BYO Blogs

I brewed my BIPA #2 on a recent Monday when I was off from work. I worked the next two days and in my distraction never looked in on my beer. Ridiculous, I know. But when I checked it Thursday there was only the most minimal sign of fermentation. Did it never kick off? Did I miss it completely? What’s going on?

A gravity reading revealed that it was fermenting. The gravity had dropped from 1.081 to 1.031. Things were in fact well underway. Satisfied that it was humming along, I let it be for a couple more days. When I next checked, it was down to 1.023. A few days later it was still around 1.023 so I decided to rack to my secondary and dry-hop.

Dry hopping with Amarillo (you say, “am-uh-rill-oh,” I say “ahm-ah-ree-yo”) went smoothly and I was happy with my gravity readings but I was concerned about how less active the fermentation was. Last time my fermenter was a glorious mess – oozing krausen and splattering brown gooeyness all over the airlock and lid. This time, there were no raging bubbles, no excitement and definitely no mess.

I’m guessing I did not achieve the desired attenuation. I just re-read the directions on the vial of San Diego Super Strain (WLP090). It suggests an activator for beers with original gravity over 1.070 and my BIPA #2 was 1.081. But my yeast lab (read: disorganized heap of home brew supplies piled on a basement shelf) doesn't contain any activator. I've never used an activator, don’t know how to make a starter and can barely control temperature, much less when I pitch. But I didn't use one last time either so … who knows, maybe all will be well once it’s carbonated?

Now that I’ve gone black, I may never go back … to regular IPA, that is. I liked the Black IPA I just brewed so much that I’m brewing it again right away. I’m tweaking it ever so slightly, however. I’m going to dry-hop with Amarillo instead of Citra to see what effect that has on the final product.

My brew day kicked off smoothly. I dropped my daughter off at school, rushed home and threw the kettle on, so to speak. The 75 minute boil started out fine and then … well, let’s just say, it didn’t finish perfectly.

My specialty grains steeped at 150°F for half an hour, turning the water a lovely deep brown color. Alas, that color may have led to my eventual error. But first, an ounce of Warrior hops went in at 75 minutes. Smelling them reminded me of my prior version of this and I got excited all over again. This was going to be as good as the last. I was going to perfect this beer and be a Black IPA-drinking fool. This might even become my year-round beer. “I got this,” I thought. “This is going to be a smooth brew day producing a smooth brew.” And that was my problem – I relaxed.

The Irish moss was due at 30 minutes. And so it was that at 45 minutes into my boil I finally realized that I’d never added my extract. Seven pounds of liquid malt and a pound of DME were sitting on a shelf in my basement just waiting to be added to the pot. And what was I doing? Fantasizing about what a great brewer I’d become, dreaming of going all-malt, opening my own brewery…. And all the while I hadn’t even added the most significant ingredient to the mix. I basically was trying to make a beer without mashing in.

Another year has come and gone, and I didn't get much brewing done this last year. Last night, I did pull out my brewing notebooks in an effort to get ideas for beers I might want to rebrew and refine in 2013 and I discovered one thing -- my brewing has been a lot more episodic than I thought. I discovered that I've had a few years like 2012, years when I didn't brew very many batches. In most cases, these were followed by years in which I brewed quite a lot. This year, I'm definitely going to brew more, and I've already figured out how.

First off, my normal procedure is to make a yeast starter 2 or 3 days before I brew, and only brew if the yeast is in good shape. This year I plan to get a few packets of dried yeast and, if the opportunity arises, brew that day and just use dried yeast. I've used Fermentis US-05 before with good results. 

I’ve never really been a New Year’s resolution kind of guy. I don’t need to lose weight. My only vice (if you can call it one) is drinking beer and I’m not about to stop doing that. I’m generally pretty happy with things. I’m a perfect Dad and a better husband. Right, dear? Honey …?

Anyway, there’s not much to resolve to change in my life. But, thanks to my latest brew, 2013 may be different.

The carbonation on my Black IPA/Cascadian Dark Ale is complete. As the black brew tumbles into a glass it piles up a fat, foamy, beige head and I’m trying to control my excitement. Could this be my second relatively successful brew this year? My kumquat witbier was satisfying but not quite perfect. It had a nice witbier feel to it and some citrus from the kumquats but it was fairly inconsistent from bottle to bottle. And after a while I started to look elsewhere in the fridge for refreshment. So I’m really hoping this dark brew will hold my attention and make me eager to open another.

