EPISODE S.5, E.1

[THE CRUSHIE ERA: BEST OF 2023]

Toby (00:09):
Happy New Year.

Heather (00:10):
Happy New Year.

Adam (00:11):
Happy New Year.

Toby (00:13):
Happy, happy New Year from all of us to you. You, happy, happy New Year. May all your dreams come true. Hey.

Heather (00:18):
We’ve missed you, Toby.

Toby (00:20):
Has anyone worked in the restaurant business or was that just me?

Cheyenne (00:22):
Yeah, I’ve worked in the restaurant business for-

Toby (00:25):
[inaudible 00:00:25] that, Cheyenne?

Cheyenne (00:26):
Thank God. No, I did not.

Heather (00:27):
I did not work at a [inaudible 00:00:29] restaurant.

Toby (00:27):
At Chili’s.

Adam (00:32):
You managed to not work at those restaurants.

Toby (00:34):
Because people like me and those dumb songs. No, actually, yeah, Brinker, Chili’s. I remember back in the day we used to sing that, but it was like happy birthday instead of Happy New Year’s.

Cheyenne (00:44):
You’ve got the personality for that, so that makes sense to me.

Toby (00:47):
Yeah. Thank you. How y’all doing?

Cheyenne (00:50):
Doing great.

Heather (00:52):
Good.

Toby (00:52):
I’m excited about a 2024 putting 2023 in the books.

Heather (00:57):
Yeah, me too.

Toby (01:00):
I want to welcome everybody back to, this is our fifth season of the BrewDeck Podcast.

Heather (01:05):
Season five.

Toby (01:05):
Yay. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m excited to be back for another year.

Heather (01:10):
Me too.

Cheyenne (01:11):
Definitely.

Heather (01:12):
Five years. That feels a little crazy that we’ve been doing this for five years. I haven’t been doing it for the full five years, but Toby has.

Toby (01:19):
I’m the old man here.

Cheyenne (01:20):
You are.

Adam (01:21):
[inaudible 00:01:22] few months.

Toby (01:23):
Well, what’s coming up this year? Do you all know?

Heather (01:26):
We’ve got a few things on the go. Some things to just keep a lookout for and maybe touch base with your sales reps about. We are going to be doing some open houses at our DCs or distribution centers to bring some of our customers in, get to check out the warehouse, meet some of our staff. And yeah, just lots of fun stuff going on there.

Toby (01:45):
Yeah, I would say that it’s a good opportunity if you have a local guild. It may be interesting to have a guild meeting if it’s possible up at one of our distribution centers. So for those out there that are managing or on the board or something of a local guild, reach out to us or your territory manager or whatever, maybe work that out.

Heather (02:06):
Yeah. For sure.

Toby (02:08):
You know what’s up with these Filson vest? I’ve never heard of them.

Heather (02:11):
You’ve never heard of the Filson vest.

Toby (02:13):
I’m just kidding.

Heather (02:15):
Let us educate you, Toby.

Toby (02:17):
Thank you. I see a lot of them on Facebook and that’s about the only place I know how to navigate is Facebook. But apparently, they’re everywhere, which is great.

Heather (02:24):
You’re aging yourself with that comment right there. I literally just got some photos sent to me from some brewers that were wearing their vest because obviously it’s winter here in Canada, so keeping them warm. Cheyenne, you want to tell us a bit about our Filson vest?

Cheyenne (02:39):
Yeah, definitely. Filson vests are awarded to gold medal winners at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, the World Beer Cup and the Canadian Brewing Awards. Oh, and GABF. So lots of opportunities to win yourself a Filson vest.

Heather (02:54):
They are so nice.

Cheyenne (02:56):
They’re very cool.

Toby (02:58):
Yeah, they are. Adam, CBC. It’s coming up soon.

Adam (03:03):
Coming up soon. We’re 97 days away and we’re going to be heading to Vegas this year. Nothing inappropriate.

Heather (03:12):
Not even a little bit. I feel like we just left Nashville like two weeks ago.

Cheyenne (03:17):
Oh, yeah.

Heather (03:17):
So I don’t know how this is coming up so soon. 97 days doesn’t feel like it’s that long.

Toby (03:22):
Yeah, I want to say that, Adam, you probably didn’t do the math on that one for 97 days. Right? It’s just in front of you and we saw-

Adam (03:33):
No. God, no. No, no, no. I don’t know how many days we’re removed from the New Year yet.

Toby (03:35):
Right. Wow, good stuff. We as an organization are excited to be there yet again, and yeah, it’s something that we’re counting down the days for sure.

Heather (03:48):
And make sure to come stop by the booth. We will be doing live podcast recordings there again. I’m just going to say we’re doing it. I feel like we’ll be doing it.

Cheyenne (03:55):
We’ll definitely be doing it.

Heather (03:56):
We’ll definitely be doing it.

Adam (03:59):
I’ll do it. It’ll be my first year doing it.

Heather (04:00):
Oh yeah. It’s a lot of fun. And we love when our podcast listeners come by and say hi, so please do that.

Toby (04:08):
Absolutely. We got an awesome show today. This is something that we’ve done, I think, year end every year, the top 10-

Heather (04:16):
Top 10.

Toby (04:17):
… which we as a crew go through and take a re-listen of all the episodes. These are specifically in 2023 and we picked out the top 10, and we are going to go through those and provide some snippets for the listeners. So if you haven’t listened to some of these, it’ll give you the opportunity to take a little bit of info and maybe roll back into the Rolodex of our episodes and do a re-listen. So this is going to be a cool one.

Heather (04:47):
And for the kids out there, Rolodex is something that you used to keep business cards in. Just saying.

Toby (04:54):
That is true. I’m that handwritten card guy that I keep hounding my team about, but no one’s doing it, in my notepad. Anyways, enough about me. Let’s get to it. Today we are presenting the top 10 episodes of 2023. Let’s get to it.

Adam (05:13):
Top 10 countdown. I love this stuff. I get to put on my best Casey Cason impersonation and bring all the greatest hits from the past year. Now let’s roll right into it. This might be number 10 on our charts, but it’s number one in our hearts.

Cheyenne (05:34):
There it is. There is Adam we know and love.

