(Window seats, gotta love em)

Prior to this trip to Scotland, I had always wondered what it would be like to be on a plane for over 10 hours straight.  Would I meet some cool people and have good conversation over a few drinks?  Would I sleep most of the way there?  Perhaps watch a couple interesting movies that haven’t even come out on DVD yet?  Only one of those possibilities came to fruition and that was the drinks.  As luck would have it, I was surrounded by a family of 20 returning from a California vacation to their native country France and none of them spoke English.  Not only that, but they were running around from seat to seat drinking wine and cognac while carrying on their rambunctious vacation behavior in the cabin of our 747.  Ixnay on the conversation and the possibility of sleep.  The movies that were shown I had just seen on DVD the week before.  Figures, that Murphy and his damn law.  One thing I will say that the food was pretty good and the service was excellent, so kudos to you Air France.

I arrived in Aberdeen about 17 hours after I left San Francisco (4 hour Paris layover) and was picked up by one of the top dogs at the brewery, Martin Dickie.  The town of Fraserburgh (pronounced Fraserboro by the locals) was about an hour and a half drive north, so I had a chance to get the history of how Brewdog got started and their expansion plans for the future.  We arrived in town and I got a quick tour of the brewery and was introduced to some of the guys that work there.  After getting dropped off at the Bed and Breakfast I was to stay at, I was soon scooped up by a couple of the brewers for a beer tasting back at the brewery. I got to share some of the US beers I brought with me and sample quite a few of what they had to offer.  We ended up hitting the town at about 11pm and let’s just say I hit the wall so to speak after about 36 hours without an ounce of rest.  

After sleeping through most of Sunday and I was at the brewery by 8am on Monday morning, ready to get my hands dirty.  The head brewer rounded everyone up as he does each morning and made sure that the night shift and the day shift were on the same page as to what had been accomplished over the last 12 hours and what needed to be down by the day crew.  That’s when I first learned that I would also be working 12 hour days while I was there gaining experience.  I didn’t say a word, but I will admit that I was laughing on the inside a bit that no one had mentioned it.  The first half of the day consisted of mostly observation and then after lunch I was given the task of filling enormous wooden scotch barrels with stout.  After filling them up, they probably weigh somewhere in the area of 500 lbs.   Needless to say that maneuvering them by yourself was kind of like trying to push the worlds largest man into a taxi after he’s thrown back a few too many at the local pub.   

(Proof of my servitude.  Shoveling out 5000 lbs of 140F grain is a blast!)

The remainder of the week was spent in the brewhouse, just like I had hoped.  I got to down every menial task there was.  Keeping the floors clean, carrying grain bags, loading them into the auger, cleaning the mash tun, putting on a mechanic suit and scrubbing the inside of the kettle were all included free of charge.  No automated cleaning in place in those vessels, it was all by hand.  This was already turning out to be a much different experience than what I had at Stone.  Rightfully so considering the size difference between the two.  Just to give you an idea, I believe Stone produced around 100,000 bbls last year and Brewdog did about 5000.  The automation at Brewdog was really limited to the bottling line area as opposed to Stone that is almost entirely run by software.  This was just what I needed to help me decide what size brewery I want to eventually work at, but more on that later.  

(The inside of the kettle prior to jumping in it and scrubbing it down)

Each day after getting off at 8pm, I was so exhausted that I merely went to my room, ate dinner, watched some World Cup (There were only 4 channels on the tele) and then went to sleep by 11pm.  After the first week was up, I had a chance to do a bit of exploring in the area.  Fraserburgh is essentially a sleepy fishing town with a population of around 15,000 at the North East tip of the country.  It’s so far north that you can take a boat to Norway within a day’s time.  The weather lives up to typical North Sea climate you hear about.  Gray, gray, gray.  Windy at times and sporadically rainy.  The temperatures were usually stuck between 50F - 60F, a far cry from the California summers I am used to.  The hills were green and the vast majority of the people I met were very friendly, although many of them couldn’t understand what the heck I was doing all the way out there.  The food was, well..... let’s just leave that one alone.  

But I didn’t come here for a vacation, I came here to brew dammit!  And that I did.  I was able to see how the infamous Sink the Bismark and Tactical Nuclear Penguin are made, which was pretty interesting.  To me it seems like they just took the German Eisbock method, modernized it a bit and then went to the extreme.  They used large plastic pods to hold the already 10%+ base beers and then they freeze them 2-3 times, draining the liquid into a new pod each time, to reach their target ABV.  I’m not sure if any of you have tried either of these beers, but they certainly blur the lines between booze and brew.  They’re not for the faint of heart, palate or your wallet (approx. $50 & $70 a bottle respectively).  Thankfully my tastings were on the house, as were the beers they let us take home each day that were under filled.  

(Sink the Bismark being collected into containers for some serious dry hopping)

The 2nd week I spent doing more back end processes, such as yeast dumps, kegging, bottling and packaging.  My last day I got to spend in Aberdeen with the head brewer, his wife and their son Archie.  They showed me around the “granite city”, introduced me to a few friends/family and we wandered around until they had to leave.  I went out for a few pints that evening and watched the last team USA soccer match at a swanky place that used to be a church and then was converted (pun intended) into the Soul Bar.  I bet that went over real well with the religious crowd when they first started that renovation...

The next morning I got on a plane back to the states with a lot more to think about. I got a good glimpse of what a couple guys that want to shake up the brewing scene in the UK can do from some little town in a wee corner of of the world.  It was a good experience and I'm glad I made the trip.  It has motivated me to think about not only what I want to do in the short term brewing wise, but how to make the long term goal of starting my own brewpub/beer bar a reality in the not so distant future.

Next Week:  My return to San Diego, finally getting back to some homebrewing and more job searching.

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