It looks just about perfect. It’s pretty much jet-black with maybe a trace of dark mahogany around the edges underneath that solid head.

The fermentation of my Black IPA kicked in about a day later than usual (I pitched a tad too high) but once it got going it was robust and active. I thank the San Diego Super Strain for that. In fact, I probably should’ve hooked up a blow-off tube since my airlock was pretty filthy with krausen. After a week of vigorous fermentation, I racked off to my secondary and prepared to dry hop for the first time in my brewing career.

The BYO recipe called for Warrior and Cascade but I chose Citra. I like their pronounced aromatic qualities and I’m hoping that the bitterness they impart will add complexity to the roasted quality I’m seeking from the malt. But foremost, I want this beer to arouse the sense of smell. I love the juxtaposition of a jet-black brew and the bright tropical fruit aromatics this hop will provide. I want a strong but not too aggressive hop characteristic to greet the drinker’s nose.

I loaded up a muslin bag with an ounce of whole flower Citra and managed to wrestle the bag through the narrow opening of the carboy. Once inside, the dang thing, with all that air and all those dry, light, air-filled hops simply refused to sink below the surface. The mound just floated there. I gently tried to shake the carboy (I didn’t want to disturb the sediment too much) but to no avail. I failed to move the bag any further down. It wasn’t even completely wet. Great! Yet another cause for concern and a new set of questions I didn’t have answers for.

Did the hops need to sink?

As I mentioned in a previous blog entry, a new brewpub opened up about a block from me. Bastrop Brewhouse has been open for a couple months now, serving guest beers from Austin brewers (including Live Oak, (512), Circle and Independence). But now they are on the cusp of serving their own creations.

Last week, they brewed their first beer on their 3.5-barrel system. Getting there took awhile. Originally, the burners the brewer (Ed Peters) ordered didn’t seem like they were doing the job. He was worried that they didn’t have enough gas pressure to generate a sufficient amount of heat to boil the wort. As it turns out, the company had sent the wrong burners and once that error got straightened out, he had plenty of BTUs. Also, the glycol system (that circulates around the fermenters and cools them) was leaky and Ed had to charge the system with water and track and down all the leaks before they could start brewing. 

“Dada, help me find my pink-pong ball!” my two-year-old son mispronounces his request between hacking coughs. He’s a mess; sick and miserable.

Meanwhile, my normally bubbly five-year-old is walking around with bags under her eyes that would make Jim Lehrer jealous. She’s exhausted, coughing, feverish, yet surprisingly delightful. She’s even interested in tasting the dust at the bottom of my specialty grain bag. Such a trooper.

So, I’m looking under furniture for a ping-pong ball while trying to get additional ingredients up from the basement. I’m stepping over a box filled with Matchbox cars and busted trucks while steeping grains in 150°F water for 30 minutes.

Later, I’m standing at the stove attending to a steaming pot. A pendulous and sagging grain bag dangles above the pot as I try to move it to the compost bin. Just then my son comes wheeling over and slams into the back of my legs, shouting, “let’s dooooo something.” Somehow the massive muslin manages to stay together and my son avoids the burn unit. As much as I’d love to play with my little man, the pot is approaching boil and I’ve got to get going on this brew. I only have a brief brewing window before I need to go to work this afternoon.

This time of year, my mind turns to Black IPA. This somewhat controversial style has an identity problem. It’s the IPA that looks like a porter. As a result no one knows what to call them. But whether you refer to them as the mysterious sounding “Cascadian Dark Ales,” the awkward catch-all “American-style Black Ales,” or just plain “bip-uhs,” to me they build a bridge from the high-heat of summer to the cooler, darker nights of fall. The best have a fresh, bitter hoppiness that reminds me of bright sunshine. That’s followed by the dark chocolate and toasty-roasted malts that recall a roaring fire place on a cold night.

I’d prefer to be drinking my BIPA as summer fades. I probably should have had it brewing by now in order to enjoy it during the transition between seasons. But, what with climate change, autumn doesn’t really kick in until about November in my part of the world, so I’ve got time.

I’ve brewed IPAs before but never their darker cousins, so I’m off to the home brew store to talk to my sage, Joe. (He really should have a more dramatic name. Something with gravitas that’s vaguely Tolkien-esque, like Gaspar or, better yet, Bieronymus.)