Adam (05:34):
Totally new facility, highlighted our new adjunct facility in Calgary where we’ve been producing our in-house flight products since the middle of 2023. We have some great guests, including Canada Malting project engineer, Jonathan Warwick. Here he is speaking about why it’s so important that we’d led with the Flake Oats as our first product.

Jonathan (05:53):
A lot of it’s obviously oats, but we also process wheat, rye, barley, essentially any kind of cereal crop we can process to some degree or the other. Oats is a predominant one for us. That’s kind of like the benchmark by which we really test everything. It’s the majority of what our customers are looking for, so that’s where we put a lot of our focus, and so that’s why we spend a lot of time with experts and consultants in the milling industry. People that have been working in the industry for essentially 30, 40 years were essentially the key design people on the project for us.

Adam (06:34):
Jonathan also spoke about how our flake oats differentiate from what is currently on the market.

Jonathan (06:40):
What we found is that a lot of what is being sold into the brewing market as adjuncts is a good product, but it’s essentially it’s a food product. So the product was produced for the food industry, for the cereal industry, I’ll say specifically stink cereal, bars, granola, that kind of thing. And so obviously their concerns and their quality aspects are attuned specifically to what that kind of customer needs, which just so happens it works out very nicely for 90% of criteria. That works great for brewers too.

(07:21)
But in regards to the finer touches, we actually have the opportunity now to obviously produce a product which is tailored to brewers, so things like the degree of cooking, the flake thickness, these kind of things that we can actually just tweak a little bit and get just right for what a brewer might want.

Adam (07:43):
From there, we spoke to a couple of brewers, Jonah Hertig from Cabin Brewing in Calgary, Alberta, and Rob McCoy from Great Notion Brewing in Portland, Oregon. Both these fine gentlemen tested the oats for us to compare with what they were currently using. Here’s what Rob had to say.

Rob (07:59):
I know everyone’s going to have an off day. Someone might run their rakes too fast on the accident. How do we avoid any sticks in the mud for our production by making things easier, less to think about for all of our staff? I think our staff is fantastic. We have a killer staff, but there’s always going to be something that comes up, so if I can rest assured just a little bit, we’re not going to stick a mash and we’re not going to lose five, 10% efficiency on some nightmare mash and lauder, then that makes me a lot happier.

Toby (08:33):
Awesome. That was a good one. Let’s move on to number nine.

Adam (08:38):
All right. Moving along now, number nine is so fine. That’s our number nine spot on the countdown belongs to a discussion from a galaxy far, far away, RTD2, which is really-

Toby (08:52):
Say it again real fast. Real fast.

Heather (08:54):
Real fast.

Adam (08:55):
RTD2

Toby (08:55):
There you go.

Adam (08:57):
Ready-to-drink cocktails focused on one of the hottest trends in the alcohol industry over the last couple of years. We chatted with Matt Howell of Collective Arts Brewing in Hamilton, Ontario and Bryce Parsons of Last Best Brewing and Distilling in Calgary, Alberta. We talked on subjects from production methods to trending spirits. Toby and Heather discussed why RTDs have become so popular and why brewers are jumping on board.

Toby (09:21):
Over 1.6 billion in sales in this category last year alone.

Heather (09:30):
I think it was in 2021, it increased like 42% in sales. That’s insane. That’s huge.

Toby (09:36):
And we can’t overlook it even though our segment, if you will, is primarily craft beer, craft distilling, et cetera. But you and I talk to customers and the rest of our podcast team, we’re talking to customers of all type of adult beverages every day, and we see the popularity of that market and brewers and distillers really branching out to capture some of this market because it’s growing so fast.

Adam (10:09):
Bryce spoke to why it is so important to stay true to the customers when branching out into RTDs.

Bryce (10:15):
We just find for brand to stay true to our brand and what we do in last best as an experience. We pride ourselves on our cocktail program. So it is just natural to provide that package in a convenient way for our audience or for our customers to take home and enjoy at home.

Adam (10:42):
And as we look at trends, Matt at Collective Arts shared his thoughts on what works for them. And I’m not going to lie, we live in a wonderful time As far as innovation goes.

Heather (10:52):
Your current RTD lineup, you’ve got a rum RTD, a whiskey RTD, a gin RTD, and a vodka RTD. Which ones do you find are the most popular out on the market?

Matt (11:05):
That’s a really good question because our RTD portfolio up until this past year has primarily been in the gin category as well as the vodka. Vodka, we kind of got more into last year. And then the rum and the whiskey are new to the portfolio this year. So historically, obviously, the gin has been the big seller and the big go-to here because it’s just what we’ve sold more now. When I look at the portfolio now and what people want, I would probably say the rum or the whiskey cocktails are really the ones that people are crazy excited about and they seem to really be drawn to.

(11:51)
We’re hoping to grow that even more than it is now. We still do more of the gin and the vodka-based ones and they’re great. Our vodka-based one is a simple lemonade using real ingredients and it’s outstanding for sure, and it’s my backup to the [inaudible 00:12:08] and Collins. It’s light and refreshing on a hot summer day, you can’t beat it. But the other cocktails are really quite good, they’re basically proper pre-mixed cocktails you would get at any cocktail bar and people are very excited about it.

(12:25)
And my hope is I can grow them quickly and they’ll do as well and be on par with where our gin and vodka RTD sales are. But yeah, like I said, they’re new, but they’re really exciting and everybody seems to… As quickly as we can produce it’s being sold. So it’s a good problem to have.

Cheyenne (12:50):
All right. Coming in at number eight, we have episode number three. This was live from ACSA. We were very excited to see this live episode had made it into the top 10 of the season. Live episodes are fun little bonus episodes for us throughout the season and the fact that this one was a top listen for folks shows the growth of the distilling sector in the craft beverage industry. We chatted with Steve Hawley from the American Single Malt Whiskey Commission about the trends that he’s seeing in the distilling industry.

Steve (13:22):
First and foremost, single malt whiskey is all the rage. And I say that with a grin, but it’s absolutely true. And when we do get that formal definition from the TTB, which is coming any day, any week, any month now, I think you’ll see an explosion of people adding single malt to their repertoire.

Cheyenne (13:46):
Definitely.

