EPISODE S.3, E.11

[THE ULTIMATE SUMMER BEER]

Grant: (00:09)

Welcome back to the Brewdeck Podcast. I’m your host today, Grant Lawrence, joined by Heather Jared. Happy Canada day. Happy Independence Day.

Heather: (00:18)

Thank you. And Happy Independence Day.

Grant: (00:20)

Yeah, they’re right around the corner. Well, tell us about this new malt you all got going on.

Heather: (00:25)

Yeah. So, the Can Town is almost over for the Euro-Pils. I know we have been talking about this for a while now, and if you saw us at C.B.C., we were talking about it there. But it will officially be in some of our limited East Coast warehouses as of July 5th. So, Canada Malting’s Euro-Pils. It’s made from some of the finest overseas low-protein barley available. It’s malted at our malting facility in Montreal, Quebec. It utilizes a super traditional style of malting, salad in a box style, germination, and killing beds. It just exudes all those traditional European pils in our malt characteristics that everybody loves, so get ready for it. It’ll be available in four days.

Grant: (01:11)

Can’t wait. I got the drop on it. I got the hookup on it and-

Heather: (01:15)

Oh, yeah. You brewed with it, didn’t you?

Grant: (01:18)

I just brewed with it. It’s fermenting right now, but yeah, I’m excited. The brew went great. I actually got a higher extract than I was expecting, just a little bit, but every little bit counts, and I’m just brewing five gallons.

Heather: (01:31)

Oh, I can’t wait to find out how that turns out.

Grant: (01:34)

Yeah. I mean, the work tasted great, but I mean, I can’t really speak past that, but I can’t wait for it to be done fermenting, so I’m excited. Yeah.

Heather: (01:42)

Great. We have something else exciting releasing on July 5th as well.

Grant: (01:47)

Yes, we do. Yeah. At the same time, Yakima Chief’s Veterans blend is coming out on July 5th. Each year, Yakima Chief collaborates with military veterans and brewers across the country to select a new hot blend recipe for their annual veterans’ blend. Currently, it’s in its fifth year. This hot blend supports and celebrates U.S. military veterans while collaborating with brewers to create something bigger than beer. This year, Y.C.H. has partnered with HunterSeven Foundation. It’s a veteran-founded federally-recognized nonprofit that specializes in medical research and education, specifically on the post-9/11 veteran cohort. So, stay tuned. The preorder link will open up Tuesday, July 5th. It’s a great blend. I look forward to it every year, and we’re going to have the details on the blend very soon. So, just stay tuned, follow Yakima Chief on Instagram, and follow Country Malt on Instagram. There’s going to be some info coming shortly.

Heather: (02:46)

And get in touch with your sales representative in your area.

Grant: (02:50)

Yes. Yes, yes. That’s the easiest way. Just make them do all the work.

Heather: (02:54)

Absolutely. That’s what they’re there for.

Grant: (02:56)

That’s what they’re there for.

Heather: (02:58)

Awesome. Well, let’s dive into some ultimate summer beers.

Grant: (03:01)

Yes. So, we missed it the other week, but I’d like to introduce her this week. She’s going to be hosting the show. We have Cheyenne. She is a Country Malt sales rep. She covers Washington, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota. Did I get that right, Cheyenne?

Cheyenne: (03:17)

Yes, absolutely. You nailed it.

Grant: (03:20)

Great to have you on.

Cheyenne: (03:22)

Thanks so much. I’m happy to be here.

Grant: (03:24)

Yeah. Well, we’re calling it ultimate summer beers, and really, we wanted to have a bunch of folks with a lot of experience in the industry chat about all things summer beer and have people make a case for their favorite style. There are quite a few of them out there. I’ve got some great guests on today. I’ll go north to south. So, starting us off, we have Adam Wilson. He’s the Country Malt territory manager for Ontario and Manitoba.

Adam: (03:54)

Thank you for having me on.

Grant: (03:55)

Next, we’ve got Patrick. He is taking over for Jeff Hughes in the Northeast. He’s got New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts, and did I leave any of those out?

Patrick: (04:08)

New Hampshire.

Grant: (04:09)

Right on.

Patrick: (04:10)

Yeah. Super excited to be here.

Grant: (04:12)

Yeah.

Patrick: (04:14)

Happy to get into a debate here. Getting pretty feisty.

Grant: (04:17)

Yes. And then, last but not least, we’ve got Brian Quinn. He’s coming to us from kind of the Mid-Atlantic, so North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and D.C.

Brian: (04:31)

That’s right. Yeah. Happy to be on.

Grant: (04:33)

Right on. I mean, between all of us this, I haven’t even counted up the years, but I mean, we have a lot of pro brewers, a lot of people that have been in the industry a long time. I mean, I would say it’s really easy to say, we’ve got, what? 30, 40 years of experience on the podcast today.

Cheyenne: (04:50)

Definitely.

Heather: (04:50)

I’d say so.

Grant: (04:51)

Yeah. Adam, why don’t you lead us off? Tell us a little about your background and how you came to work for Country Malt.

Adam: (04:58)

Well, I’ve been involved in beer in one way or another for about 20 years, probably about 13 of it in restaurant bars. And then, about seven years ago, I jumped into the craft beer scene and started out as an assistant brewer, and it turned out I was really quite bad at it. So, went over the sales side of things, and life has been much better since then. So, I did about seven years of beer sales throughout British Columbia and Ontario, and just recently, back in April, I made the jump over to the malt side of things, and it’s been pretty amazing so far.

Grant: (05:36)

Awesome. Let’s see. Let’s go in the same order. Let’s go down to Patrick.

Patrick: (05:43)

Sure. Yeah. So, I actually recently just started; this is week number four for me, so super happy to be here at Country Malt. I come from the beer industry. I was head brewer for the last ten years at a couple of Hudson Valley breweries. Actually, I got into the industry right when I turned 21. I was going to school for psychology, was going to grad school, got offered a job to actually work at a home brew shop to start, and I was talking to Jeff about this. I believe I actually used to work with Ian back when he was doing the brew craft stuff, but my memory’s foggy now. But anyway-

Grant: (06:17)

[inaudible 00:06:17].

Patrick: (06:18)

Yeah. As comes with the industry. But yeah, ten years ago, I started the Homebrew shop, got offered to be an assistant [inaudible 00:06:26] brought over. And I remember calling my mom and being like, “Mom, I got a job opportunity. You’re not going to like it. I’m dropping out of college, and I’m going to the beer industry.” Anyway, fast forward ten years. I had a great time, really helped a couple of breweries grow, and really grew myself in terms of doing it.

Patrick: (06:45)

And then, recently, Jeff Hughes actually gave me a call because I’ve been working with Country Malt for the last ten years, my entire career, and knew what a great company it was. Jeff gave me a call, said that he was getting promoted, and was asking if I’d be interested in taking it. And as I told my boss when I put in my notice, “You only have one back.” And my days on the brewery floor were numbered. So, super excited to take my experience and turn it on and be able to now be on the sales side, but also help other breweries that are in similar positions or make decisions and so on and so forth. So yeah, it’s a great pivot, and I’m very excited for the next couple of years and what’s going to turn out for me.

Grant: (07:29)

Right on. Yeah. So, I think everybody’s probably had that talk with their parents when they were going to be like, “I’m going to be in the beer industry.”

Patrick: (07:34)

And just in case my mom is listening, sorry, mom. Now I’m on a podcast, and I have a big board job.

Grant: (07:43)

Awesome. All right. Well, welcome aboard, Patrick. Let’s keep going. Let’s go to Cheyenne next.

Cheyenne: (07:49)

Yeah, absolutely. So, I’ve been in the beer industry for about seven years now. Most of that time was spent on the production side of things. So, I worked as a brewer for about six years, and it all started- I was in college, and I was studying biology, and I really loved it, especially microbiology and learning about bacteria and yeast and cellular organisms and all of that fun stuff. And I was lucky enough to find out that my college at the time had a craft brewing program.

Cheyenne: (08:19)

And I was like, “Wow, that’s awesome. I want to do that.” I never had home-brewed in my life and didn’t know anything about brewing, but I knew that I liked beer. So, I decided to do the craft brewing program, and that led me to brewing as a profession. So, I was really lucky to get to brew for a very long time for a company that I love. And yeah, I love raw materials and recipe formulation and all of that really cool stuff, so when I made the transition to the Country Malt group and to make sales, I was really excited to get to live and exist in the raw materials realm and get to talk about all that stuff, the stuff that makes beer, what it is. So yeah, I’m really stoked to be here.

Grant: (08:58)

Awesome. I actually had the opportunity to come by your brewery a couple of years ago. I think I already mentioned this to you.

Cheyenne: (09:04)

Oh, awesome.

Grant: (09:06)

That was so cool. Yeah. I was going out to hop selection and got to-.

Cheyenne: (09:10)

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we’re right on I-90. So, they get a ton of people dropping by for hop and brew school in Yakima. So, it’s a fun location because just brewers come by constantly when they’re going over to Yakima, so you get to meet a lot of people.

Grant: (09:28)

For sure! I got to meet John Mendrick out there for a beer. And it was if I remember correctly, it was right at like- I’m in Texas, we don’t really have [inaudible 00:09:39], just at the top of this mountain pass. And the rental car was going straight up, just engine whining to get to the top. And then, this brewery was there. It was so cool.

Cheyenne: (09:51)

Yes. There’s a gas station, a convenience store, a brewery, and the mountain, and it’s a really cool place to be. It definitely presents its own challenges with brewing and getting raw materials up there in the wintertime, but you can’t beat the views.

Grant: (10:07)

Yes. Love it. Okay. Last but not least, Brian Quinn.

Brian: (10:11)

Awesome. Yeah, I think it sounds like I’ve got a similar trajectory to a couple of other people on here today. I did a lot of pre-med classes in undergrad and then started to upset my parents early on by going on to a grad school for history. And if that grad school for liberal arts wasn’t quite upsetting enough, I then pivoted to the world of craft beer and dove in really hard, mostly on the production side, over the course of the last decade-plus. I did the Siebel Master Program back in 2015. And then, after that, had been working at a number of breweries, mostly in the Southeast, done a couple of startups. And really just recently made the transition just a couple of weeks before Patrick started with Country Malt group, I guess about six weeks ago, after serving as a director of brewery operations at Town Brewing Company in Charlotte, North Carolina. Very happy to have gotten the brewing boots off just in time to miss some of this summer heat because it is brutal down here right now.

Grant: (11:24)

Yeah, yeah. It’s indeed. I think all the Southeast is just getting torn up by the heat lately. Well, cool. The point of today’s episode- What we’re going to do is let everybody make a case, build a case for your ultimate summer beer, and we’re really looking for just maybe some mentions, of course, the style, but some memories drinking this style, why you like it so much. And then, the technical aspects of the style, we’re going to run through all that in today’s episode. I mean, are you all ready to jump into it and talk beers?

Cheyenne: (12:03)

Absolutely.

Heather: (12:05)

Everybody’s favorite topic.

Grant: (12:07)

Okay. Let’s just go down the list. What style are you going to be defending today? Not everybody all at once.

Cheyenne: (12:18)

I’ll start first. So, I am here to defend the Gose, a very controversial beer for some people. One of my favorites.

Grant: (12:29)

Right on.

Heather: (12:29)

I love it a Gose.

Patrick: (12:29)

Okay. I’ll follow that up. I’m going to take the place of defending the Shandy and the Radler. I know it has a little bit of a social stigma with a couple of beer industry people, but honestly, man, nothing hits better on a summer day than a Shandy on the beach. So, I’m ready to fight.