Anyway, I want to see if he has any Citra or Sorachi Ace or some other new-fangled hop lying around. I want to get a little crazy with this American-style Black Ale. I’m planning on using Cascade and Warrior for bittering and flavor. But I think dry hopping with something seemingly more exotic will add complexity and a bright note. Not to mention that using a more off-the-beaten-path hop will make me sound cooler when I tell my wife (the only person who listens to me talk about beer) about the brew. “Yeah, I totally dry-hopped this puppy with Nelson Sauvin.” I can already see her falling asleep in love all over again.

I love biology. One of my undergraduate majors was biology and I have a PhD in biology. If you really understand the subject, it gives you a perspective on life different from most people’s. For example, most biology majors end up taking either a parasitology or an epidemiology course for their undergrad degree. And slowly, as the semester progresses, you are transformed from a happy, well-adjusted human into a Howard Hughes-like recluse, afraid that all your food is teeming with worms and every door handle is a germ-smeared death sentence. (Ah, the memories!) 

But eventually you get over it, rediscover sushi and get on your life. And if your life includes brewing, you have some absorbed some information that can help you become a better brewer. I believe one of the biggest benefits of having a biology background is a simple thing — understanding how small bacteria are. 

Bacteria are small. Most are just a couple microns across. Brewers yeast cells, which are also small enough to be microscopic, are about 10 times larger than all the standard wort-spoiling or beer-spoiling bacteria. With 40X magnification, you can see yeast cells fairly well with a light microscope. (If the cells are not stained, turn the back lighting way down.) With 100X magnification (the next highest power on most light microscopes), most (stained) bacteria look only slightly bigger than a dot. 

Now, just for some scale, let’s compare this to a speck of dust. We’ve all been in a room with a ray of sunshine coming in from a window and we’ve all seen specks of dust floating in the air. The size of dust particles depends on what the dust is made of, but if they are big enough to be visible, but small enough to stay aloft in a mostly still room, they are probably between 50 and a 100 microns — i.e. 10 to 20 times larger than bacteria. 

Summer is here and . . . hey, what happened to summer? How is it almost fall already?

For lots of people, summer is beer season. It's hot and beer is widely viewed as a thirst-quenching beverage. (We homebrewers, of course, know that there is a beer for every season.) And this summer, in Texas, I had some good thirst-quenching beers. The Austin ZEALOTS picnic, in particular, was one day that I had some good beers. Held again this year at Emma Long Municipal Park, the ZEALOTS (the homebrew club from Austin I belong to) threw a great bash featuring somewhere in the neighborhood of forty 5-gallon Corny kegs of homebrew, a 68-lb. roasted pig (thanks to Roger Kovalcheck for roasting that) and plenty of ribs that were entered in our second annual rib cook off.

There were too many good beers to mention, so I'll mention one beverage I had a hand in instead. As I detailed in an earlier blog entry, Joe White, Dave Ebel and I brewed a Four Loko clone awhile back -- not because we view Four Loko as a distinguished beverage, but for the technical challenges (of which there were a few). It was our "horizontal Everest," as we put it. Well, Dave brought his portion that he flavored with watermelon-flavored Jolly Ranchers and pushed it through a watermelon Randall. As it turned out, it succeeded at being what it was supposed to be -- sweet, fruity tasting and alcoholic (about 12% ABV) without tasting hot. (Or, as one of us -- I forget who -- put it, "Oh man, if I were in Junior High, I'd love this.") Challenge met, now let's never speak of it again. 

In other local news, someone opened a brewpub about a block from my house. The Bastrop Brewhouse just opened, with guest beers from local Austin breweries on tap while the on site 3-barrel brewhouse is being assembled. For the grand opening, the two brewers -- my friends Ed Peters and Kevin Glenn -- brewed six days straight on two homebrew rigs to have enough beer for the festivities, highlighted by a concert by Kinky Freidman (a Texas legend). Hopefully, their brewhouse will be up and running in late September. 

In the grand scheme of things, I really haven’t been a beer geek for very long, but I remember back when I first got geeky about beer, the places people dreamed of going to visit on beer holidays were exclusively in Europe.

