EPISODE S.4, E.2

Heather (00:09):
Welcome back to another episode of The BrewDeck Podcast, this second episode of our fourth season. Really excited to be back up and running with this. I am your host, Heather Jerred, joined by the amazing Cheyenne Weishaar. Hi, Cheyenne.

Cheyenne (00:26):
Hi, Heather. How are you?

Heather (00:28):
I’m good. How you doing today?

Cheyenne (00:29):
I am very good.

Heather (00:31):
Pretty excited. We are talking all things Bock beers.

Cheyenne (00:35):
Yes, all things Bock beers. It seems like a very fitting topic as we move into the spring. Getting ready for my Bock season.

Heather (00:42):
Mm-hmm. So, you are a brewer by trade, Cheyenne. Did you make any Bock beers in your previous brewing life?

Cheyenne (00:50):
Yes. Yeah, I brewed Doppelbock, which is one of the stronger Bock styles, and it’s a very big beer. Kind of difficult to make sometimes, but very tasty to drink.

Heather (01:02):
Nice. Could you mention the Doppelbock, because there are so many substyles of this super traditional beer. So, we’ve got the Doppelbock, which you mentioned, it’s a little bit of a maltier version, which we’re never going to argue against doing a maltier version of anything, an Eisbock or an Eisbock, which is a super strong version, which is kind of fun. So, you’ve never made this style, but is this one that you’ve drank in your ventures into beer?

Cheyenne (01:31):
I have never actually come across this style before in my life. And reading about it is really interesting because they basically partially freeze the beer, and by freezing that, you’re removing some of the water from the beer, which then makes the beer even stronger-

Heather (01:47):
Mm-hmm. I believe like a-

Cheyenne (01:48):
… which I’ve never heard of.

Heather (01:49):
Yeah. I believe that’s a bit sweeter, isn’t it? It just kind of reminds me of the ice wine type scenario.

Cheyenne (01:55):
Oh, yeah. Definitely.

Heather (01:56):
Yeah, yeah. And then, of course, the Maibock, which tends to come out around the springtime, so it’s a bit more of a hopped version, a little bit lighter in color as well. And then, of course, the Weizenbock or the wheat Bock. So, that typically is made with about 40 to 60% wheat. Alcohol contents range on these beers from 6.5 to around 13%. So, there’s a lot of different variety you could do with these substyles. The one really cool thing about, not the one really cool thing, but a really cool thing about this beer, too, is just the history of it. You want to dive into that for us?

Cheyenne (02:34):
Yeah, definitely. We are doing some research for this podcast, and I had a general understanding of what Bocks were and kind of the history of them. They come from Germany. They’re typically a dark lager, but some of them can be a little bit lighter. But they’re first brewed in, I think Northern Germany in the 14th century. So, they’re a very old style, and they were first brewed in a city called Einbeck. So, that’s where the style originates. And the really kind of funny, cool thing about this is when you look at a lot of Bock labels, they have goats on them, and the word bock means goats. So, that’s kind of where that comes from. But the history of where Bock comes from is actually the mispronunciation of the city where the style originates. So, the northern city of Einbeck, as that style became more popular in Germany and moved more south, it got mispronounced and it became ein bock, which means billy goat.

Heather (03:27):
Oh, fun.

Cheyenne (03:28):
Yeah. So, that’s where all the goat stuff comes from, which I think is a really cool little tidbit about it.

Heather (03:36):
Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Cheyenne (03:37):
But they’re historically associated with special occasions, religious festivals, Christmas, Easter, Lent. They have a long history of being brewed and consumed by monks, typically is a source of nutrition during times of fasting, which is really interesting.

Heather (03:53):
Well, beer is very nutrition.

Cheyenne (03:56):
True. Get your B vitamins. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Heather, but a lot of the naming conventions for Bocks, they have kind of the ending, the suffix ator. So, the Celebrator, I’ve brewed one that we called Balpanator. Have you seen that a lot in the Bocks that you’ve seen?

Heather (04:16):
Definitely have, yeah.

Cheyenne (04:17):
Yeah. So, that one also has a really cool history. So, the Paulaner monks were the first group of monks who were known to have brewed and then sold Doppelbock. Like I said, they used it to sustain themselves through periods of religious fasting. And so, they called it the Salvator, which is the savior that they worshiped. So, that’s where that ator comes from, which is a cool tidbit.

Heather (04:41):
Oh, that’s really cool. And this was everyone’s history lesson for today. I just think it’s so, so interesting to dive into that and we could probably do an entire episode on it, but we’ll digress and let some of our guests tell us about the Bocks that they’ve made.

(04:55)
So, we are really lucky to be joined by Chas Nemecek from King Maker Brewing in Jacksonville, Florida, as well as Mario Cortes from Here Today Brewery & Kitchen in Seattle, Washington.

(05:08)
And make sure you stick around. At the end of the episode, we will be joined by Abi Conner, our product marketing manager. Abi’s going to be joining us for a new segment called Ask Abi. You may have seen on our Instagram, we kind of put out some suggestions for some topics and questions to Ask Abi, and she’s going to be answering your questions, so make sure to stick around for that.

(05:31)
We are joined now by Chaz Nemecek, the head brewer and owner of King Maker Brewing in Jacksonville, Florida. Welcome, Chaz. Thanks to you for joining us.

Chas (05:40):
Oh, thank you guys for having me. I’m excited to talk about King Maker and Bock beer in general. It’s a passion, really enjoy brewing your classic styles and especially Czech and German styles.

Heather (05:58):
Oh, that’s awesome. Definitely, when we kind of started talking about doing this episode and we kind of brought up the whole thought of Bock beers, I see them more and more now and I’m like, “Oh, they are out there.” I just think you haven’t always noticed them as much.

Chas (06:12):
Yeah, they’re definitely … I mean, especially with the rise of lager in general as a cool kid beer now, you can only brew so many pale lager. There can be only so many pales. Nine pales before people start saying, “What did they do before? How many other styles can I milk out of these drinkable, crushable styles that are also, to be frank, a little bit easier on your costing side than, say, hazy IPAs.