Grant: (12:46)

Awesome.

Adam: (12:51)

I’m jumping- Sorry. Go ahead, Brian.

Brian: (12:54)

I might be a little bit of the odd guy out because I actually will be defending dark lagers today. While they are a darker beer style, I think they really are an exceptional summer beer, especially for malt heads and then people that tend to like the darker, maltier beers but don’t want to necessarily drink a 12% Imperial stout in July.

Grant: (13:17)

Fair enough.

Heather: (13:18)

When you sent this through, I loved this choice, Brian. I was really excited about this. I love a dark larger as well.

Patrick: (13:25)

Yeah. Way to establish yourself as a crazy guy, Brian. Nobody’s going to mess with you on this fight.

Adam: (13:33)

As a Canadian, I like to avoid controversy, so I’m going with the Belgian Witbier. It’s my choice.

Grant: (13:42)

Man, I love this. So many. Yeah. I’m picturing the uphill battles in my head, but yeah. Brave choices, some of you. I mean, they are all like- I can see the argument, so it makes sense, but yeah, I can’t wait to get into it.

Cheyenne: (13:57)

As a beer person, I know this is a battle, but I love all of the styles that everyone’s defending, you know?

Grant: (14:02)

Fair enough. Yeah.

Adam: (14:05)

Yeah. I’m ready to back every one of you guys already.

Grant: (14:10)

All right.

Patrick: (14:10)

Back yourself, Adam.

Grant: (14:13)

Tell us about Gose, brewing it, and everything that goes along with that.

Cheyenne: (14:17)

Yeah, absolutely. So, for me personally, I was first introduced to Gose as a style in my first or second year of brewing, so I was very new to the industry and was still learning all of these different styles. And so, I’m a member of the Pink Boots Society, which is an organization that supports women in the brewing industry. And every single year, they do the Pink Boots Collaboration Brew. So, women all across the country, all across the globe, get to come together and collaborate on making beers that support the organization. And currently, the way we do it is we have the Pink Boots Hot Blend.

Cheyenne: (14:52)

But before we did that, they would make style suggestions, so every year, they would suggest a style, and everyone got to take that and run with it. And so, in one of my first years in the Pink Boots Society, the style suggestion was the Gose, and I was like, “What is a Gose?” I had to do a lot of research. I’d never heard of it. And yeah, I love the beer. It can be a little polarizing because people either love it or hate it, but it’s pretty heavy on the wheat beer. So, it’s usually about 50% malted wheat in the grain bill, but the thing that makes it really cool is it’s a kettle-soured bee that’s soured with lactobacillus, so it has this really refreshing tartness to it, which I love for the summer.

Cheyenne: (15:38)

But the thing that’s really special about it is that it’s brewed with salt. So, it has just a hint of saltiness to it, which I think is the thing that can be polarizing for people, but yeah, I love it. And I love how versatile Gose can be, so you have a lot of room for creativity when you’re brewing a Gose, and you can play with salt levels. It also has coriander in it traditionally, so you can play with that, and that gives it a fun herbal finish, but you can also add fruit purees to it. And so, when I was brewing it- So, I used to work at Dru Bru in Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, and we would add organ fruits, passion fruit puree to it, and it gave it a super cool color and awesome flavor. So, I love going out in the summer and getting to see what brewers are doing with their Goses.

Grant: (16:27)

Absolutely. Yeah. You said it could be a polarizing style; do you think it’s the salt? I feel like sometimes there’s this stigma with kettle sours among brewers. Right. Have you ever heard of this?

Cheyenne: (16:39)

Yes. Yeah. And the method in which people do the kettle souring, I think, can be stigmatizing for some people.

Grant: (16:46)

Absolutely.

Cheyenne: (16:49)

I got to love brewers. I was a brewer. They are a stubborn bunch, and so, once they find the way that they like to do things, they will staunchly love that one way. But I think that when I’ve talked to non-beer industry people, the salt is what people are very hesitant about. Yes. Yeah. So, my dad is a newbie in the beer world, and I took him to a beer festival for Father’s Day weekend, and I got a Gose, I let him try it, and he goes, “Why are you drinking Seawater?”

Grant: (17:31)

They all have to be that salty, right?

Cheyenne: (17:33)

Yeah. No, no. That’s what I love about it, too. You can totally play around with the levels of salt that you add and the levels of coriander to give it that herbal finish. But yeah, I mean originally, like most German beers, they’re a very old style. So, it was brewed centuries ago, and the water that it was brewed with just had a lot of minerals in it, so that’s where the saltiness comes from. And now, obviously, modern brewers are brewing with fantastic water, so they add the salt in.

Grant: (18:05)

So, do you remember the salt content of it or the salinity that you all would go for?

Cheyenne: (18:11)

Yeah, it was really small. So, when I was brewing, I brewed on a 15-barrel system. It was maybe two to five pounds for 15 barrels, so it wasn’t a whole ton in the grand scheme of the size of the batch. And that gave it just enough salinity to have that mineral flavor without being overpowering because you have the sourness coming through as well. So, you want to have those two flavors compliment each other and not compete with each other.

Grant: (18:43)

Sure. I mean, yeah, it is a great summer beer because of the salt replenishing those like-

Cheyenne: (18:51)

Get your electrolytes in.

Grant: (18:52)

Yeah. It has what plants crave. All right. Awesome. Yeah, talking like the salty ones, what is it like? Back in the day, I think it was Westbrooks Gose was hella salty.

Cheyenne: (19:08)

Yes. Yeah. I haven’t, but I’ve had some really, really, really salty ones, and I can see that people maybe are like, “Oh, that’s too much salt.” And I think it’s all-. People love what they love, and people have different palates. I prefer a mid-range salt level, not too salty, because my other favorite part of the style is the tartness that comes from the souring, the kettle souring, so the lactobacillus gets in there, and it does its job. And usually, in my experience, when I was brewing them, we would kettle sour. It would take anywhere from 24 to maybe 36 hours in the kettle, depending on how the lactobacillus was doing. And we would drop that pH down from 5.5 or 5.2 all the way down to about 3.1, and that was the range that we liked it. So, it was nice and tart, a little puckering but not stripping the enamel off your teeth.

Grant: (20:05)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Cheyenne: (20:05)

It still allows a little room for other flavors to come through.

Grant: (20:11)

A lot of people forget that pH is logarithmic right, so a little bit of a change is a massive change.

Cheyenne: (20:19)

Yes. Yeah.

Grant: (20:21)

Yeah. I’m with you on that, that three one, that three-two. I like that too.

Cheyenne: (20:25)

Yep. Yeah.

Grant: (20:28)

All right. Great. So, great case for Gose. Who’s next?

Patrick: (20:33)

Well, I’ll step in and just say that Cheyenne talking about Gose has made me really want a Gose.

Heather: (20:40)

I agree with that.

Patrick: (20:42)

Can I change teams? Is it too early? No, I love the Gose. I just wanted to jump in and say the Gose is essentially the beer version of a margarita right now.

Cheyenne: (20:51)

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Heather: (20:53)

It really is. Yeah.

Patrick: (20:56)

When it comes to summer beers, I mean, it’s a great choice, and I would’ve gone with that, but Cheyenne was first on the email to-.

Cheyenne: (21:01)

I had to snap it up. One of my favorite files.

Heather: (21:01)

She snagged it.

Patrick: (21:04)

She’s passionate; I’ll give her that much. Yeah. And so, I’ll jump in. It’s funny to listen about it because there are a lot of similarities, but my choice was Shandy and Radler, and they’re interchangeable in terms of definition on it. But technically, a Shandy is strictly made with lemonade, but a Radler can be, really, a 50-50 blend. Oh, is there a dog in this?

Brian: (21:25)

Yeah, my dog. Sorry.

Patrick: (21:29)

Brian, is that you?

Brian: (21:30)

Oh, yeah.

Patrick: (21:33)

No. And so, Radler is just a 50-50 blend of typically of Pilsner, blonde ale, or any type of lager with some sort of citrus juice, and now it’s stigmatized or faux pop because I mean, do you really call this a beer style? I mean, it’s really kind of a beer cocktail, but we’ve started to see a lot of guys start to commercially produce the Shandy and the Radler. And honestly, they just hit on a different level, at least for me personally, because it’s a cut beer, so it’s 50-50, so you’re going to be looking at lower A.V.B.

Patrick: (22:05)

It’s got that same acidity from the citrus that’s similar to a Goser, or kettle sour would have. It just goes about it in a different way. And then, it provides that fun, fruit flavor that I think a lot of- It’s funny if you were to talk to me when I was 21 years old and be like, “We got to be caught dead drink a fruit beer, man.” It’s just that it wasn’t cool back then, but now with the rise of seltzer, the fruited sour, I think a Radler and a Shandy have a place in the market for being destigmatized and being, “You know what? Yeah, I’m on a beach; I want a 3.5% lemonade beer. That’s just what I want right now.”

Grant: (22:47)

Completely agree.

Heather: (22:49)

And I think that low alcohol content too is just such a big thing in the summer heat in the sun, and wanting to be able to sip on something all day long. I think that’s a real selling point.

Patrick: (22:59)

As a couple of coworkers used to always tell me, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint you.”

Heather: (23:03)

Always.

Patrick: (23:06)

Low and slow is the way to stay up, so when you’re sitting on a beach, and you’re doing it- Another thing too that I always liked about it, so we actually had- I have a great pivot as to why I chose Shandy and Radler. When I was brewing down at Crossroads in Catskill, we used to have this house lager, and we were running through the centrifuge, and we got these amazing yields. We’ve actually maxed out our bright tags. So, we would have this surplus lager beer that we would just throw off. We’d put it into another bright tank. But it was so easy for us to make a Shandy out of that, out of excess beer, essentially doubling the quantity because you’re doing the 50-50 split. And then, you’re just pivoting into another offering for your customers.

Patrick: (23:51)

And so, it was just a great way for us to not necessarily have to go out of our way if you’re busy slam-producing core beers. It was able for us to make a different offering with little to no extra effort, just simply by taking something that we’ve wanted to build on and just doing a brand variation on it. And then, while doing research for this, I wanted to become super prepared for it. I can’t get over the fact that the story of where Radler actually came from is that there was this German beer bar owner who had a group of cyclists come in, and it was a massive group of people, and he was low on beer, so he needed to cut it with something to extend his surplus or to extend his supply ride to meet everybody’s needs. And when I think to myself about working with a production brewery, those type types of tactics are fantastic. How do I make twice as much beer out of half of the ingredients? And Shandy was a great way to go about that.

Grant: (24:53)

That’s awesome.

Cheyenne: (24:54)

I didn’t know about its origins of it. That’s awesome. I think that anyone who has worked in the service industry can sympathize with that.

Patrick: (25:02)

Yeah. When you’re running out of seasonals, and you don’t have room in the schedule. It’s like, “What do I do? Give some fruit puree and de-aerated water. I’m about to do some magic.”

Cheyenne: (25:14)

Yeah. Exactly.

Patrick: (25:14)

And actually, the word Radler is German for cyclists, and that is the attachment to that story, that was it was-

Cheyenne: (25:22)

Awesome. I love that.

Heather: (25:24)

I did not know that.

Grant: (25:27)

I think with commercial example-wise, I think of Stiegl Radler like the grapefruit one is awesome.