I’m sure everyone that is old to enough to ride a bicycle has been subjected to the overused cliche that patience is a virtue dozens, if not hundreds of times.  During the last 3 months of 2011 I got a chance to test this time honored theory out.  My hiatus from this blog during the holiday season was indeed intentional, as I did not want to burden you with the tedious details about the roadblocks we were dealing with trying to get this brewery going.  Now that we have entered the new year, allow me to make amends and give you the scoop.

I know I mentioned our search for a new location the last time around and the ironic part is that we decided to give it one more try at the original spot.  Our two major issues were the existing septic system shared by the business complex and the inability to sell pints out of that building due to zoning restrictions.  Thanks to the wonderful people at the county office, our wastewater consultant and a coffee shop in downtown Mariposa going out of business, those problems have been solved!  We now have an approved permit for our own leach field and a perfect space to convert into taproom. 

The other major hurdle we had was really a result of how much steam this craft brewing industry has gotten.  Due to the high demand for the construction of professional brewing equipment, our manufacturer of choice had not only gotten a ton of orders from that last time we spoke, but their prices also went up!  After about a month of going back and forth on delivery date and pricing, the time finally came for THE decision.  Everyone knew that once the system was ordered and a deposit was put down, there was no turning back.  Two days before Christmas, I received the call that the sales agreement was signed and that this thing was really going to happen.  Merry Xmas to me!

So what does this all mean?  Since I began chronicling this journey nearly 2 years ago, I   made it clear that my ultimate end game was to open a small brewery.  Thanks to my education (Thank you UC Davis), my public display of creative expression (Thank you BYO Magazine), an email from one of my soon to be partners (Thank you Terry), my drive and last but certainly not least, patience.... it is now finally a reality.  In a months time I’ll be packing my bags and heading into unfamiliar territory both literally and figuratively.  It’s scary, it’s exciting and I couldn’t be happier that I’m going to doing what I hope is truly my labor of love for many years to come.

For those of you that have followed this blog, I would like to say to that it has been a pleasure sharing this time in my life with you.  Since there is already a very good blog being written about the trials and tribulations of a budding new brewery for BYO, I shall close the curtain on this one.  That being said, you can bet you haven’t heard the last of me!

If you happen to take a trip out to Yosemite National Park later this year, feel free to stop by Prospectors Brewing Co. in Mariposa and have a beer or two.  You can say you know the Brewmaster.  We're hoping to be open by mid/late summer.

Cheers!

Questions or Comments?  Feel free to email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

I know I can’t speak for everyone that brews their own beer as to why they do it.  Having said that, I’m willing to bet more than half of us do it for the creative “let’s see what happens when I do this” aspect.  There are so many variables that have an affect on the final outcome of a beer, it’s almost mind boggling.  But that’s what makes it so cool right? 

Before brewing anything for my new employer, one of the variables that I wanted to get right was the selection of the yeast strains.  After doing a lot of research and with the help of the gentlemen at the Brewing Science Institute in Colorado, I was able to get samples sent to me that had the characteristics I was looking for.  

Once those arrived, I was able to brew 3 pilot batches in recent weeks for Prospectors Brewing Co. on my homebrew setup.  I can’t tell you how many times I have revised and looked at my own recipes, compared them to others, tweaked them again, brewed the beer, tasted it, tweaked it again, etc.  I even made the ultimate bone-head move and walked away during the transfer from the kettle to the fermenter.... with the sample port valve open.  Yeah, that was a good one.  Lost about 70% of that batch and had to brew it again the next day.  Talk about a buzz kill!  

All in all, I was very pleased with how the Blonde Ale came out.  The Wit turned out to have a fairly low O.G. and then it foamed like mad out of the keg, so that was a bit of a disappointment.  I’m convinced my homebrew supplier changed their mill setting on me, but that doesn’t explain the foaming.   I’ve got the all important IPA in secondary right now, so the jury is still out on that.  Being on the west coast, you know that has to be a legit offering.

Not only have I been able to brew at home, but I was able to get some more hands on experience, thanks to my friend Dave Meadows at the El Cajon Brewing Company.  I met Dave at my time with the Firehouse and since it’s closure he has been working on getting his own brewpub going with his brother Steve.  I’ve gotten to help him with 2 batches so far and I’m hoping to continue do so even after they open in the next couple weeks.  Free labor + experience = Free beer and food for Justin!  Hard to turn that down.

