgrade, but moving out of here. I didn’t know anyone. So I joined the Pink Boots Society in order to try to meet some friends in the industry and just kind of start to make some new friends. And through that I met Laura Ulrich. And actually the night that kind of sealed Laura and my friendship was it actually, it was a women’s dinner during San Diego Beer week that this woman put on, and I’m forgetting her name right now because that’s the way it rolls.

(25:49)
But it was all women. And I went to it, solo and that sounds like, it was like, “Well, it’s going to be all women. I’m going to be able to be at least won’t be a part of just all the couples table.” And there I met Laura and really began talking to her that night and just learning more about her and her story and really just thinking to as an interesting person.

(26:07)
And then fast forward to, we were in Harvest 2017 and in the fields with our CEO at the time, and he was just like, how can we get more involved and help more women get in the industry? And I was like, well, I met this girl named Laura Ulrich and she’s the president of the Pink Boots society and she’s really cool and I think that would be a great conduit for us to work with them on something that would be positive going forward as a fundraiser. And it ended up like I called Laura and told her and she was very interested. And so basically that year I just brought raw hops straight from harvest directly to the GABF, which was October right after Harvest. So we were weeks in planning. It wasn’t a big planning thing, it was just like, “Let’s do this.” And we brought the hops there and then that the rest is history pretty much.

Cheyenne (26:59):
We also chat with Britney Ribalkin from the Pink Boots Society about choosing what to brew with your Pink Boots blend and how the brewinghelp@yakimachief.com email can help you.

Heather (27:08):
So what goes into the selection of what you actually want to brew?

Brittany Ribalkin (27:14):
So after you know what the hop blend is?

Heather (27:18):
Yeah, what style of beer, or what goes into that kind of brain think where everybody gets together and decides what is going to be brewed for the day?

Brittany Ribalkin (27:31):
So it kind of can be dependent on the brewery, on what’s going to be brewed, but I find you try to take your hop blend and see what aspects of it you kind of like out of it. There’s also an email you can get, which is brewing help@yakimachief.com, and say you’re looking to do a specific style with that blend, they’ll help you and walk you through the process on how to achieve that brew style if you’re looking for something that works well for your brewery. Like say you’re a brewery that just does not do IPAs, you only do lagers and saisons or something, you just email them and give them an idea of what you’re looking for and they can help you out, which is something that I don’t think it’s utilized enough.

Grant (28:20):
All right, number four, most listened episode is episode 15, Spunding Under Pressure. In this episode, we spoke with folks from quite a few breweries and kind of their use of CO2 and how spunding became kind of a cornerstone technique in their brewery, whether it was tradition or just what it adds quality-wise. It was really cool. We had three different breweries on… Four, I’m sorry, four different breweries on, actually, if you count kind of the bonus round, Annex L Project 33 Acres Brewing Company Heater Allen Brewing. And then last but not least, we talked with 512 brewing down in Austin about CO2 recapture. So yeah, really just a neat episode all about spunding, spunding technique. And then kind of a little bonus around there about CO2 recapture as part of this ongoing problem in our industry of CO2 shortages, we thought no better time than now to talk about it.

Speaker 4 (29:22):
I think for us, the thing that really drove us to spunding is the textural quality that adds the carbonation, it just has a smoother, finer texture that we prefer, and the beer is just a little better overall. The least amount of messing around with a beer carbonating that you can do by force is better. And we think our lagers definitely took a jump up when we started spunding.

Lisa Allen (29:57):
We’ve been doing spunding since we pretty much started, I think it was, it’s kind of a very traditional German way to carbonate your beer. So because carb stones are relatively new in the art of brewing, and so everyone kind of had their different way to carbonate beer. And so yeah, we’ve always utilized spunding.

Grant (30:27):
So yeah, just a bunch of great info on this one. Heather, Cheyenne, I’m sure it’s similar for y’all, but I mean really over the past six months since this one’s came out, I see no end to posts on Reddit or Craft Beer Professionals or wherever, just looking for advice on spunding. So I think that just our timing was great on this episode and anyone out there listening, if you haven’t heard this one, go give it a shot, it’s kind of one of my favorites.

