EPISODE S.5, E.4

Heather (00:09):
Welcome back to another episode of The BrewDeck Podcast, and happy International Women’s Day. I will be your host today, Heather Jared, and I am joined by my awesome co-host Cheyenne. Welcome, Cheyenne.

Cheyenne (00:22):
Hello. Hello.

Heather (00:22):
Happy International Women’s Day to you.

Cheyenne (00:24):
Happy International Women’s Day, and happy Women’s History Month. We get the whole month.

Heather (00:28):
We do get the whole month. And as is becoming tradition here on The BrewDeck Podcast, we kick the boys off the podcast for the month.

Cheyenne (00:36):
Yes, we do.

Heather (00:36):
And we get to do a full takeover.

Cheyenne (00:38):
Yep.

Heather (00:38):
So Cheyenne and I are very excited to be hosting this month and bringing some really cool content to you. One of which: if anybody has seen on our social media, we launched a new product for International Women’s Day. Cheyenne, do you want to drop what it is a little bit there?

Cheyenne (00:56):
Yes. We launched our first-ever Pink Boots Malt, available exclusively through Country Malt Group, so we’re very excited about it.

Heather (01:05):
Oh, I’m very, very excited. We got to brew with it last week, and it was just a really, really cool experience to get to work with it.

(01:13)
So today we’re going to be chatting with the dreamers and the makers of the Pink Boots Malt. As well, we’re going to be jumping to some live recordings from our International Women’s Day Brews where we actually got to work with the malt. And if you are interested in it and you haven’t had a chance to order it, be sure to come by our booth at CBC, booth number 961. We will have samples there in 41 days, so see you in Vegas.

Cheyenne (01:38):
I cannot believe CBC is 41 days away.

Heather (01:42):
I seriously still feel like we left Nashville two weeks ago.

Cheyenne (01:47):
Yep. Vegas, here we come.

Heather (01:47):
Yeah, Vegas in 41 days. We will see everybody there. So we have a very full house today and these are all amazing people that we get to work with, amazing women that we get to work with. So we’re going to let everybody introduce themselves. Let’s jump right over to Cait.

Cait (02:01):
Hello, my name’s Cait Scott. I am the North American Marketing Manager for Country Malt Group, Great Western Malting and Canada Malting, and I get to lead an incredible group of women, an all women marketing team.

Brandi (02:17):
I am Brandi Stephens. I am the process specialist here at Pocatello for Great Western Malting.

Shelly (02:25):
Hi, I’m Shelly Aller. I am the lab supervisor in Pocatello and we do all the testing on all our malt and barley.

Amanda (02:31):
Hi, I am Amanda Cozina. I work in the Malt Innovation Center here in Vancouver, Washington at Great Western Malting, and I get to play around with malts and brew with it and try to keep the company as relevant as possible.

Hailey (02:48):
Hi, I am Hailey Nelson. I’m the creative manager for Country Malt Group and our family of brands. I get to manage the brand identities, but my favorite part of my job is that I am the proud producer of The BrewDeck Podcast. So it’s a pleasure to be on the other side of the recording and a special shout out and thank you to our faithful listeners for empowering us to keep this going.

Cheyenne (03:09):
We finally get to have Hailey join us on the other side. She always listens to us and does all of the magical editing. We finally convinced her to come hang out with us, so we’re very excited.

Heather (03:20):
Yeah, it’s very rare we get her on this side of the microphone.

Cheyenne (03:22):
Yes, it is.

Heather (03:23):
Welcome, Hailey. And if you ever wonder why we sound so good, because I’m certain that everybody does, it’s because of Hailey.

Cheyenne (03:30):
Hailey does the magic. Well, you can see we have a very full house. We’re going to jump right into it. Starting with Cait. Can you tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind the creation of the Pink Boots Malt?

Cait (03:42):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think the first thing to call out, like I said, is that we’re a marketing team of all women. We’re the ones driving the marketing behind Country Malt Group, Great Western Malting and Canada Malting as part of the same family of brands. So naturally, the Pink Boots Society is a huge passion of ours and we’re always looking for ways to support that amazing organization. In addition to that, though, we’re a malt supplier, which means that we have this really great opportunity to serve both brewers and distillers because malt is a key ingredient for both of them. But we really enjoy supporting the Pink Boots hop blend each year alongside Yakima Chief Hops. We were chatting as a team earlier last year and we were like, we really wish that there was a way for distillers to create some really cool Pink Boots malt whiskies, right?

(04:39)
And then we were like, well shoot, why couldn’t we make this happen? And so I think that’s really where the idea for the Pink Boots Malt was born to include more members of the fermentation industry. Also considering the fact that the Beyond Beer segment is just really growing right now. And I think on top of that, Teri Fahrendorf, obviously the founder of Pink Boots Society, is a former employee of Great Western Malting. So all of us agreed that having a Pink Boots Malt would be a really special product that honors her efforts and how she’s brought women in this industry together all across the globe.

Cheyenne (05:20):
That’s very cool. We were all very excited when the malt was announced to us internally. We’ve been busting at the seams trying not to spill the beans about it which was very, very hard.

Heather (05:32):
Very true.

Cheyenne (05:34):
We’re happy that we finally get to talk about it. Can you tell us a little bit about the purpose and the goals for the malt?