Steve (13:47):
I think you’ll see some of the big boys, they’re already doing it, some of the larger spirits companies investing heavily in single malt. And you’ll just see a lot more people rallying behind the idea of single malt. So I think that’s a big movement.

(14:06)
I get asked a lot, “Is there a regional aspect to single malt in America?” And I would say there absolutely is, and I think largely that’s being driven by distillers that want to express a sense of place and express their own provenance and express their own terroir, if you want to get into that big debate. So I think that’s a big trend. I think that it’s important with a country this large that’s making single malt whiskey for everybody to have their own perspective on that.

(14:39)
And I think it’s important from a global standpoint that America has a unique perspective on single malt as well, and one of those things that we can all focus on is terroir and is sense of place and regional expressions. So I think that’s a big trend that’s going to continue.

Cheyenne (14:59):
While live on the trade show floor of the ACSA. We also spoke to Caitlin Bartlemay and Joseph O’Sullivan, the distillers at Clear Creek Distillery in Hood River, Oregon, who shared with us their favorite seminars of the weekend.

Joseph (15:12):
This particular ACSA Sidney Jones’ seminar on cross-country whiskey was phenomenal. There’s so many good speakers, but the way she moderated, her ease, her comedy, the value of what she was directing in terms of what her basic questions were, it was easy to understand, it was an incredible panel of talented distillers. I would not be surprised if it was not my runaway favorite of this year, but I do have to also say that Nicole Austin’s seminar last year on How to Win Awards was a real sneaker for me. I didn’t really know what to expect in that, and I went to it and it was so touching and I thought it was so smart. And ever since I am really happy to call Nicole a friend.

Cheyenne (16:09):
Oh, fantastic. What about you, Caitlin? Did you have a favorite so far?

Caitlin (16:13):
One, I absolutely agree with Joseph 100%, Sydney’s presentation was great, the panelists were amazing. But I would like to give a shout-out to the seminar in corporate culture that was put on by Paul Leko of Few Spirits. Both two people from few spirits getting called out for their really great offerings here at the conference. I just really appreciated the seemingly forward-thinking, and it’s unfortunately forward-thinking because there’s so many companies and cultures that are clinging to these old ways of how they treat their employees.

(16:45)
And so I really appreciated seeing this really great group of leaders that are saying the quiet part out loud and that it’s clearly not working right. These are principles that have been part of corporate culture in the United States since World War II. And we certainly have decades of seeing that it doesn’t create a positive work-life balance.

Cheyenne (17:08):
And coming in at number seven, we have episode number 15, H2Whoa. In this episode, we dove into the science of water chemistry. This episode was an interesting one for us to plan. I think that we were all a little nervous to tackle such a technical topic. Was that just me or were you guys nervous?

Heather (17:26):
Very nervous.

Cheyenne (17:29):
Luckily we had a really great guest to help guide us through. This was the second time appearing on the podcast for Aaron Justice. He first joined us in our season two, episode 23 Dude, Let’s Start a Brewery, which was our highest played episode of all time. We obviously wanted to bring him back and this time we got to pick his brain about water chemistry. Aaron has a really cool career background, which I just wanted to touch upon because I thought it was so interesting.

(17:56)
He was a TV meteorologist for 13 years. I think probably his TV experience kind of helps him with his podcast voice. He made the switch to the brewing industry after he got into home brewing, which I think is a tale that all of us are very familiar with. He worked for many years at Ballast Point before opening his own brewery, east Village Brewing Company in San Diego, California. Let’s take a listen to his thoughts on the most important steps when first opening a brewery.

Aaron (18:23):
Yeah, I think the first thing you want to do is get a water report, just know where your water is coming from. Most cities will give you a water report here in San Diego. It’s very detailed. And also here in San Diego, because it’s a large county, we have three major water treatment facilities. So just developing a relationship with your local city and a water treatment plant and being able to get reports goes a long way. Then beyond that, I would also then take that water because the report is only so good because it changes throughout the year.

(19:08)
So what you also want to do is take a sample and send it into the lab, and just know what you’re dealing with. There are many labs around, you can Google it, that specializes in water analytics and also maybe do a lab that also can measure work so that you can also just see and verify that what you’re trying to achieve is actually happening.

Cheyenne (19:39):
Water chemistry can be a very dense topic for any brewer or brewery owner or podcast host. Also, in this episode, Aaron helps us break down what he believes are the most important metrics of water chemistry to focus on when brewing.

Aaron (19:55):
Really, I think people think of water chemistry and you see all these water calculators and your head explodes, and that’s totally understandable. And I’ve given some water talks for the Master Brewers Association, and I look out into that audience and people’s eyes just glaze over. And I get it, I used to be that way and I took this deep dive into water and I just say, “Just carbon filter your water and hit your target mash pH and all’s good.” If you really want to dive further in, you can absolutely do that, but that’s my first advice. Those two things, analyze your water and then dechlorinate and, of course, hit your target mass pH, and we can talk more about that later.

Heather (20:47):
All right. Moving on to our sixth most listened episode of season four, it was one of our episodes celebrating Women’s history Month called Her Story of Brewing. Cheyenne and I took over hosting duties for the month of March to celebrate women in the fermented beverage industry, and we had a very special co-host for the month as well, Natasha Peiskar, production supervisor at Canada Malting and the Pink Boots Canada Chapter President.

(21:14)
As the title of the episode implies, we were discussing the history of women in the brewing industry with our guests, Teri Ferendorf, who is no stranger to the podcast and probably no stranger to anybody in the brewing industry in North America. She’s the founder of the Pink Food Society. And Tiah Edmondson Morton, activist and historian from the Oregon Hops and Brewing Archives in Oregon State University.

Tiah (21:38):
But women, they’ve always been involved in brewing and that is certainly the case today, but it goes back to us hearing about Ninkasi is probably the most prominent figure who was featured in the history of ancient brewing, but women have brewed all over the world and all throughout time. And there certainly were other goddesses at the time who were linked to brewing in the Middle East, so Egyptian goddesses, other characters from ancient Mesopotamia, in ancient Babylon. And again throughout the world, so there were Zulu fertility goddesses in Africa.