Lisa Allen (30:59):
Definitely. And I think as we kind of see a lot of folks are leaning towards lagers and German pilsners, I think that we do see some folks who are starting to dabble in the German traditions when brewing, and that includes spunding.

Grant (31:13):
Absolutely. I think, yeah, like you were saying, pilsners, German lagers are on the rise.

Heather (31:20):
Thankfully.

Grant (31:20):
Thankfully.

Heather (31:24):
All right, number three on our list is “Save the Earth.” It’s the only planet with beer. And in this episode we talked about sustainability and celebration of Earth Day. So we chatted with Hoppers’ Urban Brewery and Tin Whistle brewing about the steps that they’re taking to lighten their impact on the planet. So in this clip, Christian from Hopworks Urban Brewery talks about his process in getting the CMG Malt [inaudible 00:31:58] Recycling program started and about the impact the recycling program has in diverting plastic waste from landfills. So let’s take a listen.

Christian Ettinger (32:06):
There was no market for these grain bags. We were just loading so many grain bags in the dumpster, there’s nowhere to go. And it was the one thing I was like, that bothered me continually through COVID, so much so that I was like, “Let’s do this. Let’s find a way.” Because I know that once Great Western switched from paper to plastic bags, we used to take the paper bags, slip the bottom off, pull the poly liner out and recycle the two outer paper liners.

(32:38)
And we were kind of hippies early on and trying to show people how to do that. But then the plastic switchover, I was like, “Okay, I know that Great Western probably wants to do something with that, but it’s just a matter of connecting the dots.” And we had already been doing great work with Vancouver Plastics, kind of headlining a PAC Tech recycling program with them, and actually New Seasons and all these local markets were bringing us their PAC Techs at Hopworks to then take to Vancouver Plastics.

(33:03)
And I’m like, “That’s clearly a need there.” And Vancouver Plastics was a willing ally in that, I was putting calls out to them and they were so busy recycling PAC Techs, it took a while to even get through to them. And once I did, I found out that the number five plastic in these bags is really high value, it’s far from garbage. Yeah, I mean, you asked for the impact. Vancouver Plastics really wants to accept more of a regional load than a national load, but the number that came up was the first year we were anticipating diverting 200,000 bags from the landfill to the recycling system.

Cheyenne (33:41):
200,000 bags. That’s quite a bit to be diverted from landfills. That’s awesome.

Heather (33:47):
Yeah, that’s really wicked. We’ve also expanded this program to our Chicago and Champlain warehouses, so if you’re interested in getting involved, or starting your own recycling program, check out the website for more information and resources.

Cheyenne (34:02):
All right, we’re getting close.

Heather (34:04):
We’re almost there.

Cheyenne (34:04):
Number two in the countdown. We have “Smoke ‘Em If You Got Them,” part one. This one was one of my favorites to go back and listen to. I really like smoked beers quite a bit. So in this episode we chatted with guests from Stone Brewing, Whiskey Dell Bach, and Steeple Jack Brewing about all things smoked beer and spirits. And in this first clip, our team chats with Mark from Whiskey Dell Back as he describes his smoking techniques. Let’s take a listen.

Mark Vierthaler (34:30):
Yeah, that was my big question was what part of the process is the smoke introduced? And that totally makes sense to introduce it before it’s fully dried, so it kind of gets in that kernel a little bit more. [inaudible 00:34:46]

Grant (34:46):
Is there a certain way that you build the mesquite fire a certain way? I smoke briskets and stuff here in Texas pretty often. So do you try to have the coals burned down or is there any kind of art to it like that?

Mark Vierthaler (35:02):
There really is. The running joke is I’m the one that gets to start the first fire because I’m the worst at it. Then my crew steps in and actually does it correctly. Raymond, one of our production distillers, he’s kind of got the magic hands with it, but it’s almost, so it’s a double layer smoker. So we have the smoke, we basically build kind of a log cabin style, a fire on the bottom, and then we put some of the larger logs up on that second level and utilize the fire and that slow smoke to kind of smolder the logs that are up on the second level. Again, we’re paying a lot of attention to the amount of heat that’s coming out of that vent and going into the kilning tank. So what we’ll do is once it hits what we figured is way too hot, we’ll pull those bottom logs out, take those top ones, put them down, and then put a brand new, brand new set of logs up on that second level. Really, just trying to focus on keeping that nice low and slow smoke.