Heather (06:51):
Mm-hmm. Crush, yeah.

Chas (06:54):
The amount of hops, the amount of malt, the amount of process that goes into them was at least more attractive from an intellectual brewing side to turn. The whole idea of just turning water, hops, malt, and yeast into something just incredible and simple is more challenging than just [inaudible 00:07:17] hops on them.

Heather (07:18):
For sure. Well, we had thrown this out to our entire sales team that this is what we wanted to do our episode on. And you deal with the lovely Kevin Lowe and he-

Chas (07:30):
Yes, I do.

Heather (07:30):
Lucky! Lucky down there dealing with Kevin.

Chas (07:32):
Yeah. He’s actually almost my neighbor.

Heather (07:35):
Is he really?

Chas (07:36):
Yeah. He lives a golf cart distance way from me.

Cheyenne (07:40):
A golf cart distance was a unit of measurement in Florida, so it seems very [inaudible 00:07:41].

Chas (07:41):
I’m telling you, yeah. A hundred percent a unit of measurement. It’s kind of like a beagle.

Cheyenne (07:49):
Yeah.

Heather (07:50):
Like golf cart distance. Well, Kevin let us know that you’re really, really cranking out the lagers and stuff at King Maker. So, before we fully dive into beer styles and stuff, just let us know, tell us a bit about yourself and tell us a bit about King Maker Brewing.

Chas (08:04):
I had started in the industry. Brewing beer and being around craft beer has been my only industry as an adult. I started off at a beer bar and then moved to volunteering as a cellarman and then eventually started getting paid as a cellarman and then just moved my way up, believe it or not, in this town from about four different breweries and this is the first one that I am owner/operator of.

(08:34)
So, second head brewery gig, but first as owner and being invested in the company. So, of course, that progression happened right around March 2020.

Cheyenne (08:48):
Excellent timing.

Chas (08:49):
So, we opened up our doors on March 13th, 2020.

Cheyenne (08:54):
Oh, cool!

Chas (08:56):
Yeah. Two days.

Cheyenne (08:57):
Oh. I think that’s the day that I officially got kicked out of the office where they were like, “Don’t come back.”

Chas (09:00):
Yeah. And we were just like, “Oh, yeah.” I mean, granted, Florida never really shut down, but all that aside, but it was a time to be starting an on-premise consumption business. But then even worse time, me jumping from stable job to new job.

(09:22)
But I looked at the other owners and I was just like, “Hey, we can weather this storm. We can see what we can do, but at least you’ll know that I’m doing my part.” So, instead of actually brewing just three-and-a-half barrels, we’re on a three-and-a-half barrel, when that is double batching into two sevens as well as three-and-a-half-barrel fermentors. So, kind of small batch beer or the pandemic, seven kegs when you’re brand new might as well be a lifetime supply of beer. And starting off with new recipes, new systems didn’t necessarily want to brew all that beer and then just standing around and scared of not being sold. And heaven forbid, it’s not up to my quality standards or anything like that. So, actually I got the hairbrained idea that we would bust out my old 10-gallon home brew system and I brewed a new beer every single day that we were open for it to go only to drive customers into our tap room for to go find and prowl our sales and stuff like that.

Heather (10:51):
That’s a really good idea.

Chas (10:53):
Yeah. But what it was really nice is I got to brew basically all the stuff that I hadn’t brewed in years, hadn’t brewed as a home brewer, hadn’t brewed stuff like Schwarzbier, stuff like Munich dunkel, like stuff that you see in the style books but don’t really sell well in this market. But the joke is that they actually did sell well and my customers kept saying, “Oh, when are you going to bring back the Schwarzbier? When are you going to bring back the dunkel? When are you going to bring back the Doppelbock?”

(11:26)
And so, I was like, “Maybe I’ll be able to do lager in this brewery.” So, I just started continuing to do lager and we really made it part of our identity. And when we scaled up and opened up fully, we had about eight different lagers on out of 18 in the tap room and we’ve had up to 10 lagers on out of 18 all while cranking them on a three-and-a-half barrel brewhouse.

Heather (11:55):
Oh, wow!

Chas (11:57):
Seven kegs of lager at a time is not fun on the seller side, tell you what. But as soon as we got our lenticular filter, it was just like game on because we were stretched thin on the seller, it was pushing stuff that wasn’t quite ready and it was very Keto day-esque of trying to do lager on such a small system. But we made it through and we’re expanding and adding food and it’s all because people dig the lager and something that we can do and makes us unique to Jacksonville and I think a little unique to Florida. Oktoberfest is our biggest time of the year and we also do a Maifest to release our Maibock. I’m probably getting a little ahead, but yeah, it’s just a blast. And it’s all because of interesting lager [inaudible 00:12:51].

Heather (12:50):
That’s great.

Chas (12:57):
Hopefully that sounded okay. I get a little rambly.

Heather (12:59):
There’s nothing wrong with that.

Chas (13:06):
Yeah. Actually, I went to school for history, so being a historian by trade and then a brewer, it kind of doing traditional styles in Bock and finding recipes from 1909, like the Kaiser American Classic American Bock recipes. That’s where I get my Jimmy’s off, you know what I mean?

Heather (13:28):
Yes. That’s even, I was studying for my sisterhood exam. That was my favorite part was learning about all of the history and how far back beer goes and how the styles became the styles. And so, I fully understand that. It’s one of my favorite parts.

Chas (13:42):
Oh, yeah. Well, Bock has such a cool history and I was doing some light reading just so I didn’t sound like a moron, but it’s crazy how just the evolution of Bock comes from is directly tied to technology, not necessarily brewing itself, I guess is weirder than …

Heather (14:05):
So, what was the first Bock you ever brewed?

Chas (14:08):
Honestly, probably was at King Maker. We brewed a ton of lager but never Bock because dunkles bock, pelis, Maibock, Doppelbock, all that stuff. The couple breweries that I worked for before just always associated Bock with death of a tap.