(22:25)
There were women who were part of Finnish legends and also women who were brewing beer in real life in villages, brewing Sadie in villages. Latin America there certainly were indigenous women in North America, women in Nepal. So women throughout time have made beer, whether that’s in real life or in stories or in myths and legends.

(22:58)
And I think as we shift, what we often think about is again, either Ninkasi or we shift to thinking about England and Europe. And again, throughout literature, throughout real-life history, there was St. Bridget of Kildare who lived in the fifth century. She was one of Ireland’s patron saints, [inaudible 00:23:25], another one that many people know. She was an 11th century German Benedictine Aviz, and she also was a scientific writer. And she wrote this really famous set of books called Physica, which contains what is regarded as the first reference to hops being used in beer as a preservative.

(23:46)
There’s another woman from the East Anglian in town of Lynn. Her name is Marjorie Kemp. She lived in the early 15th century. She was a brewer, but she also owned a horse mill, and later she became a visionary in a mystic. And Mother Laos was an alewife in Oxford, and she’s a really popular depiction and she’s one of those women who is wearing what looks like a witch’s hat. But she was an Oxford alewife who sold beer commercially in the mid 17th century. And really, it’s at that point that brewing in Europe started to change from being a female dominated profession to one that was dominated by men.

Heather (24:30):
Teri was one of the first female craft brewers in Western US and she shared some of her early experiences in the craft brewing industry.

Teri (24:37):
So the obstacles I saw were these people who were asking, I don’t like to say they were mean or anything, I just think they were asking the wrong questions because they didn’t realize that there were other ways to do things. And some of those people that asked those questions asked me those questions over the phone would not even meet me in person. As I said, now they’re my friends and they would be mortified to know, and I’d hear little snippets like, “Oh, remember when you came through our brewery? Yeah, so-and-so said to me, or so-and-so said to so-and-so, ‘Do you really think that a woman could make good beer?'” Well, guess what? You give me the chance I prove you wrong and having someone like myself and if you other women out there proving those kind of assumptions about whether women can make good beer or not.

(25:23)
Holy cow, how many great American beer festival medals have my recipes won? And I brewed those beers. So yes, I think we’ve proven many times now that women can make great beer. So I think that those kind of obstacles need to stop. There’s other weirdnesses that I have not had to experience that have taken place with men sexually harassing or worse women in the business, not just brewers, but other women in the business, women who sell beer, distribute beer. This intimidation thing and this sexual predation thing has got to stop and the perpetrators need to be absolutely, positively punished. That’s not the role of Pink Boot Society, it’s the role of society.

Heather (26:20):
Moving on to our fifth episode, which was our other Women’s History Month episode entitled I Can Brew Myself Flowers. Natasha was back again as a special co-host with Cheyenne and I. And our guest included Brittany Faye from MadTree Brewing in Cincinnati, Ohio. And Karlie Pretty McDonald from Tofino Brewing in Tofino BC. Both Karlie and Brittany came on to tell us about what their breweries were doing for International Women’s Day, and shout out to Brittany for bringing us some of their dolly RTD for us to enjoy when we were in Nashville. It was just delicious.

Cheyenne (26:53):
Not only was it delicious, but it was very fitting for Nashville.

Heather (26:56):
It really was. Something else really awesome that was kind of brought to attention that you do is this Ascending Women program.

Brittany (27:04):
Oh, yes. It’s such a really cool program and it actually all started with our International Women’s Day a couple years ago. We brewed our beer inspired by Malala, and this was right before we had to shut down for COVID. We had a local woman come in and we just had a chat. It was about… I can’t remember the subject now, it was a couple years ago. And COVID always feels like it added five years to everyone’s lives.

Heather (27:38):
It definitely did.

Brittany (27:42):
But it was a way that we invited all of the identifying females of MadTree. We came together, we had a little luncheon, we celebrated our beer that we had packaged the day before, and from there it inspired our private events team and our consumer experience team to put together something once a month where we’re pulling in people that can talk about different subject matters that yes, it does appeal mostly to women, but it can expand outside of that.

(28:18)
So, for example, for February, we just had one, actually it was last night where the panel discussed self-love. And it’s either local women that are brought in that are a part of the panel or at least close by, and it’s just a couple hours of sitting and listening to this panel. We have women-owned businesses that are also represented there, and it’s just kind of a way to build that community locally.

Heather (28:48):
Karlie also spoke about the collaboration with the women and non-binary individuals at Tofino Brewing for their Pink Boots Brew.

Karlie (28:56):
Well, I just didn’t want it to be like, “This is my brew.” I wanted it to definitely be like, no, this is all of ours. You guys are the ones… They’re the faces essentially in the tasting room, they’re the ones that sell it. I’m not, I don’t do that. That’s not my strong suit, that’s their strong suit. So I wanted them to be really passionate about it and be excited to sell something because how else are you going to sell something so passionately if you’re not involved?

(29:31)
I don’t know. It felt right to keep them included and they came up with a great idea. So I think next Wednesday when we actually brew this thing, it’ll be awesome and fun. And I hope I have a good turnout in terms of bodies because I don’t want to grain out by myself.

Heather (29:50):
Yeah, nobody wants that.

Karlie (29:53):
No way.

Heather (29:54):
That’s awesome that you’re involving so many people. I love hosting folks on the Brew Day and having them learn something about what we do in production. So it’s really cool to hear that you have a bunch of folks who are going to come and help you and have helped with the development of beer.

Cheyenne (30:17):
All right. Our fourth most popular episode was episode number seven, Going For Gold. In this episode, we were joined by Graham With, head brewer and co-founder of Parallel 49 Brewing by day and a nationally ranked BJCP judge by night. Whether you’ve entered many competitions before or you’re getting ready to enter your first, Graham shares his insider knowledge of what judges are looking for and what advice when choosing which competitions to enter. He drops some pro tips on how to prepare your beers for competition season and also what to do to improve your beers when you receive your competition feedback from judges.

Graham (30:53):
The one thing I recommend, one is try and do the BJCP course or even just look into it a bit. But the biggest thing is all these categories like Irish Stout and whatnot, they’re all guidelines. So if you have a beer, a really good example of this is, I finally won a World Beer Cup, which is like, oh God, it took me 10 years, but that was awesome, with our Pale Ale. But I did not enter it in the American Pale Ale category because I thought it would get destroyed by all the delicious hoppy American and Pale Alists.