Patrick: (25:36)

Up around us, we have Narragansett Del’s Shandy harpoon. They have the whole U.F.O. series, but they started doing the U.F.O. big squeeze, where they add grapefruit juice to theirs. And a couple of smaller guys, we have this one great local brewery called Community Beer Works at a Buffalo, and they’re right by the Buffalo Bills Stadium. So, they have a Pilsner called Let’s Go Pils, and they take that, and then, they’ll do Radler variations off of it. And so, this kind of idea, just constantly being able to come out with something new. It has a little attachment back to something that the customer knows, as in the Let’s Go Pils, that helps them branch out and test some new waters.

Grant: (26:20)

One strange Radler combo I’ve heard of that is popular in Germany, from what I hear, are they’ll mix it with Coca-Cola, and you-

Patrick: (26:28)

Oh, yes. Yes.

Heather: (26:30)

What?

Grant: (26:30)

Do you corroborate this?

Patrick: (26:31)

Yeah. Super, super weird. I have a friend that’s very German, and he’s studied abroad for a while, and he’s tried to get me to do it. I’m like, “No way, man.” Talk to you-

Brian: (26:43)

It’s usually Hefeweizen with Coca-Cola too, so it’s a little bit different than a Pilsner or Helles, but I’ve had that a few times as well. It’s interesting.

Grant: (26:51)

Is it? I shouldn’t knock it til I try it, but [inaudible 00:26:54].

Patrick: (26:53)

I’m about to run out to the gas station right now and get some Coca-Cola while we’re on this call.

Grant: (27:02)

Right on. Okay. All right. Shandies and Radlers. What’s next? What’s the next one we’re defending today?

Brian: (27:10)

I’ll dive in real quick. Just to do a little bit of a change of pace from some of the lighter, fruitier tart styles into well, dark lagers. I guess I should specify a little bit; I’m not talking about a Baltic Porter or a Doppelbock, but definitely some more of the sessionable, approachable, dark lagger styles, like a Czech Dark Lager or Schwarzbier. I’ve never been a really big fan of hop beer styles, which is probably pretty blasphemous to say, but I know a lot of brewers appreciate the more approachable styles, and I’ve always been a big fan of traditional beer styles and Czech Dark Lager, Schwarzbiers, they’ve always been really fun to play around with and brew and look into some of the histories of that.

Brian: (27:56)

But I’m just a malt head. I love drinking malty beers, dark beers, stouts, and porters. But again, I don’t want a big 10%, 11%, 12% imperial stout when I’m dealing with 102-degree weather in the Southeast in the summer. And I’ve been extremely happy to see how many breweries have started putting out dark lagers as part of the broader trend towards experimenting with more craft lagger styles. They’re great. I mean, they’re not as roasty, they’re not as high A.V.B. or intense as you get with big stouts. They’re going to have some nice, rich malt character, but they’re not going to be so sweet or malty that you don’t want to have a couple of them. While I was brewing at Town Brewing Company in Charlotte, we did a beer called Shadow Puppets, which was a Czech Dark Lager.

Brian: (28:54)

Brewed exclusively with Epiphany Craft Malt, just used some midnight weed for color and a heavy dose of Munich and some Mueller specialty malts just to give some color without going over the top on the roasty side of it. But it finished nice and dry and just really, really sessionable and approachable. And I think the other thing that makes this one of the perfect summer beers for me is that I love grilling out in the summer. I love smoking a brisket and smoking a pork butt. That’s the type of style that can really pair well with great North Carolina or Texas-style barbecue, which has a lot of those intense flavors as well that might overpower something like a Pilsner or a lighter beer style. So, it’s nice to have something that can hold up to some of that as well.

Grant: (29:45)

For sure.

Heather: (29:46)

Yeah, that’s a perfect barbecue pairing right there.

Adam: (29:49)

The really good argument right there, right?

Cheyenne: (29:52)

Yeah. I love the different facets of summer that everyone can think about because, for me, I think I’m sitting on a patio drinking a beer or I’m by the lake drinking a beer, and that’s why I love a good Gose. But I love that on the other side of things when you’re in your backyard, and you’re grilling, and that’s what summer means for people. And I love the differences between people.

Patrick: (30:13)

I think we also need to take a moment to appreciate that the beer named Shadow Puppets is incredible and-

Adam: (30:19)

Right. There’s a Schwarzbier that’s released up here in Ontario from Beau’s Brewing that was an homage to Spaceballs, so it was called Dark Helmet. It was good.

Brian: (30:37)

One of my favorite things to do, and I’ve done a lot of sensory training with customers and staff; I always love having them taste a Czech Dark Lager or Dunkel or a Schwartzbier while blindfolded and those people that are hardcore opposed to dark beers and they’ve got misconceptions about what a dark beer is. Being able to taste that without seeing the color and coming in with that preconception about what that’s going to be, really- It’s a great gateway drug to get people to open their eyes to the dark, malty styles that otherwise would’ve been a little intimidated by it.

Patrick: (31:17)

I always found it funny how consumers are just, for some reason, one way or another. They’re just afraid of dark beers. They just look at it, and they’re like, “No, that’s not for me. That’s unsafe. Where does that come from?” Because when I look at drinking a Schwartz in the middle of the summer, it’s the same as drinking black iced coffee. It totally has a time and place when you want it if you want that-

Cheyenne: (31:41)

Oh, absolutely. For sure.

Grant: (31:44)

It’s such a weird thing, too, that I’ll agree with you on consumers. The color just throws them off, but for some reason, I feel like a lot of newbies to craft beer or crazy beer styles in general. They just associate dark with more alcohol and like it. Absolutely not the case sometimes.

Cheyenne: (32:07)

Adam, you’re up.

Adam: (32:11)

All right. So, the Wit, the Belgian Wit, for me, when I first started thinking about it, the idea of sitting on a patio on the East Coast with a crab boil in front of you and somebody hands you an Allagash White. To me, it’s a perfect late summer day. It’s all of it. So, I mean the Witbier, the Belgian style Wit, it lends itself to stuff like seafood, especially those shellfish. I also am not lost on the irony that I’m on a podcast about malt, and the number one thing on the grain bill is unmalted wheat.

Grant: (32:59)

Is it really that high? The percentage-

Adam: (33:01)

Well, it’s pretty close, actually. I mean, it’s between that, and you’re looking at… 30, 40% of the grain bill is probably flaked wheat, I could be wrong, and the brewers on here can correct me on that one, but it’s between that and some Pils in malt. Seems to be the two main players with the wit. As far as the profile of it goes, you’re looking at it’s a higher protein, so you’re getting a fuller body. You’re getting that nice, full-mouth feel. The lively carbonation really evens out that mouth feels. You get that nice, creamy head, and that real cloudiness to it is- I know. It’s a beautiful-looking beer, for starters, and the thing that makes the Belgian Wit stand out is the spices, the coriander, and the dried orange peel.

Grant: (33:58)

Playing with really [inaudible 00:33:59] makes it always interesting for sure.

Adam: (34:02)

Well, it does because it can be overdone. Some of them, if there’s- Coriander, it’s one of those spices that people love, or they hate and-

Grant: (34:15)

It can be super overbearing for sure.

Adam: (34:16)

Yeah. It can be for sure. So I mean, if it’s done properly, again, I think Allagash White is the benchmark for Wits in North America. And you look at another one like Quebec’s Blanche De Chambly out of Unibroue. They do it well. I’ve got a list of them, like Driftwoods; White Bark out of Vancouver Island is phenomenal.

Heather: (34:46)

Yeah. We were texting about that last night, and I was like, “Ooh, I think I need to go get some.” It’s such a good beer.

Grant: (34:55)

That’s the only one you mentioned so far I haven’t had, but the first two were for sure amazing, so if you’re putting it in that category, I got to try it.

Adam: (35:03)

I lived in B.C. for a couple of years, and Driftwood is one of those breweries that every time the name gets mentioned, I’m like, “Oh, man. I miss B.C.” So much good beer. But I mean, it is also one of those styles. It’s got a really cool history behind it too because it started to fade away a bit, and then, there was- So, this story is there are some really nice comparables to the backstory of this with the backstory of Canada Malt Company is this guy Pierre Celis was a huge fan of Witbiers, and he couldn’t find them anymore. And he was working as a milkman, but at one point, he had worked at the local brewery and decided that he wanted to start making his own whip.

Adam: (35:53)

And so, he started doing it in his shed, which, to some people in this podcast, sounds pretty familiar to our origin story, and he started brewing in the little town of Hoegaarden. And in 1966, he started selling to the public, and his brewery was called Old Hoegaarden. And in 1985, there was a fire that destroyed the brewery, and he was underinsured, and he had to actually sell part of it to Stella Artois, and it became the Hoegaarden that everybody is familiar with. And he got mad about the whole thing. He didn’t like how they were treating his beer, and he sold his stock. He moved to Texas and opened Celis Brewing down there, and then the same kind of thing happened. The investors weren’t getting back their money as quickly as possible, so he had to sell to Miller. But he used the original recipe and has been making- I think he passed way back in 2011 or 2012, but the resurgence of wit was pretty much due to him.

Cheyenne: (37:14)

That’s so interesting. I didn’t know that.

Adam: (37:16)

Yep. There’s- His daughter owns-

Brian: (37:20)

That was Stella that almost went extinct during the world wars, like so many other Belgian styles, so he really kept that alive when it was right on the brink of extinction.

Adam: (37:31)

Well, the guy had- I can never pronounce it, the [foreign language 00:37:35] almost single-handedly killed styles like that.

Cheyenne: (37:40)

Yeah. The thing that I find so impressive about Witbiers in specific is the carbonation level, like you mentioned, Adam. I’ve brewed a Witbier, and it’s a Testament to brewers to get that carbonation level that high, especially on draft or putting it into packages. It’s a challenge.

Adam: (37:58)

It’s scary.

Cheyenne: (38:00)

It presents a challenge. And so, when it’s done right, it’s really impressive.

Adam: (38:07)

It’s like- Sorry. Go ahead, Graham.

Speaker 7: (38:09)

I was going to say over three volumes, is that what you’re talking about, Cheyenne?

Cheyenne: (38:13)

Yeah. Typically, I mean, we had brewed a Wit a little bit here and there, and it was at one of our summer seasonals. We would try to get it up to about 2.9, and for context, standard draft beer will usually be between 2.4 and 2.6 or seven, so 2.9 is pretty high. Typically, I think that they are a little bit higher than 3.0, but we just couldn’t get it any higher than that and have it pour well on draft, but when people can do it, it’s really impressive.

Grant: (38:41)

I was going to say, I bet you’re packaging folks, or I don’t even know, maybe that was you at your brewery.

Cheyenne: (38:46)

Yes, it was.

Grant: (38:54)

Yeah. I bet they loved that. I’m sure they had a great time packaging-

Cheyenne: (38:54)

Oh, man. It was tough, but yeah, when you can do it right, it’s really cool. Because I love carbonation in beers, especially in the summertime as well, I think that adds a different component to it.

Grant: (39:05)

For sure.

Heather: (39:05)

Everybody picked some really historic styles of beer for this because-

Adam: (39:09)

Yeah, we have a real history group here.

Heather: (39:13)

Yeah.

Adam: (39:15)

Weird that we’re all beer nerds. It’s shocking.

Grant: (39:17)

We’re well-represented across North America. And then, the styles as well, like international, it’s pretty rad here from everybody.

Adam: (39:29)

Yeah. I just have to say this in terms of the Wit, and at East Coast, there are a couple of great ones from Nova Scotia, from Tusket Falls at a Halifax, and from 2 Crows. They both do some- I’m from Nova Scotia, so I really have to, every once in a while, go to my home province on that. Yeah. If you’re down that way, 2 Crows and Tusket Falls in the summertime, pop by for beers.