(14:29)
There’s [inaudible 00:14:30] sell that, too. Nobody likes Bock. There’s also a criminal fear of lager brewing in Jacksonville in the last couple, since … Jacksonville’s only have, I think our oldest brewery is maybe 14 years old. So, it’s relatively new beer town, with that nobody was really doing lagers at all, just ales and light ales, blonde ales, cream ales, Kölsches, some browns. Never, never anything that truly German or truly lagered. So, yeah, I mean I could probably count on one hand the amount of Bocks that are on tap in the city of Jacksonville and I have two on them now.

Heather (15:10):
So, it’s definitely …

Chas (15:10):
Yeah.

Heather (15:10):
So, it’s two.

Chas (15:18):
Yeah. So, I think the first Bock I would have brewed was probably a Doppelbock on that 10-gallon system in 2020. And then just continued brewing larger and larger [inaudible 00:15:35]. We do an annual Maifest where we release our Maibock. We do every year our Christmas seasonal is a Weihnachtsbock, which is kind of a riff. It’s a slightly more amber version of the traditional Bock recipe from John Palm [inaudible 00:15:52]. Sometimes we flavor some of the kegs with winter flavors, which is kind of throwing in the face of [inaudible 00:16:03] but shit sells.

(16:06)
So, but yeah, as far as first Bock was probably that Doppelbock and then we’ve just refined the style. It’s easier to brew on a commercial system that has brew out of a beer system. So, the Doppelbock is just okay. It got a lot better once we scaled it up a little bit.

Heather (16:23):
Can you tell us a little bit about your grain bill for them? What are you putting in these Bocks?

Chas (16:37):
So, pretty standard. So, the Bocks are all about the malt, and so-

Heather (16:40):
Which we love.

Chas (16:41):
Really? Yes.

Heather (16:42):
We’re never going to argue with them.

Chas (16:44):
Yes. And I’m an notorious IPA gamer. I brew them because I have to, because they keep the lights on but it goes up to me, all Bock, all lager, all dark ale all the time. But yeah, so as far as our Bock goes, it’s pretty standard with your historical Bocks. Lots of melanoidins, so heavy on light Munich, dark Munich, some continental pilsner. Then we do some lightly roasted, like use, sorry, some caramel like cara-ambers, some Carapas, some, I forget what country called but I would always tell Kevin, “Give me carapa, give me whatever [inaudible 00:17:34].”

Cheyenne (17:36):
You trusted Kevin that much.

Chas (17:39):
Hey! He’s only fucked up so many times. No. He’s no [inaudible 00:17:45]. He’s a great guy. Love you, Kevin. You reading this or hearing. I’m messing my price per pound bill up by [inaudible 00:17:53].

Heather (17:54):
Just reach out to us. I know that I’m in the Canadian chapter, but I’ll make something happen for you.

Chas (17:58):
Okay. Thank you.

Heather (18:00):
If Kevin starts screwing you over.

Chas (18:05):
Because that floor malted bohemian Czech pilsner malt is not cheap.

Cheyenne (18:06):
No. Oh, and that’s such a nice malt.

Chas (18:10):
Yeah. So, that’s our grain bill for the Czech dark lager that we brew. It’s one of my favorite beers that we brew. It’s very near and dear to me. It’s actually as close to my great-grandmother’s recipe as humanly possible that I’ve gotten. So, that’s for another podcast. That’s not [inaudible 00:18:27].

Cheyenne (18:26):
I was going to say, did you want to elaborate on your great-grandmother’s beer recipe?

Chas (18:30):
Yeah, she was a home brewer back in Czechoslovakia and emigrated through Ellis Island. That’s why it’s actually called 1913 because that was the year that she came through Ellis Island. She actually met my great-grandfather on the boat and my great-grandfather said he never drank except for one pitcher of beer of my grandmother’s beer at dinner every night. So, just a running joke [inaudible 00:19:01]. “Oh, yeah. I don’t drink except a picture of beer.”

Heather (19:02):
Every night. That’s a good thing. Back to Bocks.

Chas (19:02):
What? Yeah, right. So, yeah, we basically brewed Doppel, Ellis, Maibock. Based on that Kaiser 1909 recipe, we’re doing a classic American Bock. So, 4.2%, heavily leading, like 30 to 40% corn, simple or just small amount of hops at the top. And that’s pretty much it. I think that recipe called for, I think it was some light imbues of American hops footcoat in the boil and then continental hops in the back. So, we’re brewing that beer to pair with our barbecue that we’re doing at the shop. So, it’s cool.

Heather (20:08):
That sounds like a good pairing.

Chas (20:11):
Oh, yeah. We ended up brewing all the beer first and then we were like, “Oh, well. What kind of food goes well with dark lager?” And so …

Heather (20:21):
Barbecue.

Chas (20:22):
Yeah. We found a chef that was interested in doing barbecue for us and we’re going to be rolling that out in the next couple months. So, it’s kind of fun. We’re out in this really big precipice of coming out of the pandemic and reinvesting into the building and reinvesting into what we’re doing. And it’s all comes on the back of the pairing.

Heather (20:45):
Mm-hmm. So, who do you find is coming in and buying the Bocks more? Is it beer nerds? Is it other brewers? Is it the general public in Jacksonville that is like, “I love a Bock and I’m coming here for this”? Or do you find because you maybe made it such a specialty when you were rolling them out through the pandemic that it just kind of created this demand for them for you?

Chas (21:12):
Well, if anyone tells you that there’s a high demand for Bocks, they’re lying to you.

(21:15)
But basically the people that come in, it’s the people that are … We find a really strong niche of people that they craft beer, but they’re sick of the lack of varieties, because there’s so many brewers that are just interested in brewing very hyper-focused styles or it’s all IPA all the time because that’s all they care about.

(21:42)
And so, people, at least my regulars, they kind of gravitates like, “Oh, thank God. We can get a Mexican lager,” because we have a Mexican lager, Mexican amber lager, Czech Pilsner, Czech dark Lager, Christmas Bock, Doppelbock. We brew a classic American pale ale with 13% Crystal 60, which hasn’t been brewed since 1990.

Heather (22:12):
It’s vintage. It’s vintage.

Chas (22:14):
Yeah, right? It’s like, “Wow! This is-“

Heather (22:16):
I’ll take that West Coast.