(31:34)
So I entered in English ale category because the judges aren’t going to know what’s on the label. They don’t know anything about this beer. They just know that there’s a liquid in front of them that someone is calling, say, a stout or whatever, and they’re going to judge it that way.

(31:52)
So if you have a good selling beer and you make it and you’re proud of it, and maybe you call it an IPA, but it’s like, I don’t know, 4% in hoppy, maybe that’s American Pale category. So be really weary about the categories you enter because you can get your butt handed to you. And also, I know a lot of breweries, they have a marketing person and they pawn off the entries on marketing because it’s a bit of a marketing thing, but if you’re marketing, people don’t know too much about the judging aspect of things. They’re just going to look at what the style says on the product and just going to enter it in the closest thing.

(32:38)
But that’s not always the best route. The best route is to be really take a look at the guidelines of the competition because your competition is going to have their own set of guidelines and what best represents the liquid you make. Maybe your American amber ale is better as an Irish red or whatever, and there’s no shame in entering into one that’s going to do better in my mind.

Cheyenne (33:03):
Basically just sticking what style category most closely resembles what we’re submitting.

Graham (33:09):
Yeah. Another thing too, as we’ve just entered a couple competitions, my team and I, we’ll go open up the last three or four-pack runs we’ve done because we have a library stock of every run we package. And it’s not always the freshest one either. I’d love to say, every beer we make here is the best beer ever, and it’s always on point. But there is a threshold to be like, “Yeah, it’s good.” It’s just not like, “Well, I’ve had better batches of it.”

(33:40)
And we’ve seen the one that was packed two months ago versus the one from last week. It’s just super good still. So let’s enter that one, and it’s worth taking the time to do so, I think, just to make sure you get these natural variances between batches inevitably. So take the time to go grab the last few runs and see which ones are best.

Cheyenne (34:06):
We totally get why this episode was so popular. We love competition season two because we want to support you in every step of your craft journey, cheer you on and celebrate with you in your successes. Going back to our little conversation earlier, this is why we launched our signature gold medal Filson Vest program for the winners at the World Beer Cup, Great American Beer Festival, the Canadian Brewing Awards, and the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.

Heather (34:30):
Love those Filson Vests. Moving on to our number three episode was entitled Bock to the Future. Some of our favorite episodes are when we talk about beer sales, at least some of my favorite episodes are when we talk about beer sales. I don’t want to speak for everybody else on the team.

Toby (34:46):
My favorite is when you’re on. That’s it. Just when you’re on.

Heather (34:49):
Thanks, Toby.

Adam (34:50):
[inaudible 00:34:52], Toby.

Toby (34:53):
And bock.

Heather (34:53):
And bocks. And bocks. So as you could tell by the name of the episode we were talking about bocks. It was really great because Cheyenne and I actually got to talk a little bit about the history of bocks at the beginning of the episode, which was really fun. And then we had the pleasure of chatting with Chas [inaudible 00:35:13], head brewer and owner of King Maker Brewing in Jacksonville, Florida about the bocks style and how they market their box to customers.

Chas (35:21):
I went to school for history, so being a historian by trade and then a brewer doing traditional styles and bock and finding recipes from 1909, the Kaiser American, Classic American bock recipe, that’s where I get my Jimmy’s off, you know what I mean?

Heather (35:43):
Yes. I see what I was studying for my [inaudible 00:35:47] exam, that was my favorite part was learning about all of the history and how far back beer goes and how the styles became the styles, and so I fully understand that. That’s one of my favorite parts.

Chas (35:58):
Well, bock is such a cool history, and I was doing some light reading just so I didn’t sound like a moron, but it’s crazy how just the evolution of bock comes from. I’s directly tied to technology, not necessarily brewing itself.

Heather (36:16):
Who do you find is coming in and buying the bocks more? Is it clear nerds? Is it other brewers? Is it the general public in Jacksonville that is like, “I love a bock and coming here for this?” Or do you find because you maybe made it such a specialty when you were rolling them out through the pandemic that it just created this demand for them for you?

Chas (36:43):
If anyone tells you that there’s a high demand for bock, they’re lying to you. Basically the people that come in, it’s like the people that are… We find a really strong niche of people that are just, they like craft beer, but they’re sick of the lack of varieties because so many brewers that are just interested in brewing very hyper-focused styles or it’s all IPA all the time they don’t probably care about-

Heather (37:11):
Yeah.

Chas (37:11):
And then training new customers, it’s like, “Oh, well, what’s a bock?” I don’t know what beer used to be, dark, flavorful, malty lager. People like IPAs aren’t going to like it or they’ll like it as a change of pace. You can’t go wrong with just offering something different than what people are used to getting 99% [inaudible 00:37:38], I guess the best way to put it.

Heather (37:40):
Then we were joined by Mario Cortez, head brewer and co-owner of here today, brewery and Kitchen in Seattle, Washington, which at the time had just been open for only four months. So we picked Mario’s brain on what inspired their bock and what malt are quintessential for their style.

Mario (37:56):
It’s so interesting. I feel like this happens a lot in the industry. Not just with beer, but with other things as well, but specifically with beer. I’ll have an idea to brew a random style like bock, which doesn’t really see a lot of attention in the craft scene, and now there’s like four other breweries in town that are doing one, we’re sitting here on a podcast talking about the style specifically. It’s so interesting how that zeitgeist element plays into it. But yeah, for us, I grew up in Texas, like I mentioned. And when I started drinking, I turned 21 and at that time, Shiner Bock was the closest thing we had to quote craft beer.

(38:43)
It wasn’t the best beer on the market, but it was a more robust flavor than any other light beer on the shelf. I always felt like if I was going somewhere like a party or a punk show or something, I was reaching for a Shiner. And since those days have gone, you don’t see them on the market anymore. I really wanted to reimagine what that beer can be. A lot of what we’ve done with the beers here today is taking a style that we really love and putting it through the here today filter like what does that look like, how do we make it a little more modern, how do we give it our own personal touch?