I also made a 3 day trip up north to try and make some headway on prepping the soon to be old location for an eventual move to a new location.  Speaking of that, I think we are getting close to knowing if this is really going to pan out or not.  We’ve got a potential location for production and one for a taproom that are about 50 yards from each other on the highway leading into Yosemite National Park and Bass Lake.  Now we are going through the process of getting our plan for the locations approved by the county and estimating the costs for getting them ready for business.  A meeting with the county officials is being scheduled as I write this to determine what needs to be done to meet their requirements.  It will likely determine whether we can get this project off the ground or if the partners involved decide to just sell the assets.  By this time next month, I should know if there truly is a light at the end of this tunnel, or if it’s time to change trains.

As many of us have read in Jamil’s blog, starting a brewery from scratch isn’t for the faint of heart.  In the past 2 months I have begun to understand this fact more and more.  I have become quite entrenched in the process of ordering a brewing system, estimating costs, developing CIP processes, determining volumes of waste water etc.  All of which are intertwined in one way or another.

Last month we were very close to ordering the brewing system from a well respected manufacturer here in California.  That is, until we found out that there was a “zoning issue” and that selling pints out of the current location was out of the question.  The previous owner of the brewery had indeed been selling pints out of the tap room without the permission of the county and was going to be shut down. He ended up going out of business prior to any enforcement.  We had no idea about this restriction and direct to consumer sales were assumed in the initial business model which now had to be reevaluated.  Considerations were then taken to focus on keg distribution and/or look for a separate location for a taproom with the proper zoning in a more traffic heavy location in town.

After much discussion, the partners decided to move forward with the purchase of the brewing system..... until some information on the limitations of the septic system that the property was on came to light just a few days before pulling the trigger.  After meeting with a consultant familiar with the septic system and a few county officials, it was determined that the amount of water used during the various cleaning processes and brewing of 5 bbl batches would likely exceed what the system was designed for and could result in failure.  I cringed at the thought of what a septic failure entails, but we were told it would shut the brewery down for a long time if that ever occurred.  That’s wasn’t an option.  After looking at a couple alternative solutions it was determined that we would likely have to look for another location and that means more start up costs.  But hey, if it was easy then everyone would be doing it right?

Despite these hurdles and delays all is certainly not lost.  We have already started looking at other potential locations in the Sierra Foothills.  I have also been able to ink an agreement with the partners and I am now officially the Brewmaster at the newly named Prospectors Brewing Company (Location to be determined of course!).  I have already found a house in the area owned by a family friend that I plan on moving into if this all works out.  So things are moving along and I have learned A LOT already during this process that I would not have known otherwise this early in the game.  

My hope is that we find a great location that is within the company’s financial means and we can finally move on to the next phase.  While that’s going on, I plan on making some pilot batches at home of the four core beers we plan to start out with, which should be fun.

Upon arriving back to San Diego from my trip to Dogfish Head, the waiting game had begun.  My head was racing with all sorts of scenarios that included what life on the east coast would be like, how I’d fit in as the token So Cal guy in a small Delaware town, and wondering if being a brewer at DFH was the ideal working situation for me at this point in my life.  As the first week passed by, I followed up with the head brewer at the Mission Brewery here in town, to see if their new facility was operational yet and if they needed to add to their brewing crew.  I wanted to make sure I wasn’t leaving any local opportunities on the table before making any decisions on relocation. I was told that they couldn’t hire anybody just yet, but that maybe down the road in a month or two they’d have the money to hire someone full time.  It’s basically the same story I had heard before, so I was beginning to accept that I might be moving soon.  I’ll be the first to admit at that point in time, I was getting a bit weary of job searching.

After about 10 days of waiting, I finally received the call from DFH that they wanted to officially offer me a brewing position.  The woman I was speaking to immediately went into all of the benefits they provided, pay, the stock program, bonuses, etc.  After about 10 minutes of me listening to all of the great things they offer (and believe me it is the best I have ever heard from a craft brewery), she paused and asked “Well, what do you think?”  I was a bit overwhelmed at that very moment, so I told her that it all sounded very good and politely asked if I could take some time to let it all soak in before giving a definitive answer.  She completely understood and said I could take some time to get back to her. 