Chas (22:20):
Oh, yeah. It’s like, “Is this a 90-year-old West Coast IPA?” No, it’s actually fresh, all cascade hopped, classic American pale ale, kind of that just … I don’t know, I feel like just the way that we brew, at least our customers gravitate towards normalcy, I guess. Not beers to the extreme. So, that’s at least what our clients are used to.

(22:49)
And then kind of training new customers, it’s like, “Oh, well. What’s a Bock?” It’s like, “Oh, it’s what beer used to be.” So, it’s dark, flavorful, malty lager, people that IPAs aren’t going to like it or they’ll be going to like it as a change of pace. I mean, you can’t go wrong with just offering something different than what people are used to getting 99% of the time, I guess the best way to put it.

Heather (23:17):
Awesome. Is there anything else coming up at the brewery? Anything else you want to plug? Any new beer releases, any events, anything like that?

Chas (23:24):
Well, our two big, big events of the year, our Maifest that we do, I think it’s going to be April 29th or something this year, whatever the closest Saturday is to May 1st. That’s where we release our Maibock as well as a tap list of maybe 10 other German-style beers, including some of the stuff we have. But some of the stuff that we brew, especially for it obviously our two week long celebration of Oktoberfest.

Heather (24:00):
Everybody can just pay attention to the social medias for whatnot.

Chas (24:03):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We pretty much have them. They’re pretty static so we always end our Oktoberfest on the last Sunday that it’s actually happening in Germany. So, it always coincides and it starts two weeks before, so I think this time it’s going to end on the 5th and start on the 22nd or something about. I’m a bad planner, which kind of sucks to be a production brewer, but you do what you can.

Heather (24:38):
As long as you can get the beer out.

Chas (24:39):
Kevin [inaudible 00:24:39] so many times. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That’s the easy part. Party planning and social media. That’s the fan I exist. I mean, it is what it is. Okay.

Heather (24:50):
Thank you so much for coming on and anybody listening, if you’re in Jacksonville, Florida, make sure to go down to King Maker Brewing and have some awesome lagers and try the Bock.

Chas (25:01):
Oh, I mean, you guys are awesome. It’s really easy to talk and I appreciate you having me on.

Heather (25:06):
Awesome. Thank you so much.

Chas (25:07):
Bye now.

Heather (25:09):
We are joined now by Mario Cortes. He’s head brewer and part owner of Here Today Brewing & Kitchen in Seattle, Washington. Welcome, Mario.

Mario (25:17):
Hey! Thanks, guys. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.

Heather (25:20):
So, before we dive into all things beer, tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got into the beer industry and tell us a bit about your brewery.

Mario (25:27):
Yeah. So, I’ve been in the beer industry now for just over a decade. I started … I’m originally from San Antonio, Texas, but at the time I was living in Houston. It was kind of the early days of the recent craft boom, the 2010, 2011 timeframe. And there was just breweries opening up all over the place at that time. It’s still happening now, but this is back when there were maybe a couple thousand breweries and now we’re well into the 10,000 range at this point in the country.

(25:57)
But yeah, I was working for a retail company, not really loving my job. Seems to be a pretty standard thing in the industry. Hated the job I was doing, but really enjoyed home brewing and was getting into craft beer just like everyone else. And there was a brewery down there that was looking for basically free labor, pouring beer in a tap room and that’s how it started.

(26:21)
And I was there all the time to the point where their production manager was like, “Hey, would you like a job?” And I go, “Yeah. I’m here every day anyways. I might as well get paid to be here.” So, that’s how it all started.

(26:34)
And then flash forward a few years, I attended a brewing school in Dallas mostly just to kind of reaffirm things that I learned on my own, but also to get some kind of formal education. So, looking for jobs as a brewer somewhere I could present, “Hey, I’ve gone through this science background.” But brewed in Boston for a little while. Brewed in San Francisco, California for a few years and then, right when the pandemic hit, I was looking at opening my own brewery. Perfect timing for opening a business as everything was shutting down.

(27:11)
But yeah, I saw an ad online for this concept in Seattle. I had been to Seattle once before just on a quick trip to get out of Texas for a little while and really loved it and have always been a big fan of not only the beer scene up here, but also just the music scene and ’80s kid growing up in the ’90s, grunge was everything.

Cheyenne (27:33):
That’s happened to my ears. My dog’s name is Eddie Vedder, so I am also a big grunge fan.

Mario (27:41):
Perfect. Yeah, I feel like I hit the timing just right because all the bands I liked in the early 2000s, late ’90s are doing reunion tours. So, it’s perfect timing to come up here and catch some shows.

(27:53)
But yeah, so I joined this project … Man! It’s already been a couple years ago when we were still in the planning stages back when we were still all dealing with what was COVID going to look like and supply chain issues and stuff. So, we got really lucky with our landlord who was a big advocate for us, was the reason why we chose the location that we’re in. We’re working on the waterfront in downtown Seattle. Our brewery literally outside of my windows, I can see the Olympic Park mountains, I could see the bay. So, really great views and good inspiration for making some really good beers here in town. So, that’s kind of a very compressed story of the last 10 years of how I get to this project.

Cheyenne (28:41):
Awesome. Well, can you tell us a little bit more about the brewery? What was the concept behind it? I knew you’re relatively new there.

Mario (28:47):
Yeah, we just opened in October of ’22. We did our grand opening and have slowly ramped up. We started just opened three days a week and then have built that into a more week long, five days a week and eventually seven days a week here when the spring weather comes back. But, yeah, the concepts for it kind of started with the name, which Here Today I think everyone automatically thinks about the saying of here today, gone tomorrow. That wasn’t the inspiration. But when people do make that joke, I’m like, “Yeah, the beer’s gone tomorrow so you got to drink it now.” And that’s kind of where the concept comes from. Being here today, being in the moments, when you’re sitting around drinking, eating good food with your friends, you’re not thinking about what’s happening tomorrow, you’re not thinking about what happened to your day before you got to that point. You’re in that moment. So, that’s kind of where that concept comes from.