Grant: (39:55)

It’s been a while since I- We used to brew a seasonal Wit beer, and I know some other folks that had larger operations, and they’d use a fancier grinder, but we would just use a big food processor, like a 14-cup food processor, and grind up those Indian, I think they were Indian, coriander. The largest prized ones.

Cheyenne: (40:17)

Yes, it’s coriander.

Grant: (40:18)

Yeah. But I swear, ever since smelling that in the dust that it would make in the lab and then, I know this is crazy, but every time I open a box of Fruit Loops for my son, I swear they smell like that. They smell like Fruit Loops to me.

Heather: (40:33)

That’s so [inaudible 00:40:35].

Cheyenne: (40:37)

I feel like I am scared a little bit by the coriander because when we brewed the Witbier, we would do fresh, ground coriander, and we had a hand grinder, so it had this crank on it.

Grant: (40:47)

Oh my gosh. I thought I had it bad.

Cheyenne: (40:48)

Yeah. You’re sweating in the brewery, and then you have to go and hand crank your coriander and me every single time we brewed the Wit; I don’t know what it was. I would not have that addition prepared. So, I would be running around like a chicken before the addition the boil, and I’m cranking as fast as I can, trying to grind that coriander for the addition.

Adam: (41:10)

Well, it’d be amazing how refreshing that Wit would be after you had to do this.

Cheyenne: (41:13)

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

Adam: (41:17)

[inaudible 00:41:17]. By the way, this was the friendliest debate I’ve ever had before.

Heather: (41:23)

Yeah. I was going to say. Nobody’s very mean; everybody just agrees with everybody on everything.

Cheyenne: (41:30)

That’s for your needs for you. We just love to talk about beer.

Patrick: (41:33)

I’m pretty sure I changed teams like four times during this conversation.

Adam: (41:38)

So, I know Brian really sold me on his.

Grant: (41:46)

When I was making a Wit too, like our- We just did it for a seasonal. It was a one-off beer we would do for this music festival. The beer was called White Noise; by the way, it was a Witbier.

Heather: (41:56)

That’s awesome.

Cheyenne: (41:56)

That’s a good name.

Grant: (41:57)

You would dry hop it with Amarillo. I know that sounds weird, but-

Adam: (42:01)

It is weird.

Grant: (42:01)

It was really nice. Not much, right? I forget how many pounds per barrel, but it was pretty low. It would just give it an aroma. It didn’t have any hop bitterness to it at all. It just had this nice- A really good lot of Amarillo can have that orange marmalade thing going on, and so, I just lent that to it and really liked it.

Adam: (42:24)

Okay. That’s cool.

Cheyenne: (42:25)

Sounds awesome.

Heather: (42:29)

Toby always brings this up; we always do this on a Friday, and all we ever want to do is just have a beer after we have to this podcast. For us West Coasters, it’s a little early still.

Cheyenne: (42:41)

A little.

Heather: (42:41)

A little bit early.

Patrick: (42:43)

Should probably go grab a Shandy because it’s low A.V.B., so it’s-

Heather: (42:45)

There you go.

Patrick: (42:50)

And that’s my final argument.

Adam: (42:54)

You can’t day drink if you don’t start in the morning.

Patrick: (42:56)

Exactly.

Heather: (42:57)

That’s very true. Very true.

Grant: (43:00)

Like, right as you crack it, you’re just shrugging, and you’re like, “It’s basically a soda.”

Adam: (43:01)

It’s a real transition into the afternoon-type of gear.

Heather: (43:07)

Yeah. It’s true. Well, honestly, if I have to choose a winner, although nobody really argued with each other, I think Brian has me convinced that I’m going to have a black lager after work today because it’s sunny here and I feel like that’s what I’m going to want as I make my dinner.

Brian: (43:26)

That’s the right choice for the true beer purist on the podcast right there.

Adam: (43:33)

[inaudible 00:43:33].

Grant: (43:33)

I got to say, if I had to pick now here and everything, for me, it’s Witbier. In fact, I want to brew one now.

Adam: (43:39)

Yes. [inaudible 00:43:42] doubles down on it.

Patrick: (43:47)

I don’t know if, as guests, we get a vote, but I’m also going to choose the Witbier. Whatever that’s worth, I’ve ditched my team and have now swapped over to Adam’s.

Heather: (43:56)

Step inside. Step inside. I don’t think there could be any losers in these decisions because there are some amazing choices, and I love that. They’re all, like Cheyenne said, all situational. Like if you’re sitting on the beach, if you’re going camping, if you’re sitting on a patio, if you’re grilling out in the backyard, I think there’s just such a good place for every one of these in our summer. So, I don’t know if we have one ultimate summer beer. I think all of them.

Grant: (44:23)

It’s really hard to choose. Going back to Cheyenne’s Gose, I pretty much never see it on the shelf. I guess maybe I don’t look for it as much as I used to, but I think the original Goses or one of the original ones was- Is it Ritterguts? Ritterguts Gose? That’s never on the shelf here. So, on the rare occasion, I see it, I buy it.

Cheyenne: (44:46)

You tend to see if you’re looking for a canned product; you tend to see the Berliner Weisse a little bit more frequently than the Gose. And don’t get me wrong, I love a good Berliner Weisse, but if you want to take it that step further and find the Gose, they’re a little bit more rare and hard to come by.

Grant: (45:02)

It’s in this really tall, skinny bottle; if I remember correctly, it has this like Dr. Jekyll-looking dude on it, you know what I’m talking about? You ever had Ritterguts Gose?

Cheyenne: (45:09)

No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one.

Grant: (45:14)

Okay, it’s a bottle-conditioned Gose from Leipzig.

Brian: (45:17)

Leipziger Gose’s got a yellow, skinny, tall bottle yellow label. Yeah, I think I’ve seen that one before.

Grant: (45:24)

Right on.

Adam: (45:25)

There is another one, again, from Beau’s as well in Ontario that was called Boom Goes the Dynamite. It was a pretty fantastic year, actually. Yeah.

Cheyenne: (45:36)

That gets to the pronunciation because that’s the other polarizing aspect of this beer, which is how to even pronounce it.

Heather: (45:43)

Gose or Gose.

Cheyenne: (45:44)

Or Gose, or Gose.

Adam: (45:48)

That’s why I didn’t try to grab that category.

Cheyenne: (45:52)

I’m hard with the Gose, and I don’t apologize.

Heather: (45:55)

We had one of my first ones from a local brewery in Calgary; it was Ponderosa Gose, so that’s how I would always pronounce it Gose because that’s just how it worked with the name, so that’s how it’s always in my brain now.

Cheyenne: (46:09)

I love that.

Grant: (46:10)

Almost like they knew what they were doing there.

Heather: (46:12)

It’s a smart brewery, those ones. Well, I think that the winner is- Everyone’s a winner.

Grant: (46:25)

Everyone’s a winner, aw.

Heather: (46:26)

Everyone’s a winner when it comes to summer beers. Everybody gets a participation award for this one because those are some amazing choices, and they’ve just made me really thirsty. So, I think that that was the point.

Grant: (46:39)

For sure. So, anyone out there listening, whatever you’re drinking this summer, there are so many great styles to choose from. One thing too about these styles- Well, say for the lager, you can turn these beers out pretty fast. All of these are really quick styles, I would say, so they need to be brewed. ‘Tis the season.

Patrick: (47:01)

I will say it was pretty interesting that nobody who just went for straight Pilsner for the summer beer style.

Cheyenne: (47:06)

I did think that was interesting. Yeah.

Patrick: (47:08)

Do you know? Maybe it was a little too low-hanging fruit to just go up the light lager platform, but maybe we’re-

Adam: (47:15)

Because we’re all clever.

Brian: (47:19)

That’s a year-round beer right there.

Adam: (47:20)

That’s a year-round beer.

Grant: (47:22)

I’ve actually got one fermenting right now at the kegerator.

Cheyenne: (47:24)

Oh, that’s awesome. I’m traveling for work right now, and I was just in Hood River, Oregon, and we went to pFriem, and they’re Pilsner.

Patrick: (47:34)

That’s great.

Cheyenne: (47:35)

I could just talk about it forever, and you can get it in cans.

Heather: (47:38)

Oh, I bought it in a can. It came home with me back over the border. I just came back from seeing Cheyenne down in Vancouver, Washington, and it came home with me. I can’t wait to drink that one, that’s for sure.

Cheyenne: (47:48)

It’s a phenomenal beer. Yeah.

Patrick: (47:49)

I took a vacation out there, and I stayed on Mount Hood. We were right by the pFriem brewery, and our plan was to go visit a bunch of different breweries and go around and putz around. But we ended up going right to pFriem first, and we were like, “No, I’m just going to stay here.”

Brian: (48:07)

“My work here is done.”

Patrick: (48:10)

“I’ve seen everything I need to see. Thank you very much, ciao.”

Grant: (48:15)

Yeah, it’s hard to keep out there. Man, I try to stop there every time, too, when I come from Portland up there up to Yakima, for sure.

Patrick: (48:23)

Let alone the fact that Mount Hood is just- It’s beautiful and-

Cheyenne: (48:26)

Oh, it’s such a cool area.

Patrick: (48:28)

Oh my God. Fantastic.

Grant: (48:31)

Well, I think that about wraps it up for this week’s episode. Thanks, everybody, for joining us.

Heather: (48:36)

And welcome to the team, everyone.

Patrick: (48:38)

Yeah.

Cheyenne: (48:39)

Thank you.

Patrick: (48:39)

Thanks so much.

Brian: (48:39)

Thank you.

Adam: (48:39)

Yeah.

Grant: (48:41)

Thanks for making your splash and making your introductions. Yeah. Hope to have each of you on in the future for something a little more drilled down to your expertise, and yeah, it’s been good.

Patrick: (48:56)

I’ll promise to be a little bit more feisty next time and try and be a little bit more argumentative.

Heather: (49:01)

Save that for next year’s summer debate.

Patrick: (49:08)

Just wait till we talk about fall beers; I’m very passionate.

Grant: (49:11)

Okay. All right. Fall beer shows down. All right, we’ll put that in the schedule.

Heather: (49:17)

Awesome. Well, thanks, everyone.

Cheyenne: (49:19)

Thank you.

Patrick: (49:20)

Thanks, guys.

Adam: (49:20)

Thank you so much.

Heather: (49:21)

Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us today, and a big thanks to our new team members for sharing their ultimate summer beer opinions. If you haven’t actually got to know any of your new sales representatives and territory managers, make sure to reach out to them and let them know what you think about their ultimate summer beer style. Although they failed the debate portion of the evening, I still think it went pretty well.

Grant: (49:47)

It went great. Yeah. I think if you’re out there, you’re listening; you hear some of these names you haven’t heard before. Just check out our website. We have a map. It makes it easy. Get in touch with your sales rep. We love to hear from brewers. So yeah, give us a call, and ask our opinion on what malts to use. I mean, we got quite a bit of brain here when it comes to brewing, so we’re always happy. I’d say that the most rewarding part of our job is to help out with new brewers with customers.

Heather: (50:13)

Absolutely.

Grant: (50:17)

And our next episode will be about the veterans’ blend I mentioned earlier. So yeah, we’re going to break that down, talk about that with Yakima Chief. Can’t wait.

Heather: (50:28)

We’re also going to have a member from the Hunterseven Foundation come on and talk a little bit more about that non-for-profit charity, so make sure to tune in.

Grant: (50:40)

Tune in next week. Yeah. Anyways, have a good one. Make it a great weekend, and we’ll catch you next time on the Brewdeck Podcast.

Heather: (50:48)

Bye, you all.