(39:21)
And that’s how we came up with this idea of a Texas bock. So basically with ours, I started with a traditional single block German beard recipe and gave it a little Vienna lagger twist, so keeping the [inaudible 00:39:38] really light, but incorporating some more lager, dark lager flavors, which I feel like Shiner, as much as it was a bock on the label was always just kind of a light dark lager. So wanted to play with that idea and then used American Liberty hops instead of old world hops, just to give it a little bit more of an American feel.

Heather (40:03):
Can you tell us a little bit about the grain bill for this?

Mario (40:07):
Yeah, that’s another spot where it was bringing in some elements of Vienna lager, which initially when we were talking about doing this beer was we just wanted to make a dark lager fitting for the end of winter and fitting for the weather in Seattle right now. So we started with German Pilsner malt, which anytime I use Pilsner, I try and use floor malted just because it has a little extra bite to it and a little bit more of a character than traditional Pilsner.

(40:36)
So it started with that as a base blended in some Munich roasted malt and some Vienna malt as well. Again, just saying add a little more character to the body, give that kind of impression of roastiness without going too far into that crystal malt territory. And then just a massive amount of Carared because I’m a big fan of what that malt can bring to the finish of a beer. It’s really dry, has this kind of caramel note to it on its own, and it just brings a really beautiful garnet red highlight to any beer you add it to.

Toby (41:15):
And moving on to our number two most listened podcast, episode 202.3 and rolling along the same path as number three. It’s evident again that listeners in season four and Heather like to hear us carry on about beer styles.

Heather (41:29):
I do.

Toby (41:30):
In our year end countdown of the top 10 episodes, numero deuce was episode 17, Skills to Brew the Pills. In this one, we coerced a few industry solids that are making some great Pilsner to spend a few minutes with us to spill the beans. First we caught up with Blake Enemark who is the head brewer at Tail Gunner in Calgary, Alberta. Blake gives us a little insight as to European versus American pills.

Heather (41:58):
What do you find the differences between an European-style Pilsner malt versus a North American-style Pilsner malt?

Blake (42:05):
Yeah, that’s a great question. For me, I feel a little bit like a cultural appropriator for somebody that is excited about brewing European-style beers and using European archaic brewing techniques. In my opinion, if we’re going to appropriate someone’s culture, we should probably be using their ingredients. And my favorite way to put this is if you’re going to make a Neapolitan-style pizza, you’re going to use Double-O flour, you’re going to use the nice DOP tomatoes, and that really is what takes your average pizza pie to something that has a little bit more sense of place and history to it.

Toby (42:46):
He also dives in and gives us some insight to decoction mashing and why they do it.

Cheyenne (42:51):
And can you tell us a little bit about what are the benefits of doing a decoction mash versus doing a single infusion or doing a step mash? Are there any sort of flavor differences that you’re seeing in the beers?

Blake (43:02):
Yeah, to be honest, to me it’s not even in the same territory, especially for if you’re trying to brew… For us, Czech beers is what I’m most passionate about, but a lot of German styles too, which we do rigorous decoction mashing on. The flavor benefit for me would be one of the biggest things. The other thing too, there’s a lot of Czech brewers that would say, “You can’t brew a proper Czech lager without decoction mashing. It’s a necessary component of brewing that style of beer.”

(43:36)
And that’s something, again, if I’m going to be a young Canadian dude trying to honor hundreds of years of history of Czech brewing, doing it their way, to me seemed like the only way. Because I’d actually had never done decoction mashing before being at Tail Gunner. We tried once at OT and it was like scooping buckets of grain and running it through a diaphragm pump, and it was a real pain. That’s what ignited my love for it for sure. But yeah, so there’s the tradition that’s there to be honored, the flavor, like I was saying, we get that purple character in the Czech pills, which I just absolutely love. It gets me every time. Because that’s also our simplest beer, it’s one malt and one hop, but it’s by far the most complex beer that we offer, I think.

(44:31)
So yeah, there’s the flavor benefit. We also with some of the German-inspired beers, like we do a Kolsch that we did a collab last year with Brandon from Avling, and we got a really nice snappy crackery malt profile that I think would’ve been there if it hadn’t been decocted, but it would’ve been a little bit more subdued. So you et that with a German beer as a little bit more snappy crackery. But the technical benefits for me are better head retention, better lacing in the glass, better foam stability.

Toby (45:03):
Blake gets much more in-depth in this episode around decoction, what it takes and why he feels it’s important. So I absolutely suggest going back into the episode library and pulling this one up for listen, if you’re interested. We also had the opportunity to chat with Jake Nelson, head brewer at Horse Thief Hollow Brewery in Chicago. First, Heather gives him a much deserved Pat on the back on the success of his award-winning Little Wing using Great Western malting spirit pills.

Cheyenne (45:29):
The Little Wing Pilsner that is an American-style Pilsner, correct?

Jake (45:32):
Yeah, we’ve been called an American-style Pilsner, but there’s no corn or anything in it. It doesn’t really fit super nicely into any of those individual categories. But we brew it here and we use American malt. So for us, yeah, it’s an American Pilsner, but it doesn’t adhere strictly to say the use of corn as a Brewer’s Association style guidelines would suggest.

Cheyenne (46:00):
Yeah, for sure.

Jake (46:01):
We actually entered it in the international Pilsner category at the World Beer Cup and Great American Beer Fest.

Cheyenne (46:09):
That’s very cool. And so you’d said that as you were able to slow down a little bit and you weren’t having to rush through all of your beers as quickly, you were able to perfect this beer. Do you mind if I ask, how long does it take from brew day to glass to get this beer made?

Jake (46:24):
Well, a lot of times we can get it done in three weeks, but I really shoot for a good four or five weeks on it. And when I’m really lucky, I can hold onto it for eight weeks, and that’s ideal. But a lot of times we can make a great Pilsner and put it out in three weeks, but four to five weeks is really my target.

Cheyenne (46:47):
For sure. Very cool. So I’m going to back up a little bit just because I want to shine the light on this gold medal wind that you have here. So you’re utilizing the Great Western Malting Pilsner as your base malt. Can you talk to us a little bit about why you choose that malt, maybe a flavor profile color, if you’re seeing any changes in your brewing process?