(29:46)
And then, yeah, we were talking earlier before we started about the color scheme. We wanted our space, initially when we started everything, we wanted it to be inviting to everyone. And I think environment is a big part of that. What you see in the space should make you feel warm, should make you feel welcome. Not that there’s anything wrong with the industrial look of most breweries or some benches in the middle of a beer garden, all that stuff is amazing and has its place. But we wanted our brewery to be a little bit more hospitality focused and a lot of that was just like, what does this space look like? And using the colors from nature around us and re-imagining that into the space.

Heather (30:29):
No, it looks great.

Cheyenne (30:30):
That’s awesome.

Heather (30:31):
The photos of it look amazing, I guess. Cheyenne, you’ve been there.

Cheyenne (30:33):
Yeah. Yeah, I went there. I was in Seattle maybe about two weeks ago and I dropped in and surprised Mario and forced myself to be a part of the conversation that they were having. Yeah, but the tap room is awesome. It’s super, super beautiful. And the location, I’m stunned by the location because it’s really rare that you get a location like that. It’s right on the waterfront in Seattle, which is kind of a very vibe for spot for people in Seattle. So, it’s an awesome location. I’m excited to see how busy you guys get in the spring and summer, because I know that it’s just going to be slammed for you guys.

Mario (31:06):
Yeah, we’re almost a little afraid of what’s going to happen when the cruise ship season comes back because they literally dock right down the pier from us. So, we’re just going to be out there with a sign pointing directly to the brewery and let’s see what happens.

Cheyenne (31:24):
That’s exciting. Definitely have to come down and check it out in the summer for sure.

Mario (31:28):
Yeah, absolutely.

Heather (31:29):
Well, as we said, this whole episode is about Bock beers and Cheyenne says you’ve got a great one on the go. So, could you tell us a little bit about your Bock?

Mario (31:39):
Yeah, absolutely. It’s so interesting. I feel like this happens a lot in the industry. I mean, not just with beer but with other things as well. But specifically with beer. I’ll have an idea to brew a random style like Bock, which doesn’t really see a lot of attention in the craft scene. And now there’s four other breweries in town that are doing one, we’re sitting here on a podcast talking about the style specifically. It’s so interesting how that kind of zeitgeist element plays into it.

(32:09)
But, yeah, for us, I grew up in Texas like I mentioned, and when I started drinking I turned 21 and, at that time, Shiner Bock was the closest thing we had to quote, unquote, “Craft beer.” It wasn’t the best beer on the market, but it was a more robust flavor than any other light beer on the shelf. I always felt like if I was going somewhere like a party or a punk show or something, I was reaching for a Shiner.

(32:41)
And since those days have kind of gone, you don’t see them on the market anymore. I really wanted to reimagine what that beer can be. That’s a lot of what we’ve done with the beers here at Here Today is taking a style that we really love and putting it through the Here Today filter and what does that look like? How do we make it a little more modern? How do we give it our own personal touch? And that’s how we came up with this idea of a Texas Bock.

(33:08)
So, basically with ours, I started with a traditional single Bock German beer recipe and gave it a little Vienna lager twist. So, keeping the body really light but incorporating some more dark lager flavors, which I feel like Shiner, as much as it was a Bock on the label, was always just kind of a light dark lager. So, wanted to play with that idea and then used American Liberty hops instead of Old World hops just to give it a little bit more of an American feel.

Cheyenne (33:44):
That’s awesome. That’s really cool to hear how you’ve kind of taken a style that is so reminiscent of where you came from and then put it into your own twist, in your own lens. This beer, did you release it this week?

Mario (33:58):
We officially released it last Sunday. We planned it perfectly to launch with our brunch menu, which is all breakfast tacos. So, another Texas influence in Seattle.

Cheyenne (34:13):
This is literally on my list of things to ask, because I was checking you out on Instagram and it was the posting with the Bock talking about breakfast tacos. I’m like, “Please explain a breakfast taco to me.” I’ve had breakfast burritos. I have never had a breakfast taco.

Mario (34:29):
It’s kind of like most Tex-Mex. It is basically the same as a breakfast burrito but a little smaller, a little bit more focused on mix and match. So, you can get, instead of one breakfast burrito that has one flavor, you can get three different kinds. So, our chefs put together a really cool menu focusing on just the classic egg and cheese breakfast, but adding in bacon, adding potatoes, and then also doing some vegetarian options, which has been a really big hit with us. I would say I’m like 80% vegetarian most of the time. So, our food menu actually reflects what we’re eating ourselves and our customer base has responded really positively to it. So, I think we’re going to lean into that for sure.

Heather (35:14):
Is that music to your ear, Cheyenne?

Cheyenne (35:15):
That is.

Heather (35:15):
She is also a vegetarian

Cheyenne (35:18):
I’m a vegetarian. And I love tacos, so I will be down really quick to come get some breakfast tacos.

Heather (35:23):
Cheyenne, I will meet you in Seattle.

Cheyenne (35:26):
Good.

Heather (35:26):
Be there shortly.

Cheyenne (35:26):
Oh, that’s awesome.

Mario (35:29):
Yeah, every Sunday for now. We’ll expand that out. But yeah, I’m going to eat all of them myself.

Cheyenne (35:36):
Are you taking a lot of your influence from growing up in Texas to this brewery? The food, the beer, the everything just really, it kind of influenced from, I don’t want to say your childhood because that means underage drinking, but it’s probably growing up down there.

Mario (35:55):
Yeah, I think that kind of naturally happens whether intentional or not with whatever project you’re working on, you’re going to bring what rings true to you to it, or at least that’s been my experience for stuff that I’ve been involved with. It’s kind of an accident we didn’t intend for this specific menu to read Texas heavy, but I’m from San Antonio. One of my other partners, Dave, who we referred to as Texas Dave is from Fort Worth. I don’t get the Texas prefix to my name.

Cheyenne (36:29):
No.

Mario (36:29):
South Texas Mario, I guess.

Heather (36:31):
There you go. He introduced himself to me as Texas Dave. So, that has stuck in my mind ever since.