The next day I called my family and a few friends to share the good news.  As expected, there were mixed opinions as to whether I should make the move or not.  Then something unexpected happened.  That evening I received a voicemail from a gentleman representing the Firehouse Brewing Co. in San Diego.  He saw my resume and wanted to speak with me regarding a potential opening.  I called him back shortly after and had an interesting conversation with him about their current situation.  He himself was relatively new to the company and they were in the midst of a change in management due to some missteps from the people previously running both the brewing and business side of things.  Despite the growth they had achieved over most of the last 10 years, recently production had slowly fallen off and in turn sales were slumping.

What it all boils down to is that they were basically starting over again and wanted to inject some new blood into the place.  There was one remaining brewer that survived the old guard and a prospective Brewmaster that would be working as a consultant to help right the ship.  That was it for the production staff.  They wanted to know if I was interested in rounding out this trio.  I told him I was very interested, but that I needed to know how serious they were rather quickly since I had a pending job offer from you know who. 

(This tree house outside the brewery in Milton, DE looks like something out of a Tim Burton movie!)

The first couple weeks of the holiday season began as I had expected.  Good times with friends and family were plentiful. Responses from prospective employers were not.  I was prepared for this and didn’t expect a peep from anyone until we were a couple weeks into the new year. But as we all know, life likes to show us that no matter how much we think we’ve got it all figured out, we don’t.  

A few days before Christmas I was doing some last minute shopping and received an email from an unfamiliar person that worked at a very familiar brewery.  His name was Jon and he had seen my resume posted on a brewing forum titled “Available for Hire”.  I wasn’t even aware that this brewery was hiring at all.  But then again how would I?   They’re located on the other side of the U.S. and the thought of checking for openings on their website had never crossed my mind.  His only question to me was if I’d be interested in having a phone conversation regarding an opening for a brewer position..... at Dogfish Head.  Needless to say I was excited about the opportunity to speak with him.  After all, these guys make the widest array of beer styles of any decent sized brewery I can think of.  I’ve tasted quite a few of them  over the past couple years and have been impressed with their creativity.  You can also throw in the fact that they were recently been featured in the Brewmasters television series on the Discovery Channel.  This was a gig many people would kill for.
A couple days later I spoke to Jon on the phone and the conversation went very well.  They were looking for someone with a brewing science education (Thank you again UC Davis), a bit of experience and some other unique qualities.  They seemed to like that I had done some time in the business world and written blogs/articles for BYO Magazine.  I asked him questions about the job itself, what hours they work, benefits, creative input, etc.  At the end of the call he asked if I had thought about what it would be like to move all the way out to Delaware, where they are located.  I told him that I’ve never lived outside of California, but that I’d be willing to give it a shot for the right opportunity.  Then he told me the next step was to take a trip out there and see what goes on there for myself.  First, he needed to run it by HR and someone was supposed to be in touch shortly.  I was pretty stoked.
After about 10 days had gone by I was beginning to think they weren’t interested any longer. I then received a phone call from Jon and he was wondering the same thing about me.  I was so confused. Then I looked in my junk email box and saw that the HR person had contacted me a week earlier.  Thanks Yahoo!  We finally got on the same page and before you knew it I was on a plane bound for Philadelphia.  I hopped in my rental car and drove south to Rehoboth Beach where my hotel was located.  I parked the car, checked in and was off the to the Dogfish brewpub in town.  I also called up one of my fellow UC Davis alumni that was working for them so we could have a chat prior to my tour/interview the next day.  He met me there at the pub. We had a couple beers, I got introduced to some cool people and it was off to bed.
The next day I got the unadulterated tour of the place, complete with lunch in the little town of Milton, where the production brewery is located.  I think the downtown area may have had a couple restaurants, a closed down movie theater and a few shops.  It was very quaint to say the least.  Then after spending a couple hours with the brewers, I was off to meet with the head honcho of operations, Floris Delee, the Brewmaster.  He was a very pleasant man, with an almost childlike curiosity as he asked me questions about my work experience, education, writing and how I got bit by the brewing bug.  It was probably the most comfortable I had ever been in a job interview in my life.  

Given that one can only scour the globe for the right job opportunity so much each day, it begs the question: what other tasks can you fill your plate with that will help you hone your craft and keep you sharp?  For me that has been very simple.  Write, brew, repeat.  Allow me to explain. 