Jake (47:07):
Yeah, the flavor profile, it’s just super clean. It’s got a great grainy characteristic. Some of these things I’m saying are generally the textbook definition of Pilsner malt, and I think that the Great Western Pilsner just hits all those notes for me. So I love it and I’m confident in using it as a base in a lot of my beers too, beyond the Pilsner. I use some of it in one of our hoppy beers that I split with two-row. But yeah, it’s just super clean and I love it. It’s just got that malty grainy Pilsner malt character.

Cheyenne (47:48):
Pilsners are pretty versatile. I am a brewer by trade and used to brew commercially, and we would use Pilsners for pretty much all of our base malts and all of our beers. They’re great malts.

Jake (47:58):
Yeah, and prior to coming back here, I worked at a place called Whiner Beer Company. We were specializing in an American interpretation of Belgian beer, but we use Pilsner as our standard base malt. So that’s really where I learned to love Pilsner malt and it became my favorite over Pale Ale or two-row. I mean, when I started here, Pale Ale malt was the big standard base malt, and I’ve definitely shifted over towards Pilsner malt. I just really prefer that graininess versus something a little more malty and bready, and it gives you a really clean backbone to play off of.

Toby (48:45):
Congrats again to Jake and we appreciate him joining us. Then we ended the episode with a segment of everyone’s favorite Ask Abi, where she provided some insight into grain bills for head retention and Pilsners.

Abi (48:57):
There are a lot of different ways that you can get great head retention, but that pH and protein can also come from your malts. So this is how they factor into hay stability, mouthfeel, that types of things. A couple of my favorites are chit malts, which undergoes a shorter germination period. It’s low in color, so it’s great for those lighter beers like a German Pilsner or a Pilsner in general. You can use anywhere between five to 15% chit in your grain bill to assist in that foam stability.

(49:32)
You can also use between five and 10% of flake barley in the place of chits. The only thing is I’ve found that it kind of affects the flavor a little bit, so if that’s something that you don’t prefer, I would go with chit. Typically, I don’t want to divert too much from the base malts that I’m using, but you can use both of these with your base malts and specialty malts to help with that retention and stability.

Toby (49:57):
Abi also gives her take on North American Pills malt options. Something that wasn’t on the list, just curious on, we talked German Pilsners, but what about American Pilsners, if somebody wanted to stick with a North American option for a Pilsner that they’re brewing?

Abi (50:16):
I would go with Canada maltings pills and malt. We’ve got a lot of different pills and malts in our portfolio that you can give a shot. I would go with more noble hops and not quite so chewy because you’re looking for a really subtle flavor, you’re looking for a light color. But again, we’ve got so many things in our portfolio that can give a shot.

Toby (50:39):
Yeah, absolutely. I think the Great Western Pure Idaho is one that we’ve had in our portfolio for quite some time is a really good option. Obviously, it’s a different taste altogether than what you typically see out of your European or German malt, but it’s a really good option for somebody looking for an American Pilsner. That’s a great one as well. And ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention, I’ve just been handed an urgent news story. I need all of you to stop what you’re doing and listen. Cannon Ball. Anybody know where that movie’s from?

Heather (51:18):
Anchorman.

Toby (51:19):
There you go. That don’t sound like Ron Burgundy, but thought I’d give a try.

Heather (51:23):
A little bit. I think you did good.

Toby (51:26):
Thanks. Well, this is the one we’ve all been waiting for, the number one most listened to episode of season 4 2023. Drum roll, please. No one? Am I the only one?

Adam (51:37):
[inaudible 00:51:40].

Toby (51:39):
Yeah, there we go. Episode four, Don’t Lose Your Head. And I think I just did lose my head with that terrible intro, but regardless, I don’t know, we’ll power through it. In this one, the crew had Jon Downing, brewmaster at Niagara College, as well as Jeremy Cross, Quality Manager at Jack’s Abbey Craft Lagers, join us to share some tips, pointers, and secrets on how to gain and maintain that lovely frothy foam. First, we start by some snippets from our convo with John Downing. We talk a lot of hops, but we didn’t want to pass up the opportunity to discuss that maybe overlooked hops and head retention.

Speaker 23 (52:20):
So do you have any advice for people trying to produce a hazy IPA with great foam?

Jon (52:27):
Hop products. YCH and the other guys, Hop Stein, everybody, they put out products that have isomerized, hop extracts and that sort of thing. And those work perfectly for maintaining the foam and for creating the correct balance. You get your aroma, you get the other attributes you’re looking for out of your dry hopping, mostly aroma and flavor. Plus you’ve got the isomerization there pre-isomerize. So by adding that in, you’ve basically leveled the playing field again. So your beer foam should be as good as it would’ve been otherwise.

(53:08)
You’ve also got to remember that the foam… Sorry. The proteins that form the haze are not the same proteins that form the bubbles. So that’s a balance too, is to make sure you get those two right. And I think more in the bubbles, if you think. I you think about the… Well, when you’re making a cocktail like a whiskey sour or something that, you’re using egg white, which is albumin, which is one of the proteins in milk. And when you whisk that up and shake it up, you get a really nice foam and froth on top that sticks and stays in a liquid that would not normally hold. First of all, it’s not carbonated.

Toby (53:47):
Jon also highlights that foam and head retention aren’t always ingredient-based, but factors and challenges outside of the brewing process as well.

Heather (53:55):
What can you do for packaged product to help maintain that packaging in your brewery and being shipped out and being shipped all over the world? How do you maintain that and retention?

Jon (54:10):
It’s all about, it really is, no matter what we do in the field and the malthouse or in the brewery, it’s all what happens when it gets into that glass at the end of the day. Luckily, people are moving away from drinking beer out of bottles of cans, and they’re drinking them in glasses more and more than in past years. So now that visual part of drinking and enjoying a beer is very important.

(54:32)
You touched on the clean beer glass, the enemies of foam detergents and fats. So as long as your glasses are clean and beer clean, they’re not going to be clean when you pour that beer and all the bubbles are sticking to the side of it rather than nucleating from the point at the bottom of the glass. If your phone disappears rapidly, that’s because the glass probably wasn’t clean, then still has someone’s lip balm or lipstick on it. The fats from that are just breaking down the foam as fast as you can pour it in, basically.