Mario (36:37):
Yeah, I feel like he got to Seattle and someone said that to him once and now that’s just like, I think he has a hat that says it, too. It’s official.

Cheyenne (36:46):
That is so fun. I don’t think I want to be Saskatchewan Heather.

Heather (36:54):
Yeah. Doesn’t have the same ring.

Cheyenne (36:54):
But good on you, Texas Dave.

Heather (36:56):
That’s awesome.

Mario (36:57):
Yeah, but we kind of just stumbled into adding Texas items to the menu because they just, again, it felt home to us and it’s also an opportunity to share a little bit of what we were familiar with from back home with the folks in Seattle. And so far, the response has been more than positive. I mean, I had someone yesterday, we have chips and queso on our menu, which is, in my opinion, a really good beer snack. And they are from Seattle and they’d never had it before. They had no idea what they were getting into. And this is their new favorite snack.

Cheyenne (37:30):
Awesome.

Mario (37:31):
Yeah, it’s kind fun to introduce new things to folks and then also just making sure we’re keeping things familiar at the same time, which is an interesting balance.

Cheyenne (37:40):
Yeah. For sure. Chips and queso is kind of a twist on the classic beer snack of pretzel and beer cheese, so works out kind of perfectly.

Mario (37:50):
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s it almost exactly what the conversation went when we were talking about what kind of snacks to put on this menu. Since I’ve grew up in that environment, that’s the option that we had. And then had trying more traditional German food, which Texas has a very large German population and has a lot of historical ties to Germany, early immigrants to the state, which is another reason that this Bock kind of rings true as well as other German styles of beer. Because growing up in that state we have an actual Oktoberfest that you drive out to in the middle of the woods and it’s just giant party, which is pretty interesting to have all these cultures kind of come together, but, yeah, that chips and queso and beer cheese is exactly right.

Cheyenne (38:38):
That’s awesome. I love that. Yeah.

Heather (38:41):
A little bit back to the Bock, is this the first time you have made this beer? Was this kind of brought on by a recipe you’ve used in the past?

Mario (38:48):
I mean, parts of every recipe that we’ve worked on come from somewhere in my experience because it’s just an easier place to start from when you kind of know the end result. But we’ve also branched out, I mean we are still really young as far as our system goes, as far as our menu goes. So, this recipe was actually brew number 19 on our system.

Heather (39:15):
Oh, wow!

Cheyenne (39:15):
Wow!

Mario (39:15):
Yeah, and we’re a seven barrel brewery, so it’s kind of on that cusp of, it is a large batch of beer, but it is also small enough to where we can still play around and experiment a little bit and take some risks. But for this beer it’s like what did I want to see in a final result? And that’s like a mild roasty character, a little bit more body to it, and definitely focus on water chemistry, which is one of those things that a lot of brewers, especially newer breweries, they kind of forget to pay attention to. And it’s one of the things that, because of our location, because we are right on the waterfront, I wanted to be intentional with every ingredient that we use, trying to minimize our waste. And that ethos has informed a lot of the decisions we made here as far as our equipment, as far as our recipe design, our kitchen, and all that stuff.

(40:11)
So, yeah, I mean, the water here in Seattle is almost the perfect water for brewing, specifically modern American craft beer because it was very neutral in the pallet. But we’re in a brand new building, so we having to filter out all the chlorine that’s in every city water supply and other solid materials like that just to make sure we have some really clean water. And then building basically a copy of Texas harder limestone water by the addition of salts and stuff in the brewing process.

Cheyenne (40:46):
Oh, interesting. That’s a level of detail that most people wouldn’t think of

Mario (40:50):
Yeah. And it isn’t make or break. I mean, most beer styles, you wouldn’t really notice the difference if you compared it to another one. But it just gives it, in my opinion, that little extra something. So, if we’re talking about what makes this a Texas Bock, I think that is one of the main things is kind of copying that water supply that Shiner would’ve been using back in the day. And which I think just gives it a little extra kind of minerality, a little more crisp bite to the finish, even though it is a malty beer, making sure that when you go in for a sip it’s not too sweet, it’s not too cloying and you want to immediately go back for another.

Cheyenne (41:29):
Can you tell us a little bit about the grain bill for this?

Mario (41:35):
Yeah, I mean, that’s another spot where it was bringing in some elements of Vienna lager, which initially when we were talking about doing this beer was we just wanted to make a dark lager kind of fitting for the end of winter and fitting for the weather in Seattle right now. So, we started with German pilsner malt, which anytime I use pilsner I try and use floor malted just because it has a little extra bite to it and a little bit more of a character than traditional pilsner. So, I started that with that as a bass, blended in some Munich roasted malt and some Vienna malt as well. Again, just going to add a little more character to the body, give that kind of impression of roastiness without going too far into that crystal malt territory. And then just a massive amount of CaraRed because I’m a big fan of what that malt can bring to the finish of a beer. It’s really dry, has this kind of caramel note to it on its own. And it brings a really beautiful kind of garnet, red highlight to any beer you add it to.

Heather (42:42):
Cheyenne, did you ever make a Bock when you were brewing?

Cheyenne (42:46):
Yes. We made a Doppelbock and very traditionally a lot of Bocks have the ater naming convention. And I live and brew up in the mountains and, up at the ski resort where I live, we have a section of it that’s called Alpental. So, we want to kind of pay homage to that. So, we named it the Alpenater. And we did really well and we did some barrel aging with it, too. And I think those beers take really well to some time in barrels as well. So, yeah, that one was a really cool one. I think it’s still around. It comes out every winter. So, that one’s a fun one.

Heather (43:21):
Do you think, Mario, this is going to be a beer that you’re going to keep on the menu full-time, bring back every spring?

Mario (43:29):
Yeah, I think this may be our kind of going into spring take on a dark later. I think it really fits with, again, the weather in town. It’s just starting to feel a little bit like winter might be behind us, even though now I say that and it’s going to snow tonight, probably.

Heather (43:47):
Yeah. It’s that winter vortex coming in.