Grant (36:09):
Kind of that perfect little, I guess you have a smoke stack or something, so some kind of perfect kind of clean burning deal just like you would a barbecue smoker?

Mark Vierthaler (36:19):
Exactly. Exactly. Because mesquite is so finicky that, it’s such a beautiful smoke flavor, but if you get it too hot too fast, it gets really astringent and it really is like, you just… again, it’s art. There’s science to it obviously, but there is also that art of looking at it and testing it and keeping an eye on it. And if it gets too fast, you have to pull back. And if it goes too slow, then we’ve got to stoke the fire again. And it’s such a cool hands-on experience.

Cheyenne (36:58):
Grant, I feel like being from Texas, you have a lot of experience in this realm.

Grant (37:04):
Yeah, I love me some smoked beers now, smoked everything really. Yeah, barbecue happens about once a week here at minimum.

Cheyenne (37:13):
[inaudible 00:37:14].

Grant (37:14):
So it’s not a bad problem to have.

Cheyenne (37:20):
In this second clip, we chat with Annie from Steeple Jack Brewing, and she’s talking about her favorite Polish smoked beer. Let’s take a listen.

Grant (37:29):
Can you tell us a little bit about, you do a style that I think a lot of brewers don’t even know what it is, but can you tell us a little bit about your Grodzsiski?

Anne Aviles (37:38):
Yeah, so this is a really special beer just in terms of the brewing world and beer world, but for me personally, so I’m half Polish and half Ecuadorian and I’m first generation American. And growing up my parents didn’t really do a good job necessarily integrating their culture into me and my sister’s lives. It was just kind of like, you grow up as an American kid, we’re going to forget what we’re bringing to this country.

(38:07)
And then we had to figure out on our own, our heritage. And of course through my interest of that, became beer sometime in late high school, early college. And of course I started delving into Polish beer styles and South American beer styles. And the one that I gravitated to the most was a Grodzsiski. And I’ll tell you what, it wasn’t love at first, it was definitely an acquired taste. And I can see that, especially in the tap room and newcomers coming in and being super interested. And because this smoked beer is so delicate and it’s so approachable and it’s so cool. I think it’s such a neat little way to step into that smoked beer world.

Grant (38:54):
So it’s not a style that I ever brewed commercially, of course, but my limited knowledge of it is, it’s like wheat malt, pils malt, probably a little bit of beechwood smoke malt is…?

Anne Aviles (39:06):
It depends. So traditionally it uses a hundred percent oak smoke wheat and the one that I make is traditional. It’s a hundred percent, wood smoke wheat, which is super fun that when you aroma wise, you definitely get that smoke character. And on the palate it’s, like I said, it’s very delicate. You wouldn’t guess that it’s a hundred percent smoked malt, which is very neat.

(39:29)
I definitely lend that to how we brew it. We do a single decoction with a couple steps and I use a [inaudible 00:39:38] so it gives it a nice little clean ferment. It sits cold for, this one sat cold for about three and a half, almost a month just sitting.

(39:45)
So yeah, I was able to clean up really, really nicely. But not to say that you can experiment with blending base malts, like pilsner malt. I know people that have thrown in a little bit of acidulated to kind of give that pH buffer. Because the other special thing about this style of beer is minerality. So there’s a couple ways of going about it. If you want to truly make it as close to Polish water, which I’ve seen, it’s a little finicky because Polish water is very high magnesium, which doesn’t taste very good.

Cheyenne (40:21):
Have you guys ever tasted a Grodzsiski?

Grant (40:24):
I have, yeah. Live Oak. Live Oak has one year round here in Austin, so that’s kind of my only commercial experience of drinking it really.

Heather (40:38):
Establishment Brewing in Calgary did one, and it was, honestly, I had it after we had done this episode, so it was one of the first times I got to try it after listening to her talk about it. And yeah, it was fantastic.