(55:05)
It’s cool if you think about the different methods of how beers are poured from casks where it’s a hand pump, where it’s a gentle, delicate pour with very little carbonation coming out to the Guinness Scout Tap or the can with the widget in it where it’s all about shearing bubbles to make the bubble smaller and it takes time. I don’t know if anyone’s been to the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, but they actually teach you how to do it properly and takes like a minute and a half, I think, to pour a Guinness properly.

(55:37)
You have to pour it and then stop and then pour again. And they let the foam settle out, they let the cascade clear. And that’s about creating more dense proteins on the surface of the beer to keep the foam more stable and more thick for want of a better term. If you look at Pilsner pour, the other end of the scale with the increase in number of people buying those Pilsner side pour taps, same idea. I remember going to [inaudible 00:56:09] in Germany and it would take you about two or three minutes to get a beer because they’d be pouring them, letting them sit, pouring them, letting them sit.

Toby (56:16):
Jeremy Cross, quality manager at Jack’s Abbey Craft Lagers jumped on to share some knowledge. CJ Penzone brings up the famed UC Davis, professor Charlie of Bamforth and how he wrote the book on foam.

CJ (56:30):
He’s written many books on foam. I remember the first day I sat down in school and he introduced himself, he said something and I was like, I went to my desk mate, I said, “I don’t know if I heard that right. Did he just call himself the Pope of foam?” And my desk mate said, “Yeah, that’s his name.”

Toby (56:51):
I think that might be one of the best brew nicknames you could have.

Heather (56:53):
That’s a pretty good title.

CJ (56:54):
It is. And I will in no way profess to be the Pope of foam or the Archbishop of foam, I’m more of like a street preacher on a upside down mill carton screaming into the ether about hydrophobic polypeptides, stuff like that.

Toby (57:12):
And then Jeremy talks about testing that breweries can do for head retention and properties.

Jeremy (57:17):
There are a lot of different tests. Some can be very expensive. [inaudible 00:57:24] has the machine, you can do the [inaudible 00:57:27] test on where essentially you have this electrodes going into the foam and then dropping with the foam and counting the time. And I remember I was actually talking to Jamie Shear, who’s the longtime quality lead at Harpoon. I figured they have all these resources and they might have one of those. And I said, “Do you have one of these?” He’s like, “No, we have eyes. We know what that looks like. Why do we want to spend $20,000 on a machine that we can look at?”

(58:00)
But there are cheaper versions, cheaper ways you can measure foam. If you went on ASBC and looked at the Sigma method, that’s one we do. It’s very cheap, it’s very easy. Of all the testing we do, it’s the least precise and the least accurate. But for that matter, so is reading work or beer with a hydrometer. But we do that too, right? If you had five people read a hydrometer, you’re going to get five different answers on what the gravity is.

(58:32)
So a quick overview, of the Sigma method is pretty easy. You have this glass funnel and you’re basically going to pour beer into it, create a foam up to about this 800 milliliter mark. The glass funnel has a little tap on the bottom. And essentially, you’re going to let that foam hit for 30 seconds. You’re going to drain off any foam that’s collapsed into beer, and then wait something like 200 seconds. And then essentially, you’re going to pour off the beer again, collapse the foam with isopropyl alcohol, and you’re going to measure the time, and you’re going to have time versus amount of foam you’ve collected versus amount of beer. You just plug that into a calculator, it’s going to give you a number.

(59:22)
That number in and of itself doesn’t mean a lot, but if you’re doing things to try to improve your head retention, it gives you enough data points to say, okay, the sigma number was at 87 for this beer before we started working on this particular project, and now it jumped up to 103 consistently. So the one thing I would suggest is if you do go on the A SBC, look at the method.

(59:56)
Because of it’s subjectivity, if you have multiple people in your lab or multiple people who might be measuring your foam, try to have the same person do it each time because it is subject to how they pour it and how they time it, and when they decide to stop collecting the beer off the bottom of the sample. Because all these little things that change can change your sigma number quite a bit. So if you have the same person doing it, it gives you kind of continuity. And while your number may not be accurate, it’ll be more precise.

Toby (01:00:32):
Well, congrats to all of the top 10 today, and really everybody for joining us in 2023. We had a bunch of episodes and hopefully we continue to educate and have a little bit fun on our shows going forward.

Heather (01:00:47):
Let’s not forget, season four was our award-winning year.

Cheyenne (01:00:52):
We crushed it.

Toby (01:00:53):
Yay.

Heather (01:00:54):
Yay. That’s why we are in our crushy era. So proud of us.

Toby (01:00:59):
That’s right. And we are excited to be back for season five. Been talking about season five, we know what’s on the lineup for a majority of the year and it’s some good stuff, I’ll tell you.

Heather (01:01:11):
Some really good stuff.

Adam (01:01:11):
Yeah, it’s going to be a fun year.

Toby (01:01:14):
Yeah, and we’re absolutely stoked again to see everybody at upcoming CBC in Las Vegas.

Heather (01:01:21):
97 days.

Toby (01:01:22):
What’s the old saying about Las Vegas? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

Heather (01:01:28):
I don’t think that counts in this situation.

Adam (01:01:28):
[inaudible 01:01:32].

Heather (01:01:32):
We can have microphones. We’re going to actually post it.

Toby (01:01:36):
Oh, Gosh.

Adam (01:01:37):
[inaudible 01:01:39].

Toby (01:01:39):
Yeah, good point.

Heather (01:01:41):
Our social media managers will be there.

Toby (01:01:45):
Yeah, I think I just need to keep my mouth shut.

Adam (01:01:46):
[inaudible 01:01:49].

Toby (01:01:49):
Yeah. Nice. Sweet. All right. Well, another good episode and congrats to all the winners today, if you will. Everybody is winners in our books from 2023. And hey, really looking to seeing everybody soon. And yeah, keep your ears to the phone or the computer or whatever you got and whatever fashion you listen to podcasts and make sure you tune in and keep it on the BrewDeck podcast all the time.

Heather (01:02:15):
Don’t forget to subscribe on Apple Podcast or Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcasts so you never miss an episode.

Toby (01:02:22):
That’s right. Bye, everybody.