S3E11

Grant: (00:09)

Welcome back to the Brewdeck Podcast. I’m your host today, Grant Lawrence, joined by Heather Jared. Happy Canada day. Happy Independence Day.

Heather: (00:18)

Thank you. And Happy Independence Day.

Grant: (00:20)

Yeah, they’re right around the corner. Well, tell us about this new malt you all got going on.

Heather: (00:25)

Yeah. So, the Can Town is almost over for the Euro-Pils. I know we have been talking about this for a while now, and if you saw us at C.B.C., we were talking about it there. But it will officially be in some of our limited East Coast warehouses as of July 5th. So, Canada Malting’s Euro-Pils. It’s made from some of the finest overseas low-protein barley available. It’s malted at our malting facility in Montreal, Quebec. It utilizes a super traditional style of malting, salad in a box style, germination, and killing beds. It just exudes all those traditional European pils in our malt characteristics that everybody loves, so get ready for it. It’ll be available in four days.

Grant: (01:11)

Can’t wait. I got the drop on it. I got the hookup on it and-

Heather: (01:15)

Oh, yeah. You brewed with it, didn’t you?

Grant: (01:18)

I just brewed with it. It’s fermenting right now, but yeah, I’m excited. The brew went great. I actually got a higher extract than I was expecting, just a little bit, but every little bit counts, and I’m just brewing five gallons.

Heather: (01:31)

Oh, I can’t wait to find out how that turns out.

Grant: (01:34)

Yeah. I mean, the work tasted great, but I mean, I can’t really speak past that, but I can’t wait for it to be done fermenting, so I’m excited. Yeah.

Heather: (01:42)

Great. We have something else exciting releasing on July 5th as well.

Grant: (01:47)

Yes, we do. Yeah. At the same time, Yakima Chief’s Veterans blend is coming out on July 5th. Each year, Yakima Chief collaborates with military veterans and brewers across the country to select a new hot blend recipe for their annual veterans’ blend. Currently, it’s in its fifth year. This hot blend supports and celebrates U.S. military veterans while collaborating with brewers to create something bigger than beer. This year, Y.C.H. has partnered with HunterSeven Foundation. It’s a veteran-founded federally-recognized nonprofit that specializes in medical research and education, specifically on the post-9/11 veteran cohort. So, stay tuned. The preorder link will open up Tuesday, July 5th. It’s a great blend. I look forward to it every year, and we’re going to have the details on the blend very soon. So, just stay tuned, follow Yakima Chief on Instagram, and follow Country Malt on Instagram. There’s going to be some info coming shortly.

Heather: (02:46)

And get in touch with your sales representative in your area.

Grant: (02:50)

Yes. Yes, yes. That’s the easiest way. Just make them do all the work.

Heather: (02:54)

Absolutely. That’s what they’re there for.

Grant: (02:56)

That’s what they’re there for.

Heather: (02:58)

Awesome. Well, let’s dive into some ultimate summer beers.

Grant: (03:01)

Yes. So, we missed it the other week, but I’d like to introduce her this week. She’s going to be hosting the show. We have Cheyenne. She is a Country Malt sales rep. She covers Washington, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota. Did I get that right, Cheyenne?

Cheyenne: (03:17)

Yes, absolutely. You nailed it.

Grant: (03:20)

Great to have you on.

Cheyenne: (03:22)

Thanks so much. I’m happy to be here.

Grant: (03:24)

Yeah. Well, we’re calling it ultimate summer beers, and really, we wanted to have a bunch of folks with a lot of experience in the industry chat about all things summer beer and have people make a case for their favorite style. There are quite a few of them out there. I’ve got some great guests on today. I’ll go north to south. So, starting us off, we have Adam Wilson. He’s the Country Malt territory manager for Ontario and Manitoba.

Adam: (03:54)

Thank you for having me on.

Grant: (03:55)

Next, we’ve got Patrick. He is taking over for Jeff Hughes in the Northeast. He’s got New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts, and did I leave any of those out?

Patrick: (04:08)

New Hampshire.

Grant: (04:09)

Right on.

Patrick: (04:10)

Yeah. Super excited to be here.

Grant: (04:12)

Yeah.

Patrick: (04:14)

Happy to get into a debate here. Getting pretty feisty.

Grant: (04:17)

Yes. And then, last but not least, we’ve got Brian Quinn. He’s coming to us from kind of the Mid-Atlantic, so North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and D.C.

Brian: (04:31)

That’s right. Yeah. Happy to be on.

Grant: (04:33)

Right on. I mean, between all of us this, I haven’t even counted up the years, but I mean, we have a lot of pro brewers, a lot of people that have been in the industry a long time. I mean, I would say it’s really easy to say, we’ve got, what? 30, 40 years of experience on the podcast today.

Cheyenne: (04:50)

Definitely.

Heather: (04:50)

I’d say so.

Grant: (04:51)

Yeah. Adam, why don’t you lead us off? Tell us a little about your background and how you came to work for Country Malt.

Adam: (04:58)

Well, I’ve been involved in beer in one way or another for about 20 years, probably about 13 of it in restaurant bars. And then, about seven years ago, I jumped into the craft beer scene and started out as an assistant brewer, and it turned out I was really quite bad at it. So, went over the sales side of things, and life has been much better since then. So, I did about seven years of beer sales throughout British Columbia and Ontario, and just recently, back in April, I made the jump over to the malt side of things, and it’s been pretty amazing so far.

Grant: (05:36)

Awesome. Let’s see. Let’s go in the same order. Let’s go down to Patrick.

Patrick: (05:43)

Sure. Yeah. So, I actually recently just started; this is week number four for me, so super happy to be here at Country Malt. I come from the beer industry. I was head brewer for the last ten years at a couple of Hudson Valley breweries. Actually, I got into the industry right when I turned 21. I was going to school for psychology, was going to grad school, got offered a job to actually work at a home brew shop to start, and I was talking to Jeff about this. I believe I actually used to work with Ian back when he was doing the brew craft stuff, but my memory’s foggy now. But anyway-

Grant: (06:17)

[inaudible 00:06:17].

Patrick: (06:18)

Yeah. As comes with the industry. But yeah, ten years ago, I started the Homebrew shop, got offered to be an assistant [inaudible 00:06:26] brought over. And I remember calling my mom and being like, “Mom, I got a job opportunity. You’re not going to like it. I’m dropping out of college, and I’m going to the beer industry.” Anyway, fast forward ten years. I had a great time, really helped a couple of breweries grow, and really grew myself in terms of doing it.

Patrick: (06:45)

And then, recently, Jeff Hughes actually gave me a call because I’ve been working with Country Malt for the last ten years, my entire career, and knew what a great company it was. Jeff gave me a call, said that he was getting promoted, and was asking if I’d be interested in taking it. And as I told my boss when I put in my notice, “You only have one back.” And my days on the brewery floor were numbered. So, super excited to take my experience and turn it on and be able to now be on the sales side, but also help other breweries that are in similar positions or make decisions and so on and so forth. So yeah, it’s a great pivot, and I’m very excited for the next couple of years and what’s going to turn out for me.

Grant: (07:29)

Right on. Yeah. So, I think everybody’s probably had that talk with their parents when they were going to be like, “I’m going to be in the beer industry.”

Patrick: (07:34)

And just in case my mom is listening, sorry, mom. Now I’m on a podcast, and I have a big board job.

Grant: (07:43)

Awesome. All right. Well, welcome aboard, Patrick. Let’s keep going. Let’s go to Cheyenne next.

Cheyenne: (07:49)

Yeah, absolutely. So, I’ve been in the beer industry for about seven years now. Most of that time was spent on the production side of things. So, I worked as a brewer for about six years, and it all started- I was in college, and I was studying biology, and I really loved it, especially microbiology and learning about bacteria and yeast and cellular organisms and all of that fun stuff. And I was lucky enough to find out that my college at the time had a craft brewing program.

Cheyenne: (08:19)

And I was like, “Wow, that’s awesome. I want to do that.” I never had home-brewed in my life and didn’t know anything about brewing, but I knew that I liked beer. So, I decided to do the craft brewing program, and that led me to brewing as a profession. So, I was really lucky to get to brew for a very long time for a company that I love. And yeah, I love raw materials and recipe formulation and all of that really cool stuff, so when I made the transition to the Country Malt group and to make sales, I was really excited to get to live and exist in the raw materials realm and get to talk about all that stuff, the stuff that makes beer, what it is. So yeah, I’m really stoked to be here.

Grant: (08:58)

Awesome. I actually had the opportunity to come by your brewery a couple of years ago. I think I already mentioned this to you.

Cheyenne: (09:04)

Oh, awesome.

Grant: (09:06)

That was so cool. Yeah. I was going out to hop selection and got to-.

Cheyenne: (09:10)

Oh, yeah. Yeah, we’re right on I-90. So, they get a ton of people dropping by for hop and brew school in Yakima. So, it’s a fun location because just brewers come by constantly when they’re going over to Yakima, so you get to meet a lot of people.

Grant: (09:28)

For sure! I got to meet John Mendrick out there for a beer. And it was if I remember correctly, it was right at like- I’m in Texas, we don’t really have [inaudible 00:09:39], just at the top of this mountain pass. And the rental car was going straight up, just engine whining to get to the top. And then, this brewery was there. It was so cool.

Cheyenne: (09:51)

Yes. There’s a gas station, a convenience store, a brewery, and the mountain, and it’s a really cool place to be. It definitely presents its own challenges with brewing and getting raw materials up there in the wintertime, but you can’t beat the views.

Grant: (10:07)

Yes. Love it. Okay. Last but not least, Brian Quinn.

Brian: (10:11)

Awesome. Yeah, I think it sounds like I’ve got a similar trajectory to a couple of other people on here today. I did a lot of pre-med classes in undergrad and then started to upset my parents early on by going on to a grad school for history. And if that grad school for liberal arts wasn’t quite upsetting enough, I then pivoted to the world of craft beer and dove in really hard, mostly on the production side, over the course of the last decade-plus. I did the Siebel Master Program back in 2015. And then, after that, had been working at a number of breweries, mostly in the Southeast, done a couple of startups. And really just recently made the transition just a couple of weeks before Patrick started with Country Malt group, I guess about six weeks ago, after serving as a director of brewery operations at Town Brewing Company in Charlotte, North Carolina. Very happy to have gotten the brewing boots off just in time to miss some of this summer heat because it is brutal down here right now.

Grant: (11:24)

Yeah, yeah. It’s indeed. I think all the Southeast is just getting torn up by the heat lately. Well, cool. The point of today’s episode- What we’re going to do is let everybody make a case, build a case for your ultimate summer beer, and we’re really looking for just maybe some mentions, of course, the style, but some memories drinking this style, why you like it so much. And then, the technical aspects of the style, we’re going to run through all that in today’s episode. I mean, are you all ready to jump into it and talk beers?

Cheyenne: (12:03)

Absolutely.

Heather: (12:05)

Everybody’s favorite topic.

Grant: (12:07)

Okay. Let’s just go down the list. What style are you going to be defending today? Not everybody all at once.

Cheyenne: (12:18)

I’ll start first. So, I am here to defend the Gose, a very controversial beer for some people. One of my favorites.

Grant: (12:29)

Right on.

Heather: (12:29)

I love it a Gose.

Patrick: (12:29)

Okay. I’ll follow that up. I’m going to take the place of defending the Shandy and the Radler. I know it has a little bit of a social stigma with a couple of beer industry people, but honestly, man, nothing hits better on a summer day than a Shandy on the beach. So, I’m ready to fight.

Grant: (12:46)

Awesome.

Adam: (12:51)

I’m jumping- Sorry. Go ahead, Brian.