Cheyenne (40:51):
That’s awesome. Yeah, the first time I ever tried one, I was at a beer festival and it was probably about halfway through the day and I tried one and I just kept going back. I used all my tokens that day to keep drinking this beer. It’s very good, very good. Well, awesome. So “Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em,” that is the first episode of a two-part smoked beer series. So if you want to go back, you can listen to that episode and then make sure you listen to part two also.

Heather (41:17):
And in part two, Grant and Toby and I talk a lot about food, so…

Grant (41:21):
Yes.

Cheyenne (41:22):
How’d you do?

Heather (41:22):
Yes.

Grant (41:24):
Yeah, probably eat before you listen to that one.

Heather (41:26):
Yeah, that definitely made us hungry, that was for sure.

Grant (41:30):
Yeah, smoked beers are so cool. I had so much fun making those two episodes. Smoked beers are like, honestly, they’re just brisket in a way. It’s easy to mess up the smoke. There’s a technique to it, like you don’t want it to be ashtray and you don’t just, you’re really walking a line there. So there’s some great knowledge in that episode, that two-parter.

Heather (41:57):
Speaking of ashtray, have either of you tried the Ashtray Heart? I think it was by Evil Twin?

Grant (42:01):
No.

Heather (42:02):
But it legitimately tastes like an ashtray.

Grant (42:04):
That’s funny.

Heather (42:08):
[inaudible 00:42:06] I’m like, I was years and years ago that I had it. I’m going to track that down. I’m fairly certain it was Evil Twin that did it.

Grant (42:13):
I’ll keep my eye out for it.

Heather (42:17):
Ashtray Heart.

Grant (42:19):
I don’t make it to as many bottle shares as I used to, but yeah, if you track down a bottle, that would be fun to try and serve the group just for fun.

Heather (42:30):
Oh, man.

Grant (42:32):
Well, drum roll. The moment you’ve been waiting for our top episode from last year is episode six “50 Shades of Pale.” In this episode, we explore why pale ale malt is chosen as base in beers versus other malts and how market trends have kind of influenced base malt choices among brewers.

(42:54)
This was a subject kind of near and dear to our hearts here at the BrewDeck podcast. Being involved with Country Malt, we’ve seen kind of pale ale sales and production just kind of decrease a little bit year over year, brewers kind of have moved to more pilsner malt.

(43:15)
And I think that there’s good to have other tools in your toolkit, and that was one reason why we wanted to talk about 50 Shades of Pale. And then the crazy thing was it became our number one most popular episode. So I don’t think that we’re the only ones out there thinking this. I think a lot of our listeners out there wanted to kind of know the subtle differences of a pale ale malt versus other base malts. So we had a great guest on this episode. The next clip we’re going to play is Van Havig. He’s a longtime brewer, kind of a legend in the industry, co-owner and master brewer at Gigantic Brewing Company in Portland, Oregon. And we talk about his use of Great Western Northwest Pale and his beers and just pale malts in general. So let’s take a listen.

Van Havig (44:09):
I’ve been using Great Western for, well, as my main base malt for, well for 27 years, something like that. It’s definitely, I get it on your podcast. I sound like a [inaudible 00:44:22] shill, right? But it’s absolutely my favorite domestic malster. And the reason for that is I like the malts that they produce, and I like the flavors they have.

(44:33)
And this is going to sound weird and it’s going to sound like I’m being contradictory, but I’m not. The thing about what Great Western is doing with malt and always has done from malt is they make a very, very clean malt. And clean doesn’t necessarily mean that it has no flavor, right? That’s not what I mean.

(44:56)
What I mean is that it doesn’t have any humongous signature. “Oh, I can tell what that is.” There was, man, there was a while in the mid two thousands where if somebody gave me a beer made with organic malt, which at the time in this area was heavily based on [inaudible 00:45:14] small tank, you didn’t even have to tell me I could taste the beer, it didn’t matter what kind of beer it was, “I’d be like, oh, it’s organic, isn’t it?” People would be like, “How do you know?”