Mario (43:50):
Yeah, exactly. But I feel like it kind of fits, but we’ve also talked about what does our menu look like? And I try not to lean too much into seasonality because I don’t consume beer that way. And I think a lot of people get stuck in that rut of like, “Well, it’s springtime, you got to make a Maibock. It’s winter. You got to make an Imperial stout and that is true. And there are definitely customers that come in looking for those lighter beers in the summer, heavier beers in the winter. So, seasonality is informing our menu, but we just want to rotate through stuff that we really enjoy drinking. And I think this one will be on that rotation probably once a year. It’s not like people are breaking down the door right now to drink German lager. I wish they were, but you know, it’s a-

Cheyenne (44:41):
Maybe after this podcast that’ll change.

Heather (44:43):
Yeah. We’re basically influencers.

Mario (44:47):
I would love it.

Cheyenne (44:48):
[inaudible 00:44:48] to the bock.

Heather (44:49):
Literally tens of people will hear that. It’s amazing. But-

Mario (44:54):
Yeah. I also like that Doppelbock idea is something that we talk about too. Taking this recipe and turning the EQ up on some notes and adding a couple new flavors to play with a higher ABV take on it. It finished it at five on that.

Heather (45:09):
Five.

Mario (45:10):
So, yeah, it’s kind of exactly where we wanted most of our lighter beers to be. We set out initially to make lighter, low ABV beer as a focus. That is still part of our plan, although a little bit less so considering that people want double IPAs and then Imperial stouts.

Heather (45:30):
They do.

Mario (45:30):
Yeah. But right now I would say half of our menu is 5% are under and which is pretty rare. I mean there’s some breweries that are doing that nationally, but here in Seattle there’s maybe a handful that are allowing their tap menu to be like … We have eight serving tanks. I would say if six of them are 5% are under and then a couple of things that are more in that 7% range. I think that that’s interesting and kind of sets us apart for sure.

Heather (45:57):
I definitely always gravitate towards the lower ABV beers as well.

Cheyenne (46:00):
Yeah. Me, too. I want to be able to try a bunch of different beers and, I mean, I think that’s kind of how we all tend to drink when we’re in this industry. Especially if you’re going somewhere new, you want to be able to try a bunch of stuff. I can’t try a bunch of 7% beers.

Mario (46:14):
Yeah. I can’t do it anymore. I used to be able to, but yeah, but if I cracked into our IPAs, I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to have two of these,” and then I’m going to be hungover for the next 48 hours.

Cheyenne (46:24):
Exactly.

Mario (46:26):
I am 40 years old and cannot drink like I’m a 20 year old anymore.

Cheyenne (46:30):
I 100% feel you on that. And I was like, I love to drink stouts. And I like that you said that about beers not seasonal. I drink stouts at any time of year. I love them. And we dip into winter and everybody does start making those Imperial stouts and every time I want to get a nice stout can to take home and drink, I’m like, “I would like a 4.5% dry Irish stout.” I don’t need a 9% Imperial sound.

Mario (46:52):
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think my liver can hang anymore with those things. I mean, I enjoy tasting them. I enjoy brewing them. We have an eight-and-a-half percent Imperial stout on right now. They’re really good. But yeah, it’s this Bock and all of our lagers really, they’ve kind of been around that six or under ABV range.

Cheyenne (47:12):
Kind of going back to the whole Bock thing, you had said that maybe you’ll bring this specific Shiner-inspired Bock back maybe once a year in the springtime. Do you think, I mean there’s so many substyles of Bock as a whole. Do you think that you’ll brew any other, I mean you had kind of touched on maybe doing a Doppelbock. Do you think that you’ll do some more styles of Bock in the future?

Mario (47:31):
Yeah, I think so far I’ve been really happy with the interest that this one has generated. I think we did ourselves a huge favor by releasing it on Taco Day. So, we had a lot of people see that post on Instagram and come in and specifically ask for that combo, which I think the two things go hand in hand, a light dark lager and breakfast, what more could you want?

(47:52)
But yeah, I think we’ll play with any style that we’re really interested in. As we’re talking about it now, I’m like, “Yeah, I could really see brewing like a Weizenbock,” which you don’t really see the market anymore, which I think would be a lot of fun. And then-

Heather (48:05):
That would be really cool.

Mario (48:06):
… giving it our twist, again, like we do with everything else.

Cheyenne (48:08):
For sure. That’s awesome. I love a good Weizenbock. You don’t really see them that frequently.

Heather (48:12):
Yeah. I never see them.

Mario (48:13):
Yeah, I can’t remember the last time I had one, actually.

Cheyenne (48:17):
There’s a couple of German beer bars in Seattle that I’m sure, if we went there, they probably would have one on at least.

Mario (48:26):
Yeah, absolutely.

Heather (48:26):
I literally just wrote that down because I don’t remember the last time I had one or seen one, so maybe that’s it.

Mario (48:31):
Yeah. I’m going to have to keep an eye out. I definitely haven’t seen them on a menu anywhere, so that’d be a fun one.

Heather (48:35):
Well, let us know when you brew one and we’ll come down.

Cheyenne (48:38):
Yeah.

Mario (48:38):
Okay. Sounds good.

Heather (48:39):
That’s awesome. Is there anything about anything coming up you want to kind of plug, anything else about the brewery?

Mario (48:44):
I mean, like I mentioned before, we recently launched our brunch menu, which I highly recommend if you’re in the Seattle area, come and check out what our chef is doing with these breakfast tacos. I think kind of starting a trend here and there’s a couple other places that have done it so far, but be curious to see if it catches on in Seattle, which would be really cool. And then also, just as we’re getting into the kind of warmer time of year, our patio literally faces the waterfront. We have the beautiful sculpture garden. It’s outdoor art exhibit right next to us. Plus it’s just Seattle during this time of year. I like a little bit of cold and rainy weather. I’m kind of a weirdo that way, but I think this location is just worth checking out if you’re ever in the area.

Heather (49:28):
Awesome. Yeah, everybody go check out Here Today Brewing & Kitchen in Seattle.

(49:34)
Thank you so much, Mario. I really appreciate you coming on and chatting with us today.

Mario (49:37):
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks again for having me and hopefully I will brew another kind of obscure style and we’ll be chatting about something else in the future. Maybe we can talk about Girgitza at some point.