Brian: (12:54)

I might be a little bit of the odd guy out because I actually will be defending dark lagers today. While they are a darker beer style, I think they really are an exceptional summer beer, especially for malt heads and then people that tend to like the darker, maltier beers but don’t want to necessarily drink a 12% Imperial stout in July.

Grant: (13:17)

Fair enough.

Heather: (13:18)

When you sent this through, I loved this choice, Brian. I was really excited about this. I love a dark larger as well.

Patrick: (13:25)

Yeah. Way to establish yourself as a crazy guy, Brian. Nobody’s going to mess with you on this fight.

Adam: (13:33)

As a Canadian, I like to avoid controversy, so I’m going with the Belgian Witbier. It’s my choice.

Grant: (13:42)

Man, I love this. So many. Yeah. I’m picturing the uphill battles in my head, but yeah. Brave choices, some of you. I mean, they are all like- I can see the argument, so it makes sense, but yeah, I can’t wait to get into it.

Cheyenne: (13:57)

As a beer person, I know this is a battle, but I love all of the styles that everyone’s defending, you know?

Grant: (14:02)

Fair enough. Yeah.

Adam: (14:05)

Yeah. I’m ready to back every one of you guys already.

Grant: (14:10)

All right.

Patrick: (14:10)

Back yourself, Adam.

Grant: (14:13)

Tell us about Gose, brewing it, and everything that goes along with that.

Cheyenne: (14:17)

Yeah, absolutely. So, for me personally, I was first introduced to Gose as a style in my first or second year of brewing, so I was very new to the industry and was still learning all of these different styles. And so, I’m a member of the Pink Boots Society, which is an organization that supports women in the brewing industry. And every single year, they do the Pink Boots Collaboration Brew. So, women all across the country, all across the globe, get to come together and collaborate on making beers that support the organization. And currently, the way we do it is we have the Pink Boots Hot Blend.

Cheyenne: (14:52)

But before we did that, they would make style suggestions, so every year, they would suggest a style, and everyone got to take that and run with it. And so, in one of my first years in the Pink Boots Society, the style suggestion was the Gose, and I was like, “What is a Gose?” I had to do a lot of research. I’d never heard of it. And yeah, I love the beer. It can be a little polarizing because people either love it or hate it, but it’s pretty heavy on the wheat beer. So, it’s usually about 50% malted wheat in the grain bill, but the thing that makes it really cool is it’s a kettle-soured bee that’s soured with lactobacillus, so it has this really refreshing tartness to it, which I love for the summer.

Cheyenne: (15:38)

But the thing that’s really special about it is that it’s brewed with salt. So, it has just a hint of saltiness to it, which I think is the thing that can be polarizing for people, but yeah, I love it. And I love how versatile Gose can be, so you have a lot of room for creativity when you’re brewing a Gose, and you can play with salt levels. It also has coriander in it traditionally, so you can play with that, and that gives it a fun herbal finish, but you can also add fruit purees to it. And so, when I was brewing it- So, I used to work at Dru Bru in Snoqualmie Pass, Washington, and we would add organ fruits, passion fruit puree to it, and it gave it a super cool color and awesome flavor. So, I love going out in the summer and getting to see what brewers are doing with their Goses.

Grant: (16:27)

Absolutely. Yeah. You said it could be a polarizing style; do you think it’s the salt? I feel like sometimes there’s this stigma with kettle sours among brewers. Right. Have you ever heard of this?

Cheyenne: (16:39)

Yes. Yeah. And the method in which people do the kettle souring, I think, can be stigmatizing for some people.

Grant: (16:46)

Absolutely.

Cheyenne: (16:49)

I got to love brewers. I was a brewer. They are a stubborn bunch, and so, once they find the way that they like to do things, they will staunchly love that one way. But I think that when I’ve talked to non-beer industry people, the salt is what people are very hesitant about. Yes. Yeah. So, my dad is a newbie in the beer world, and I took him to a beer festival for Father’s Day weekend, and I got a Gose, I let him try it, and he goes, “Why are you drinking Seawater?”

Grant: (17:31)

They all have to be that salty, right?

Cheyenne: (17:33)

Yeah. No, no. That’s what I love about it, too. You can totally play around with the levels of salt that you add and the levels of coriander to give it that herbal finish. But yeah, I mean originally, like most German beers, they’re a very old style. So, it was brewed centuries ago, and the water that it was brewed with just had a lot of minerals in it, so that’s where the saltiness comes from. And now, obviously, modern brewers are brewing with fantastic water, so they add the salt in.

Grant: (18:05)

So, do you remember the salt content of it or the salinity that you all would go for?

Cheyenne: (18:11)

Yeah, it was really small. So, when I was brewing, I brewed on a 15-barrel system. It was maybe two to five pounds for 15 barrels, so it wasn’t a whole ton in the grand scheme of the size of the batch. And that gave it just enough salinity to have that mineral flavor without being overpowering because you have the sourness coming through as well. So, you want to have those two flavors compliment each other and not compete with each other.

Grant: (18:43)

Sure. I mean, yeah, it is a great summer beer because of the salt replenishing those like-

Cheyenne: (18:51)

Get your electrolytes in.

Grant: (18:52)

Yeah. It has what plants crave. All right. Awesome. Yeah, talking like the salty ones, what is it like? Back in the day, I think it was Westbrooks Gose was hella salty.

Cheyenne: (19:08)

Yes. Yeah. I haven’t, but I’ve had some really, really, really salty ones, and I can see that people maybe are like, “Oh, that’s too much salt.” And I think it’s all-. People love what they love, and people have different palates. I prefer a mid-range salt level, not too salty, because my other favorite part of the style is the tartness that comes from the souring, the kettle souring, so the lactobacillus gets in there, and it does its job. And usually, in my experience, when I was brewing them, we would kettle sour. It would take anywhere from 24 to maybe 36 hours in the kettle, depending on how the lactobacillus was doing. And we would drop that pH down from 5.5 or 5.2 all the way down to about 3.1, and that was the range that we liked it. So, it was nice and tart, a little puckering but not stripping the enamel off your teeth.

Grant: (20:05)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Cheyenne: (20:05)

It still allows a little room for other flavors to come through.

Grant: (20:11)

A lot of people forget that pH is logarithmic right, so a little bit of a change is a massive change.

Cheyenne: (20:19)

Yes. Yeah.

Grant: (20:21)

Yeah. I’m with you on that, that three one, that three-two. I like that too.

Cheyenne: (20:25)

Yep. Yeah.

Grant: (20:28)

All right. Great. So, great case for Gose. Who’s next?

Patrick: (20:33)

Well, I’ll step in and just say that Cheyenne talking about Gose has made me really want a Gose.

Heather: (20:40)

I agree with that.

Patrick: (20:42)

Can I change teams? Is it too early? No, I love the Gose. I just wanted to jump in and say the Gose is essentially the beer version of a margarita right now.

Cheyenne: (20:51)

Oh, absolutely. Yeah.

Heather: (20:53)

It really is. Yeah.

Patrick: (20:56)

When it comes to summer beers, I mean, it’s a great choice, and I would’ve gone with that, but Cheyenne was first on the email to-.

Cheyenne: (21:01)

I had to snap it up. One of my favorite files.

Heather: (21:01)

She snagged it.

Patrick: (21:04)

She’s passionate; I’ll give her that much. Yeah. And so, I’ll jump in. It’s funny to listen about it because there are a lot of similarities, but my choice was Shandy and Radler, and they’re interchangeable in terms of definition on it. But technically, a Shandy is strictly made with lemonade, but a Radler can be, really, a 50-50 blend. Oh, is there a dog in this?

Brian: (21:25)

Yeah, my dog. Sorry.

Patrick: (21:29)

Brian, is that you?

Brian: (21:30)

Oh, yeah.

Patrick: (21:33)

No. And so, Radler is just a 50-50 blend of typically of Pilsner, blonde ale, or any type of lager with some sort of citrus juice, and now it’s stigmatized or faux pop because I mean, do you really call this a beer style? I mean, it’s really kind of a beer cocktail, but we’ve started to see a lot of guys start to commercially produce the Shandy and the Radler. And honestly, they just hit on a different level, at least for me personally, because it’s a cut beer, so it’s 50-50, so you’re going to be looking at lower A.V.B.

Patrick: (22:05)

It’s got that same acidity from the citrus that’s similar to a Goser, or kettle sour would have. It just goes about it in a different way. And then, it provides that fun, fruit flavor that I think a lot of- It’s funny if you were to talk to me when I was 21 years old and be like, “We got to be caught dead drink a fruit beer, man.” It’s just that it wasn’t cool back then, but now with the rise of seltzer, the fruited sour, I think a Radler and a Shandy have a place in the market for being destigmatized and being, “You know what? Yeah, I’m on a beach; I want a 3.5% lemonade beer. That’s just what I want right now.”

Grant: (22:47)

Completely agree.

Heather: (22:49)

And I think that low alcohol content too is just such a big thing in the summer heat in the sun, and wanting to be able to sip on something all day long. I think that’s a real selling point.

Patrick: (22:59)

As a couple of coworkers used to always tell me, “It’s a marathon, not a sprint you.”

Heather: (23:03)

Always.

Patrick: (23:06)

Low and slow is the way to stay up, so when you’re sitting on a beach, and you’re doing it- Another thing too that I always liked about it, so we actually had- I have a great pivot as to why I chose Shandy and Radler. When I was brewing down at Crossroads in Catskill, we used to have this house lager, and we were running through the centrifuge, and we got these amazing yields. We’ve actually maxed out our bright tags. So, we would have this surplus lager beer that we would just throw off. We’d put it into another bright tank. But it was so easy for us to make a Shandy out of that, out of excess beer, essentially doubling the quantity because you’re doing the 50-50 split. And then, you’re just pivoting into another offering for your customers.

Patrick: (23:51)

And so, it was just a great way for us to not necessarily have to go out of our way if you’re busy slam-producing core beers. It was able for us to make a different offering with little to no extra effort, just simply by taking something that we’ve wanted to build on and just doing a brand variation on it. And then, while doing research for this, I wanted to become super prepared for it. I can’t get over the fact that the story of where Radler actually came from is that there was this German beer bar owner who had a group of cyclists come in, and it was a massive group of people, and he was low on beer, so he needed to cut it with something to extend his surplus or to extend his supply ride to meet everybody’s needs. And when I think to myself about working with a production brewery, those type types of tactics are fantastic. How do I make twice as much beer out of half of the ingredients? And Shandy was a great way to go about that.

Grant: (24:53)

That’s awesome.

Cheyenne: (24:54)

I didn’t know about its origins of it. That’s awesome. I think that anyone who has worked in the service industry can sympathize with that.

Patrick: (25:02)

Yeah. When you’re running out of seasonals, and you don’t have room in the schedule. It’s like, “What do I do? Give some fruit puree and de-aerated water. I’m about to do some magic.”

Cheyenne: (25:14)

Yeah. Exactly.

Patrick: (25:14)

And actually, the word Radler is German for cyclists, and that is the attachment to that story, that was it was-

Cheyenne: (25:22)

Awesome. I love that.

Heather: (25:24)

I did not know that.

Grant: (25:27)

I think with commercial example-wise, I think of Stiegl Radler like the grapefruit one is awesome.