Since my last installment of this blog I’ve been working on creating recipes that provide what I believe are good representations of two specific beer styles.  Why you ask?  Well, I have been tasked with writing an article about each of them by our friends here at BYO magazine.  Needless to say I was pretty excited about the opportunity to have something of my own creation published in a magazine and I didn’t hesitate to accept it when asked if I was interested.  I’m not going to spoil the surprise of which styles they are, but I will say that both of them aren’t brewed very often commercially or in homebrew competitions for that matter.  I couldn’t go mainstream on this, I had to keep it at least somewhat indie you know?  Be on the lookout for the first article in next months issue.

I’ve also gone the to furthest reaches of the BJCP box and brewed a couple beers that would have to be entered into the catch all for truly original creations, the infamous Category 23, aka Specialty Beer.  I’ve got a hybrid Belgian Dark Strong Ale/American Barleywine with Chinese Five Spice powder doing a  2 week stretch in secondary conditioning at the moment.  I’ve also just brewed a Strong Scotch ale and added what I guess is considered to be an herb, but looks more like wood to me.  It’s a large part of what flavors our favorite soda of choice when it comes to floats, root beer.  Give up?  It’s Sarsaparilla.  I received a bag of it as a prize from a homebrew competition a while back and just never opened it for fear of what it may smell like.  I seriously had no clue what to expect, but I opened it up last week and found out it was quite pleasant.  So we’ll see how that turns out.

I entered a few of my previous beers into a competition where the prize was getting that beer made by the folks over at Ballast Point here in San Diego.  There were no categories, just the top 10 finalists plus 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.  My Oaked DIPA and Caraway Rye beers made the top 10, which was cool.  The judges must have been looking for the most outlandish beer ever because the winning beer was a Foreign Extra Stout spiced with hot madra curry, toasted coconut, unsweetened coconut, red pepper, cumin, Tea and Kaffir Lime leaves.  Props to the guy that had the gaul to even attempt that beer much less pull it off.  I can’t wait to try it when it hits the shelves here locally.

I’ve also started working on a website that speaks to all things beer.  Hopefully this will give me another outlet to reach people and express my views on numerous topics that involve anything from the brewing industry, to food, beer related activities, etc.  I would like to thank those of you that regularly read this blog and have sent me a couple brewing related job postings that I’d otherwise not have seen.  It’s nice to have people looking out for you and for that I am truly appreciative. 

On that note, it’s the holidays which are notoriously not such a great time to be looking for work in general given it’s the end of the year and all.  Companies waiting for their new budget for the coming year, yada yada.  But perhaps the brewing industry is different?  Gotta keep a positive attitude about it.  Until next time.  Happy Turkey Day.  Time to enjoy some of those nice winter warmers you made last month! 

Validation can be a good and a bad thing.  It reassures us that an idea, object or person is just as we thought they were in either case. In a positive sense it let’s us know we are on the right track, are thinking with a least a somewhat objective mind and that we aren’t crazy.  When homebrewers put together a recipe, brew it, baby sit our little microscopic friends as they work their magic and properly package these original concoctions, I think deep down we are all wondering the same thing.  Is this going to be as good as I hope it will be?  

Your friends/family can provide some of this validation that we seek as you share it with them one by one.  It’s nice to hear kind words from these people with a smile on their face while they have your precious elixir in hand.  I’m not sure about you, but even though I trust their opinions to the fullest extent, it isn’t quite the same as when a stranger tells you that your beer is of the highest quality.  

I’m sure you’ve heard the term, “I’ve got a few of irons in the fire right now”.  While this suggests that someone’s got a lot going on at any particular moment, it doesn’t really tell you how hot the fire is burning now does it?  I bring this up because I’ve had some interesting discussions over the past few weeks over potential job opportunities.  First, there is a group of gentlemen that are planning on building a production brewery in a nearby city that are looking for a head brewer.  Sounds good so far.  The catch is that they’re only in the planning phase (I’m guessing at least 6 months out) and are also looking for someone to be a capital investor as well.  Could be risky, could be beneficial.  We’ll see how that progresses.  