Cheyenne (49:47):
100%.

Heather (49:50):
Definitely. And as promised, we are going to launch our newest segment on The BrewDeck Podcast, Ask Abi with Abi Conner, our product marketing manager. Welcome, Abi.

Abi (50:01):
Thank you. Happy to be here. I’m excited to be doing this segment.

Heather (50:06):
I think it’s going to be great. So, yeah, I’m going to start off with just because obviously we’ve been talking about Bocks throughout this podcast recording and they were talking a lot about using Munich malts and making Bocks. I’m kind of wondering if you can kind of explain the difference between using a Munich malt and a caramunich malt when it pertains to creating the style of beer.

Abi (50:28):
Yeah, definitely. In my experience, caramunich and Munich have a few major differences and it’s in the kilning and germination processes. It just separates them a little bit. Whereas caramunich, it’s a version of a crystal malt, which is a lager malt that is kilned wet, which allows for very little enzyme activity. This process during the kilning is called the Maillard reaction, and it’s just between the sugars and amino acids and the greens. Munich malts is kiln dry, like most malts, and it’s kiln lighter. So, the reaction, the Maillard reaction is far less.

(51:06)
These processes change the flavor profiles body and head retention. You’re going to find that if you add caramunich to a Bock, you’ll have that roasty caramel coffee toffee flavor, and it’s pretty strong. So, that makes it great for Doppelbocks or Eisbocks. The different kiln process also makes it so that caramunich can’t really be used as a base malt just because it is a stronger one. It should be typically 10% or less, so it’s more of a character malt. If you used it as a base, it would make your Bock just taste like burnt and chewy and gross. So, highly recommend you don’t do that.

(51:47)
Munich malts are used as a base because they don’t have that same process or the majority of a base in some of these Bocks in other beers. It has a maltier backbone, but it’s not overly roasty and toasty, so it adds that light flavor and that malty backbone without it being too much. It also has a lighter SRM, so you get that really pretty light orange color on the Maibocks and Weizenbocks. We have a few really great caramunichs and Munichs. We carry a lot of them, actually.

Cheyenne (52:24):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you want to drop some of our good ones we got from our brands, and maybe just let everybody know some other products that we might have in our catalog that could also be used in these styles of beers.

Abi (52:37):
Yeah, definitely. We have a few really great Munich malts by Best Malz. We have really great light Munich by Great Western Malting. And another one that I really recommend is Canada Malting’s Euro-Pils. They work really well in Bocks as well.

Cheyenne (52:52):
Very cool. That’s all very interesting. I love kind of learning more about the malting process and the different ways that you can use that to manipulate the final product. That’s very cool.

Abi (53:02):
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Cheyenne (53:03):
Well, awesome. So, last week we had a question box on our Instagram story for your questions for Abi. This question comes from Craig Richardson of Dangerous Man Brewing Company in Minneapolis, and he asks, “What’s the difference between silica and vegetable oil-based defoamers and specifically the difference in their use in the kettle and why you can’t use one of them in unfiltered beers?”

Abi (53:26):
Yeah, I mean, this is one thing that I had to do a little research because in my brewery we’ve got a pretty small kettle, so we definitely use both of these. But from what I understand, in my experience, if you use defoamers properly, they’re used for a variety of things, not just for kettle boilovers, but that’s the main thing. We don’t want boilovers, so we put it in there and make sure that we’re safe in our brewhouse as stated in the question. But also you can also make room in the fermentor to allow for more beer to be transferred in, saving money as well as settle delivery so that hops can rest properly in the fermenter and less foam activity in the fermenter means cleaner blow-off buckets. So, it’s a win-win all around. They can even be used in yeast propagation and counterintuitively, they improve foam retention in beers.

(54:22)
There are two kinds, like we talked about. There’s a silicone based and there is a vegetable based, also known as food grade. Both of these work in pretty identical ways. There are a few differences, though. And again, this goes back to the question about unfiltered beer. The reason why you can’t use silicone defoamers in unfiltered beer is that the FDA warns that when using silicone anti-foamers, no more should be used than 10 ppm, which is parts per million of active silicone remaining in the final beer. And that the anti-foam must be filtered out of the final product before serving to make it safe for consumption.

(54:59)
As far as vegetable-based or food grade defoamers, these can be used in unfiltered beers because silicone is usually under 10% if there’s any in it at all. And another difference is that the perk of vegetable-based anti-foamers is that they’re also a yeast nutrient. So, they’re helpful in that way as well.

Cheyenne (55:16):
Wow! That’s really interesting. I didn’t realize that about the vegetable-based defoamers that they have nutrients for yeast.

Abi (55:22):
Yeah. Pretty cool. So, I really enjoyed Vida and the segment this week. Thanks for having me. Just a reminder that if you have any other questions, want some technical advice, product recommendations that you want answered on The BrewDeck Podcast by me, Ask Abi, look out for our CMG Instagram stories to submit your question or you can email us a brewdeck@countrymalt.com.

Heather (55:45):
And we are very lucky to have Abi’s expertise on our team, so make sure you pepper her with questions. Thanks so much for joining us, Abi.

Abi (55:56):
Thank you.

Heather (55:56):
Well, that is a wrap on another episode of The BrewDeck Podcast. Great big thank you to Chaz and Mario for joining us today as well as Abi for our new section of Ask Abi. Just a quick reminder, we still have some of the Pink Boots hops available for spot purchase as we are coming up on International Women’s Day and the official Pink Boots Brew. Make sure you get your hands on those hops to support the Pink Boot Society. Reach out to your territory manager. They will be able to help you with that. And next week, we’ve got some fun things happening, Cheyenne.

Cheyenne (56:34):
Yeah, we will be live at the American Craft Spirits Association Conference in Portland, Oregon. So, I’ll be there poking around talking to some folks. So, we’re going to do some live recordings and talk all things distilling. So, that’ll be super fun.

Heather (56:47):
Oh, that’ll be great. You’re going to have an awesome time. Make sure to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to your podcast. And we will be back in a couple weeks.