Patrick: (25:36)

Up around us, we have Narragansett Del’s Shandy harpoon. They have the whole U.F.O. series, but they started doing the U.F.O. big squeeze, where they add grapefruit juice to theirs. And a couple of smaller guys, we have this one great local brewery called Community Beer Works at a Buffalo, and they’re right by the Buffalo Bills Stadium. So, they have a Pilsner called Let’s Go Pils, and they take that, and then, they’ll do Radler variations off of it. And so, this kind of idea, just constantly being able to come out with something new. It has a little attachment back to something that the customer knows, as in the Let’s Go Pils, that helps them branch out and test some new waters.

Grant: (26:20)

One strange Radler combo I’ve heard of that is popular in Germany, from what I hear, are they’ll mix it with Coca-Cola, and you-

Patrick: (26:28)

Oh, yes. Yes.

Heather: (26:30)

What?

Grant: (26:30)

Do you corroborate this?

Patrick: (26:31)

Yeah. Super, super weird. I have a friend that’s very German, and he’s studied abroad for a while, and he’s tried to get me to do it. I’m like, “No way, man.” Talk to you-

Brian: (26:43)

It’s usually Hefeweizen with Coca-Cola too, so it’s a little bit different than a Pilsner or Helles, but I’ve had that a few times as well. It’s interesting.

Grant: (26:51)

Is it? I shouldn’t knock it til I try it, but [inaudible 00:26:54].

Patrick: (26:53)

I’m about to run out to the gas station right now and get some Coca-Cola while we’re on this call.

Grant: (27:02)

Right on. Okay. All right. Shandies and Radlers. What’s next? What’s the next one we’re defending today?

Brian: (27:10)

I’ll dive in real quick. Just to do a little bit of a change of pace from some of the lighter, fruitier tart styles into well, dark lagers. I guess I should specify a little bit; I’m not talking about a Baltic Porter or a Doppelbock, but definitely some more of the sessionable, approachable, dark lagger styles, like a Czech Dark Lager or Schwarzbier. I’ve never been a really big fan of hop beer styles, which is probably pretty blasphemous to say, but I know a lot of brewers appreciate the more approachable styles, and I’ve always been a big fan of traditional beer styles and Czech Dark Lager, Schwarzbiers, they’ve always been really fun to play around with and brew and look into some of the histories of that.

Brian: (27:56)

But I’m just a malt head. I love drinking malty beers, dark beers, stouts, and porters. But again, I don’t want a big 10%, 11%, 12% imperial stout when I’m dealing with 102-degree weather in the Southeast in the summer. And I’ve been extremely happy to see how many breweries have started putting out dark lagers as part of the broader trend towards experimenting with more craft lagger styles. They’re great. I mean, they’re not as roasty, they’re not as high A.V.B. or intense as you get with big stouts. They’re going to have some nice, rich malt character, but they’re not going to be so sweet or malty that you don’t want to have a couple of them. While I was brewing at Town Brewing Company in Charlotte, we did a beer called Shadow Puppets, which was a Czech Dark Lager.

Brian: (28:54)

Brewed exclusively with Epiphany Craft Malt, just used some midnight weed for color and a heavy dose of Munich and some Mueller specialty malts just to give some color without going over the top on the roasty side of it. But it finished nice and dry and just really, really sessionable and approachable. And I think the other thing that makes this one of the perfect summer beers for me is that I love grilling out in the summer. I love smoking a brisket and smoking a pork butt. That’s the type of style that can really pair well with great North Carolina or Texas-style barbecue, which has a lot of those intense flavors as well that might overpower something like a Pilsner or a lighter beer style. So, it’s nice to have something that can hold up to some of that as well.

Grant: (29:45)

For sure.

Heather: (29:46)

Yeah, that’s a perfect barbecue pairing right there.

Adam: (29:49)

The really good argument right there, right?

Cheyenne: (29:52)

Yeah. I love the different facets of summer that everyone can think about because, for me, I think I’m sitting on a patio drinking a beer or I’m by the lake drinking a beer, and that’s why I love a good Gose. But I love that on the other side of things when you’re in your backyard, and you’re grilling, and that’s what summer means for people. And I love the differences between people.

Patrick: (30:13)

I think we also need to take a moment to appreciate that the beer named Shadow Puppets is incredible and-

Adam: (30:19)

Right. There’s a Schwarzbier that’s released up here in Ontario from Beau’s Brewing that was an homage to Spaceballs, so it was called Dark Helmet. It was good.

Brian: (30:37)

One of my favorite things to do, and I’ve done a lot of sensory training with customers and staff; I always love having them taste a Czech Dark Lager or Dunkel or a Schwartzbier while blindfolded and those people that are hardcore opposed to dark beers and they’ve got misconceptions about what a dark beer is. Being able to taste that without seeing the color and coming in with that preconception about what that’s going to be, really- It’s a great gateway drug to get people to open their eyes to the dark, malty styles that otherwise would’ve been a little intimidated by it.

Patrick: (31:17)

I always found it funny how consumers are just, for some reason, one way or another. They’re just afraid of dark beers. They just look at it, and they’re like, “No, that’s not for me. That’s unsafe. Where does that come from?” Because when I look at drinking a Schwartz in the middle of the summer, it’s the same as drinking black iced coffee. It totally has a time and place when you want it if you want that-

Cheyenne: (31:41)

Oh, absolutely. For sure.

Grant: (31:44)

It’s such a weird thing, too, that I’ll agree with you on consumers. The color just throws them off, but for some reason, I feel like a lot of newbies to craft beer or crazy beer styles in general. They just associate dark with more alcohol and like it. Absolutely not the case sometimes.

Cheyenne: (32:07)

Adam, you’re up.

Adam: (32:11)

All right. So, the Wit, the Belgian Wit, for me, when I first started thinking about it, the idea of sitting on a patio on the East Coast with a crab boil in front of you and somebody hands you an Allagash White. To me, it’s a perfect late summer day. It’s all of it. So, I mean the Witbier, the Belgian style Wit, it lends itself to stuff like seafood, especially those shellfish. I also am not lost on the irony that I’m on a podcast about malt, and the number one thing on the grain bill is unmalted wheat.

Grant: (32:59)

Is it really that high? The percentage-

Adam: (33:01)

Well, it’s pretty close, actually. I mean, it’s between that, and you’re looking at… 30, 40% of the grain bill is probably flaked wheat, I could be wrong, and the brewers on here can correct me on that one, but it’s between that and some Pils in malt. Seems to be the two main players with the wit. As far as the profile of it goes, you’re looking at it’s a higher protein, so you’re getting a fuller body. You’re getting that nice, full-mouth feel. The lively carbonation really evens out that mouth feels. You get that nice, creamy head, and that real cloudiness to it is- I know. It’s a beautiful-looking beer, for starters, and the thing that makes the Belgian Wit stand out is the spices, the coriander, and the dried orange peel.

Grant: (33:58)

Playing with really [inaudible 00:33:59] makes it always interesting for sure.

Adam: (34:02)

Well, it does because it can be overdone. Some of them, if there’s- Coriander, it’s one of those spices that people love, or they hate and-

Grant: (34:15)

It can be super overbearing for sure.

Adam: (34:16)

Yeah. It can be for sure. So I mean, if it’s done properly, again, I think Allagash White is the benchmark for Wits in North America. And you look at another one like Quebec’s Blanche De Chambly out of Unibroue. They do it well. I’ve got a list of them, like Driftwoods; White Bark out of Vancouver Island is phenomenal.

Heather: (34:46)

Yeah. We were texting about that last night, and I was like, “Ooh, I think I need to go get some.” It’s such a good beer.

Grant: (34:55)

That’s the only one you mentioned so far I haven’t had, but the first two were for sure amazing, so if you’re putting it in that category, I got to try it.

Adam: (35:03)

I lived in B.C. for a couple of years, and Driftwood is one of those breweries that every time the name gets mentioned, I’m like, “Oh, man. I miss B.C.” So much good beer. But I mean, it is also one of those styles. It’s got a really cool history behind it too because it started to fade away a bit, and then, there was- So, this story is there are some really nice comparables to the backstory of this with the backstory of Canada Malt Company is this guy Pierre Celis was a huge fan of Witbiers, and he couldn’t find them anymore. And he was working as a milkman, but at one point, he had worked at the local brewery and decided that he wanted to start making his own whip.

Adam: (35:53)

And so, he started doing it in his shed, which, to some people in this podcast, sounds pretty familiar to our origin story, and he started brewing in the little town of Hoegaarden. And in 1966, he started selling to the public, and his brewery was called Old Hoegaarden. And in 1985, there was a fire that destroyed the brewery, and he was underinsured, and he had to actually sell part of it to Stella Artois, and it became the Hoegaarden that everybody is familiar with. And he got mad about the whole thing. He didn’t like how they were treating his beer, and he sold his stock. He moved to Texas and opened Celis Brewing down there, and then the same kind of thing happened. The investors weren’t getting back their money as quickly as possible, so he had to sell to Miller. But he used the original recipe and has been making- I think he passed way back in 2011 or 2012, but the resurgence of wit was pretty much due to him.

Cheyenne: (37:14)

That’s so interesting. I didn’t know that.

Adam: (37:16)

Yep. There’s- His daughter owns-

Brian: (37:20)

That was Stella that almost went extinct during the world wars, like so many other Belgian styles, so he really kept that alive when it was right on the brink of extinction.

Adam: (37:31)

Well, the guy had- I can never pronounce it, the [foreign language 00:37:35] almost single-handedly killed styles like that.

Cheyenne: (37:40)

Yeah. The thing that I find so impressive about Witbiers in specific is the carbonation level, like you mentioned, Adam. I’ve brewed a Witbier, and it’s a Testament to brewers to get that carbonation level that high, especially on draft or putting it into packages. It’s a challenge.

Adam: (37:58)

It’s scary.

Cheyenne: (38:00)

It presents a challenge. And so, when it’s done right, it’s really impressive.

Adam: (38:07)

It’s like- Sorry. Go ahead, Graham.

Speaker 7: (38:09)

I was going to say over three volumes, is that what you’re talking about, Cheyenne?

Cheyenne: (38:13)

Yeah. Typically, I mean, we had brewed a Wit a little bit here and there, and it was at one of our summer seasonals. We would try to get it up to about 2.9, and for context, standard draft beer will usually be between 2.4 and 2.6 or seven, so 2.9 is pretty high. Typically, I think that they are a little bit higher than 3.0, but we just couldn’t get it any higher than that and have it pour well on draft, but when people can do it, it’s really impressive.

Grant: (38:41)

I was going to say, I bet you’re packaging folks, or I don’t even know, maybe that was you at your brewery.

Cheyenne: (38:46)

Yes, it was.

Grant: (38:54)

Yeah. I bet they loved that. I’m sure they had a great time packaging-

Cheyenne: (38:54)

Oh, man. It was tough, but yeah, when you can do it right, it’s really cool. Because I love carbonation in beers, especially in the summertime as well, I think that adds a different component to it.

Grant: (39:05)

For sure.

Heather: (39:05)

Everybody picked some really historic styles of beer for this because-

Adam: (39:09)

Yeah, we have a real history group here.

Heather: (39:13)

Yeah.

Adam: (39:15)

Weird that we’re all beer nerds. It’s shocking.

Grant: (39:17)

We’re well-represented across North America. And then, the styles as well, like international, it’s pretty rad here from everybody.

Adam: (39:29)

Yeah. I just have to say this in terms of the Wit, and at East Coast, there are a couple of great ones from Nova Scotia, from Tusket Falls at a Halifax, and from 2 Crows. They both do some- I’m from Nova Scotia, so I really have to, every once in a while, go to my home province on that. Yeah. If you’re down that way, 2 Crows and Tusket Falls in the summertime, pop by for beers.