Another opportunity I applied for was a brewer position at a small place in Montana.  The response I got was encouraging, but then I was sent a pretty long questionnaire which is supposed to narrow it down to 6-8 candidates due to the large response they got.  I didn’t realize there were that many brewers looking for work out there, much less ones looking for it in big sky country.  I then learned that one of the brewers from Stone left to become the Head Brewer at a smaller local brewery here in San Diego.  He seemed like a cool guy when I was doing my internship there, so I contacted him.  He replied and informed me that they were in the process of building a new facility and it should be finished in a month or two.  They might need a new brewer once it’s up and running, so that seems to be the most promising prospect so far.  

I also got an email from an old college buddy that he and some other people are looking to open a pub in the Sacramento area.  For whatever reason, they need to produce their own beer on site to get a liquor license in a timely manner.  This one might be a longshot, but they are going to need someone to make the suds for them if it gets past the planning phase.  (Fingers crossed)  Not to perpetuate the cliche, but it appears I’m poking a few irons around some sort of fire.  That being said, my sneakers aren’t melting at the moment, so it looks like I have some more work to do to get that sucker white hot.

On the homebrewing front, the execution of my 4 planned brews turned out fairly well... with one exception.  Tell me if you have heard this one before.  It’s August and 95F outside when you are attempting to cool down your wort using an immersion chiller.  A side affect of this warm weather was that the tap water itself was probably around 75F,  which causes it to take an excruciatingly long time to reach the ideal temperature for pitching.  You decide that it would be a good idea to crank up the pressure on the faucet that’s feeding the your chilling contraption and speed up the heat exchange.  The thermometer reading begins to drop a little faster.  Success right!?

After returning from a brief weekend getaway for the 4th of July, the time had come to pack my car to the brim with all of my personal possessions and make the move back down south.  During the 500 mile drive, I contemplated my next series of moves on this journey into professional brewing.  Should I just take the first job I can get no matter where it is located or what brewery it is?  What is the best way to prepare myself to open a small brewpub someday?  The more I thought about it, the more it became clear to me that I need to jump into the actual business model I want to be in to gain the necessary skills to be successful.  That meant I needed to be a little picky and also attack this need for knowledge from many angles.  So what have I done to accomplish this so far?

For starters, I’ve been brewing like a mad man.  Four brews in four weeks.  One cannot have a successful small brewery of any kind without good beer.  While I was at Davis I had tasted a few beers that inspired me to create recipes for styles that I hadn’t delved into before.  Dogfish Heads Burton Baton, an oak aged IPA sparked my interest in trying my hand at one.  During our class trip to Sierra Nevada, I had their Milk Stout for the first time and inspired me to see if I could make a great, flavorful session beer like that.  My internship at Stone exposed me to all sorts of great beers, the most original being their Smoked Porter.  So, I decided to take that concept, make it a bit more robust and add some vanilla beans into the secondary.  Avery’s Salvation was a great influence in my decision to make a Belgian triple with a twist, using a combination of Belgian and American yeasts, along with US and NZ hops.  This is the type of work that gets me excited, which has really motivated me to get the ball rolling.

So what else?  Well, I’ve enrolled in both Financial and Managerial accounting at the local college to give me a good knowledge base on the financial end of this future endeavor.  Great beer + great decor + great food + bad bookeeping (despite all the positives will still) = out of business.  Reading those books by Sam Calagione and the guys from Brooklyn brewing have taught me to avoid those pitfalls.  One side effect to choosing to enroll in more classes is that it has essentially rooted me here in this city, which means I just reduced the number of breweries that I can go after from 1600+ to about 30.  I’m not complaining mind you, I could be stuck in a much worse place than here.

Now it comes down to what am I going to do to gain more experience.  God knows San Diego is chock full of breweries right?  Indeed it is.  Right now I am targeting the smaller breweries/brewpubs in the area for brewer positions.  What I am also doing is looking at is bartender positions at brewpubs and beercentric bars.  I’m going to have to be a jack of all trades when this thing gets going, so I’ll to need to get a good grasp of the "front of the house" as well as the production side of the business.

It’s going to be tough since there doesn't seem to be much turnover in this market segment, especially when you factor in the wonderful state of the economy.  Then there's the fact there are simply less positions as a whole in comparison to larger breweries.  Also, when you actually sit down in one, everyone employed there seems to be pretty happy with what they are doing.  I’m hoping that the combination of my previous experience, recent education, homebrewing knowledge and the fact that I’ve been writing this blog will open some doors for me that would otherwise have been closed.  Once that piece of the puzzle has been snapped into place, I should be well on my way to making this vision a reality.