I think that the first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions that they work at a brewery is the awesome perks.  Something to the effect of, “Dude you probably get free beer all the time don’t you?  That’s awesome man...” has probably been uttered a few thousand times throughout history I’m sure.  But is there any truth to that at all?  Is it just a stereotype leftover from the old world where people would actually work for beer in lieu of cold hard cash?  At the Stone Brewing Company, it is 100% true. 

My internship began with a  mandatory safety training and a tour of the facility. I was tossed on to the bottling line for a couple hours and the topic of employee beer allowance somehow came up.  I wonder how that happened?  Here’s how it works.  Everyday that you work a full shift, you get to have 2 beers in the bistro/bar area and a half gallon growler fill to take home.  Every month you get a case of whatever year round beer under 7.5% you want and ON TOP OF THAT you get a full keg from that same selection.  Okay all you math wizz’s out there, that would mean a 20 work day month would earn you..... drum roll please.... 336 beers!!!  The next question was pretty obvious, how in the heck do they drink all of that beer?  The answer is that they don’t, but it sure makes them popular with their friends.  Sounds like some good cheap marketing to me. 

Over the course of the next 3 weeks I got to see and experience every job function on the production side of the brewery.  The bottling and kegging lines were pretty straight forward.  Clean, sanitize and fill.  My heart dropped when I was told to pour out about 80 22oz bottles of Russian Imperial Stout due to improper filling levels.  Tragic to say the least.  Apparently employees in other parts of the brewery thought it wasn’t fair that those guys got to take them home.  Given the level of monotony they deal with on a daily basis, I say they deserve it.  From there I went on to the cellars for a few days and got to take part in tank transfers, cell counts, carbon dioxide and oxygen level tests, setting up the daily tasting panel, dry hopping, casking, etc.  When the fermenters are as big as the ones they were using, up to 500 barrels I believe, tasks that are conceptually simple such as dry hopping are much more complicated than just tossing in some hops into a carboy.

From there I went to the brewhouse, which had a nice control room with various monitors and a huge touch screen that had the current real time stats for all the storage vessels in the brewery displayed.  At any given time, they had 3 brews in process process between milling, mashing, boiling and whirpooling.  All of which were being monitored by their homegrown brewing software.  Word to the wise, if you ever have the pleasure of cleaning out a commercial mill, I suggest wearing a mask.  The malt dust sure does love to stick to your nasal passage if you know what I mean.  The hop head in me thought it was Christmas when we walked into the cold storage room where they kept the many varieties they use their beers.  Hop additions to the boil and the whirlpool are one of the things that are still done by hand, along with adding the specialty grains to the mill.

I also got to spend a day in the lab where I got to plate beer samples for bacteria testing, check gravities, perform gram staining and look under the microscope for any beer spoilers.  Happily, they were no where to be found.  One of the last places I went was outside to the wastewater treatment facility.  I was a bit weary about that since most of them time I walked by there it smelled as if someone had stumbled from outside their bistro after too many Arrogant Bastard Ales, fell into a ditch and died 2 weeks prior.  Thankfully that was not the case.  The smell was the result of the bacteria they use to metabolize the large amounts of waste products a brewery creates, hence the need to treat it.  On my last day, I got to sit down with the head brewer Mitch Steele for a while and chat a bit about what he does on a daily basis and the direction that the brewery is headed.  All in all, I had a great experience. 

This whole experience got me thinking about where I’d like to work after all this school is finished with.  We’ve been getting job postings sent to us by the program coordinator and I’ve looked at a few, but haven’t acted on any of them.  Now that we’re just over halfway through the program, I think it’s time to really get on this horse start whipping it into high gear.  Game on potential employers.

Next Week:  A Taste of an IBD Exam Question

 Questions or comments?  Feel free to email me at beereaucrat@gmail.com