Grant: (39:55)

It’s been a while since I- We used to brew a seasonal Wit beer, and I know some other folks that had larger operations, and they’d use a fancier grinder, but we would just use a big food processor, like a 14-cup food processor, and grind up those Indian, I think they were Indian, coriander. The largest prized ones.

Cheyenne: (40:17)

Yes, it’s coriander.

Grant: (40:18)

Yeah. But I swear, ever since smelling that in the dust that it would make in the lab and then, I know this is crazy, but every time I open a box of Fruit Loops for my son, I swear they smell like that. They smell like Fruit Loops to me.

Heather: (40:33)

That’s so [inaudible 00:40:35].

Cheyenne: (40:37)

I feel like I am scared a little bit by the coriander because when we brewed the Witbier, we would do fresh, ground coriander, and we had a hand grinder, so it had this crank on it.

Grant: (40:47)

Oh my gosh. I thought I had it bad.

Cheyenne: (40:48)

Yeah. You’re sweating in the brewery, and then you have to go and hand crank your coriander and me every single time we brewed the Wit; I don’t know what it was. I would not have that addition prepared. So, I would be running around like a chicken before the addition the boil, and I’m cranking as fast as I can, trying to grind that coriander for the addition.

Adam: (41:10)

Well, it’d be amazing how refreshing that Wit would be after you had to do this.

Cheyenne: (41:13)

Yes, exactly. Yeah.

Adam: (41:17)

[inaudible 00:41:17]. By the way, this was the friendliest debate I’ve ever had before.

Heather: (41:23)

Yeah. I was going to say. Nobody’s very mean; everybody just agrees with everybody on everything.

Cheyenne: (41:30)

That’s for your needs for you. We just love to talk about beer.

Patrick: (41:33)

I’m pretty sure I changed teams like four times during this conversation.

Adam: (41:38)

So, I know Brian really sold me on his.

Grant: (41:46)

When I was making a Wit too, like our- We just did it for a seasonal. It was a one-off beer we would do for this music festival. The beer was called White Noise; by the way, it was a Witbier.

Heather: (41:56)

That’s awesome.

Cheyenne: (41:56)

That’s a good name.

Grant: (41:57)

You would dry hop it with Amarillo. I know that sounds weird, but-

Adam: (42:01)

It is weird.

Grant: (42:01)

It was really nice. Not much, right? I forget how many pounds per barrel, but it was pretty low. It would just give it an aroma. It didn’t have any hop bitterness to it at all. It just had this nice- A really good lot of Amarillo can have that orange marmalade thing going on, and so, I just lent that to it and really liked it.

Adam: (42:24)

Okay. That’s cool.

Cheyenne: (42:25)

Sounds awesome.

Heather: (42:29)

Toby always brings this up; we always do this on a Friday, and all we ever want to do is just have a beer after we have to this podcast. For us West Coasters, it’s a little early still.

Cheyenne: (42:41)

A little.

Heather: (42:41)

A little bit early.

Patrick: (42:43)

Should probably go grab a Shandy because it’s low A.V.B., so it’s-

Heather: (42:45)

There you go.

Patrick: (42:50)

And that’s my final argument.

Adam: (42:54)

You can’t day drink if you don’t start in the morning.

Patrick: (42:56)

Exactly.

Heather: (42:57)

That’s very true. Very true.

Grant: (43:00)

Like, right as you crack it, you’re just shrugging, and you’re like, “It’s basically a soda.”

Adam: (43:01)

It’s a real transition into the afternoon-type of gear.

Heather: (43:07)

Yeah. It’s true. Well, honestly, if I have to choose a winner, although nobody really argued with each other, I think Brian has me convinced that I’m going to have a black lager after work today because it’s sunny here and I feel like that’s what I’m going to want as I make my dinner.

Brian: (43:26)

That’s the right choice for the true beer purist on the podcast right there.

Adam: (43:33)

[inaudible 00:43:33].

Grant: (43:33)

I got to say, if I had to pick now here and everything, for me, it’s Witbier. In fact, I want to brew one now.

Adam: (43:39)

Yes. [inaudible 00:43:42] doubles down on it.

Patrick: (43:47)

I don’t know if, as guests, we get a vote, but I’m also going to choose the Witbier. Whatever that’s worth, I’ve ditched my team and have now swapped over to Adam’s.

Heather: (43:56)

Step inside. Step inside. I don’t think there could be any losers in these decisions because there are some amazing choices, and I love that. They’re all, like Cheyenne said, all situational. Like if you’re sitting on the beach, if you’re going camping, if you’re sitting on a patio, if you’re grilling out in the backyard, I think there’s just such a good place for every one of these in our summer. So, I don’t know if we have one ultimate summer beer. I think all of them.

Grant: (44:23)

It’s really hard to choose. Going back to Cheyenne’s Gose, I pretty much never see it on the shelf. I guess maybe I don’t look for it as much as I used to, but I think the original Goses or one of the original ones was- Is it Ritterguts? Ritterguts Gose? That’s never on the shelf here. So, on the rare occasion, I see it, I buy it.

Cheyenne: (44:46)

You tend to see if you’re looking for a canned product; you tend to see the Berliner Weisse a little bit more frequently than the Gose. And don’t get me wrong, I love a good Berliner Weisse, but if you want to take it that step further and find the Gose, they’re a little bit more rare and hard to come by.

Grant: (45:02)

It’s in this really tall, skinny bottle; if I remember correctly, it has this like Dr. Jekyll-looking dude on it, you know what I’m talking about? You ever had Ritterguts Gose?

Cheyenne: (45:09)

No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that one.

Grant: (45:14)

Okay, it’s a bottle-conditioned Gose from Leipzig.

Brian: (45:17)

Leipziger Gose’s got a yellow, skinny, tall bottle yellow label. Yeah, I think I’ve seen that one before.

Grant: (45:24)

Right on.

Adam: (45:25)

There is another one, again, from Beau’s as well in Ontario that was called Boom Goes the Dynamite. It was a pretty fantastic year, actually. Yeah.

Cheyenne: (45:36)

That gets to the pronunciation because that’s the other polarizing aspect of this beer, which is how to even pronounce it.

Heather: (45:43)

Gose or Gose.

Cheyenne: (45:44)

Or Gose, or Gose.

Adam: (45:48)

That’s why I didn’t try to grab that category.

Cheyenne: (45:52)

I’m hard with the Gose, and I don’t apologize.

Heather: (45:55)

We had one of my first ones from a local brewery in Calgary; it was Ponderosa Gose, so that’s how I would always pronounce it Gose because that’s just how it worked with the name, so that’s how it’s always in my brain now.

Cheyenne: (46:09)

I love that.

Grant: (46:10)

Almost like they knew what they were doing there.

Heather: (46:12)

It’s a smart brewery, those ones. Well, I think that the winner is- Everyone’s a winner.

Grant: (46:25)

Everyone’s a winner, aw.

Heather: (46:26)

Everyone’s a winner when it comes to summer beers. Everybody gets a participation award for this one because those are some amazing choices, and they’ve just made me really thirsty. So, I think that that was the point.

Grant: (46:39)

For sure. So, anyone out there listening, whatever you’re drinking this summer, there are so many great styles to choose from. One thing too about these styles- Well, say for the lager, you can turn these beers out pretty fast. All of these are really quick styles, I would say, so they need to be brewed. ‘Tis the season.

Patrick: (47:01)

I will say it was pretty interesting that nobody who just went for straight Pilsner for the summer beer style.

Cheyenne: (47:06)

I did think that was interesting. Yeah.

Patrick: (47:08)

Do you know? Maybe it was a little too low-hanging fruit to just go up the light lager platform, but maybe we’re-

Adam: (47:15)

Because we’re all clever.

Brian: (47:19)

That’s a year-round beer right there.

Adam: (47:20)

That’s a year-round beer.

Grant: (47:22)

I’ve actually got one fermenting right now at the kegerator.

Cheyenne: (47:24)

Oh, that’s awesome. I’m traveling for work right now, and I was just in Hood River, Oregon, and we went to pFriem, and they’re Pilsner.

Patrick: (47:34)

That’s great.

Cheyenne: (47:35)

I could just talk about it forever, and you can get it in cans.

Heather: (47:38)

Oh, I bought it in a can. It came home with me back over the border. I just came back from seeing Cheyenne down in Vancouver, Washington, and it came home with me. I can’t wait to drink that one, that’s for sure.

Cheyenne: (47:48)

It’s a phenomenal beer. Yeah.

Patrick: (47:49)

I took a vacation out there, and I stayed on Mount Hood. We were right by the pFriem brewery, and our plan was to go visit a bunch of different breweries and go around and putz around. But we ended up going right to pFriem first, and we were like, “No, I’m just going to stay here.”

Brian: (48:07)

“My work here is done.”

Patrick: (48:10)

“I’ve seen everything I need to see. Thank you very much, ciao.”

Grant: (48:15)

Yeah, it’s hard to keep out there. Man, I try to stop there every time, too, when I come from Portland up there up to Yakima, for sure.

Patrick: (48:23)

Let alone the fact that Mount Hood is just- It’s beautiful and-

Cheyenne: (48:26)

Oh, it’s such a cool area.

Patrick: (48:28)

Oh my God. Fantastic.

Grant: (48:31)

Well, I think that about wraps it up for this week’s episode. Thanks, everybody, for joining us.

Heather: (48:36)

And welcome to the team, everyone.

Patrick: (48:38)

Yeah.

Cheyenne: (48:39)

Thank you.

Patrick: (48:39)

Thanks so much.

Brian: (48:39)

Thank you.

Adam: (48:39)

Yeah.

Grant: (48:41)

Thanks for making your splash and making your introductions. Yeah. Hope to have each of you on in the future for something a little more drilled down to your expertise, and yeah, it’s been good.

Patrick: (48:56)

I’ll promise to be a little bit more feisty next time and try and be a little bit more argumentative.

Heather: (49:01)

Save that for next year’s summer debate.

Patrick: (49:08)

Just wait till we talk about fall beers; I’m very passionate.

Grant: (49:11)

Okay. All right. Fall beer shows down. All right, we’ll put that in the schedule.

Heather: (49:17)

Awesome. Well, thanks, everyone.

Cheyenne: (49:19)

Thank you.

Patrick: (49:20)

Thanks, guys.

Adam: (49:20)

Thank you so much.

Heather: (49:21)

Well, thank you, everybody, for joining us today, and a big thanks to our new team members for sharing their ultimate summer beer opinions. If you haven’t actually got to know any of your new sales representatives and territory managers, make sure to reach out to them and let them know what you think about their ultimate summer beer style. Although they failed the debate portion of the evening, I still think it went pretty well.

Grant: (49:47)

It went great. Yeah. I think if you’re out there, you’re listening; you hear some of these names you haven’t heard before. Just check out our website. We have a map. It makes it easy. Get in touch with your sales rep. We love to hear from brewers. So yeah, give us a call, and ask our opinion on what malts to use. I mean, we got quite a bit of brain here when it comes to brewing, so we’re always happy. I’d say that the most rewarding part of our job is to help out with new brewers with customers.

Heather: (50:13)

Absolutely.

Grant: (50:17)

And our next episode will be about the veterans’ blend I mentioned earlier. So yeah, we’re going to break that down, talk about that with Yakima Chief. Can’t wait.

Heather: (50:28)

We’re also going to have a member from the Hunterseven Foundation come on and talk a little bit more about that non-for-profit charity, so make sure to tune in.

Grant: (50:40)

Tune in next week. Yeah. Anyways, have a good one. Make it a great weekend, and we’ll catch you next time on the Brewdeck Podcast.

Heather: (50:48)

Bye, you all.