(45:20)
I’d be like, “Well, because that tastes like rutabagas.” Sorry, I didn’t mean to bad mouth another malster. I just didn’t like their organic malt. But still, maltsters have these flavors that are very noticeable and very strong and create… Western’s malt has always been kind of right in the dead center target of malt flavor to me. So it makes it really easy to build on those flavors. I don’t have to hide anything. It’s a perfect building block. And it’s really what I like about Blue as a malt is that it’s got enough there to be able to build on it. But I also don’t have to. Our IPA is, well, when we first brewed our IPA, the very first batch of beer, and we’ve always tripled that beer, so three [inaudible 00:46:14] into one fermenter that beer was originally, oh, probably 1,100 pounds of Blue and it was like a bag of probably 50 Lallemand crystal malt.

(46:26)
I honestly can’t remember whose crystal malt it was. And yeah, just 5% or something, 4%, whatever. And we literally did one [inaudible 00:46:35] with it, looked at the Wharton and “We were like, oh, that’s way too dark.” But it was a new brew house and it’s a direct fire kettle, and we get a lot of Maillard reactions in it and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

(46:45)
So that beer has always been a hundred percent Blue, that’s all it is. But it can get you great malt flavor and malt character just by itself. But if you want to build on it, it’s really easy to do without anything being excessive. It allows you to have a stepping stone. So if you add a very small amount of crystal malt, you get good increase in color and flavor without being like, “Oh my Jesus, this tastes like a Werther’s candy,” or whatever. Excessively, crystally kind of bad stuff we used to do back in the nineties. That’s why I like that malt. That’s why we base almost everything on it.

Grant (47:21):
Have you felt any pressure to either blend in, move away from kind of the crystal malts or blend in other lighter malts? Like We were talking as the market’s kind of shifted, or do you feel really confident in sticking with that pale ale base?

Van Havig (47:37):
Okay. I feel a hundred percent confident sticking with that pale ale base. Ben, my business partner, he’s all, he’s like, “Oh, okay, for these categories, can we blend in a third black,” not black malt, black bags people, Great Western [inaudible 00:47:54] So we reluctantly do that, just to bring the color down a little bit. I think if everyone did the same thing, I don’t know why we would all make beer.

Heather (48:04):
Before we end our countdown, we want to give an honorable mention and a bit of a shout-out to our top most played episode of all time. It is Season Two, Episode 23. “Dude, Let’s Start A Brewery.” So I think you’ve probably, if you listened to this podcast, you’ve probably listened to this episode, but you should definitely go back and take a listen if you haven’t. We had some really great guests on there. Arin from East Village Brewing Company, formerly the head brewer at Ballast Point, just goes into talking about planning a successful new brewhouse. So yeah, go back and take a listen.

Grant (48:42):
It was awesome having him on. I mean, talk about a legend in the industry. You just said Arin, you didn’t even say the last name, Aaron Justice.

Heather (48:49):
Oh, sorry. Justice, Aaron Justice.

Grant (48:52):
That’s like calling Macaulay Culkin just Mack like you got to say the whole fucking thing.

Heather (48:58):
We’re like a first name basis. It’s just like Aaron.

Grant (48:59):
Yeah, exactly.

Heather (49:01):
It’s just Aaron. No big deal. I apologize, Aaron. Aaron Justice from East Village Brewing.

Grant (49:07):
Yeah, formerly head Brewer, Ballast Point, just really awesome to have him on there. He gives guest lectures at UCSD in brewing in the past, and he’s just really heavily involved in the San Diego beer world. So yeah, give a listen.

Heather (49:23):
Yeah, and in that episode, he shares a very extensive checklist, from funding equipment to software to storage and kind of everything else you need to know to plan to open a brewery. So definitely go back and give it a listen. Yeah. Well thank you everybody for joining us for our first episode of the New Year. It’s definitely fun to take a look back on last year’s episodes and we are working and looking forward for Season Four. We’ve got a lot of exciting things planned, so episodes will be released every other Tuesday. Make sure to subscribe to the BrewDeck podcast wherever you listen to your podcast so you don’t miss anything. Yeah. Thanks Grant. Thanks Cheyenne.

Grant (50:07):
Yes, it’s been fun.

Heather (50:09):
Yeah, good times. And…

Grant (50:10):
Looking forward to Season Four.