Cait (05:41):
Well, obviously our first purpose was to support the Pink Boots Society Scholarship Fund. As the fermentation industry continues to grow, more women are going to be entering this space, and so it’s important for us to find more ways to support those scholarship opportunities. But I think what’s unique about this product as well is that all of the sales for the Pink Boots Malts in the U.S will go directly to the primary Pink Boots Society organization. But all of the sales in Canada will go directly to the Pink Boots chapter specifically in Canada, hoping to grow those educational opportunities that they can offer their local members.

(06:24)
On top of that, as we were discussing this product with our R&D and our barley teams, we wanted to make sure that this was a really versatile malt, one that can be used in really any beer or whiskey style and one that can also be paired with any of the variations of the Pink Boots hop blends as well. We also thought that this would be a really great opportunity to highlight a specific barley variety, which is pretty unique for a malt. Unlike hops, it’s not super common for us to highlight specific barley varieties being used, and we thought that this would be a really cool opportunity to provide education and awareness about some of the awesome barley varieties out there and the regions that they’re grown in.

Heather (07:10):
And I’ll speak on behalf of Canada. Thank you.

Cait (07:15):
You’re welcome.

Heather (07:17):
We’ll take it. Well, this is a really great time to jump and transition to Shelly and Brandi who had a hand in actually creating this malt. So can you tell us a little bit about the production of this first ever iteration of the Pink Boots Malt?

Brandi (07:33):
Sure. So Dennis Vance is our plant manager. He was involved in getting this set up and he was really excited to do malt for Pink Boots. We worked closely with Mindy Shepard on the logistics for the rail car and the ship date of this malt. Jeff Bloxham and Charlie Jones set up the malting schedule and Justin Southern works with our barley procurement group. So he arranged for the barley to be brought in and Charlie and I worked on the recipes for the steep and germ and kiln and Carol Bristol and Heather Millward are in the production operations group. So together we made this batch of malt for the Pink Boots Society and I think it turned out really good.

Heather (08:24):
Yeah, it’s amazing. Cait touched on that this is a very special variety and this is a single variety malt. So Shelly, can you tell us a little bit about the variety that we actually used?

Shelly (08:35):
Yeah, I’m glad to. We’re using Odyssey, which is a non-GN barley variety, and it is pretty specific for the non-GN field. It’s a no glycosidic nitrile, and that’s important, becoming more of a factor in the industry, but it provides a really good foundation malt for whichever direction the brewer wants to go. And so it kind of gives a good Pilsen type of color. There’s good moisture to it and good extracts, which are always important from the money side of things. So they do require a couple extra tests to ensure that this product is the non-GN variety.

(09:24)
And so there’s a PSY, which is telling about the absolute alcohol volume per metric ton that can be produced from each batch. And so you always look for a value over 400 on that result. From the lab side, we were super excited knowing this was coming through, so everybody was really watching as it came through our testing procedures. We had special vested interest, if you will. So it’s been kind of fun for the whole process to see everything and there’s a lot of people behind the scenes involved in it. We hit all of our target values and everything and it was good to go. Then it’s off to you guys and ready to hit the market. So we were really excited to have a key part in making sure all of the parameters were met and excited to see how the brews turn out.

Heather (10:20):
Yeah, it’s going to be fantastic. If anybody wants to learn a little bit more about low-GN malt, we did do an episode on it last season, Season four, Episode 19 entitled “How Low-GN Can You Go?” Very witty, we’ll give that one to Hailey. Is there anything really specific that you have to cater the production to making a dual purpose malt that can be used for both distilling and brewing?

Brandi (10:47):
When we produce this malt, we make it in sort of like we’re making Pale 2-Row, but Odyssey is a good variety. We wanted it to have a nice, long steep, first of all, with good air rest, and while it’s in the steep tanks, we check that the aeration is good. So all the air that we put into the water during the fill time, we make sure that it rolls the grain around nicely during the air rest period. When we drain the water for the steeping process, we monitor the CO2 extraction and the temperature. As the grain goes through that air rest phase, it takes in oxygen and gives off CO2. And when the grain is giving off CO2, it also creates heat. So we make sure that it’s breathing nicely and not getting too warm in the steep tanks. On the final drain, we give the grain a couch to develop the enzymes that will do the work in the germination.

(11:48)
So couch is similar to the air rest where the grain stays in the steep tank and we extract the CO2 for a few hours before we drop it into the germ bed. So we came up with a really nice steep recipe. Once it got into the germination bed, that’s where we can see it and smell it and feel it. This batch had a really nice smell. It smells like fresh cucumbers and it stays in the germination bed for four days. Each day we sample it and look at the growth. We call that a count where we look at the acrospire and see where it’s at compared to the kernel size. The first day the acrospire is usually one quarter the length of the kernel, and it keeps growing from there. So this batch was really nice growth and Odyssey is a really consistent variety.

(12:41)
It’s very steady, so we’re able to push it in the direction we want it to go, and it responds nicely. So at the end of the germination, we had good growth and it felt nice. We like to keep enough moisture in the kernel so that the growth is good, but not so much moisture that you feel it come out of the kernel. The moisture was consistent and we kilned it with a recipe that would give us lower color, similar to recipes we have for kilning the Pale 2-Row malt where we slowly increase the temperature, just allowing the moisture to be removed and where it could develop a really nice flavor. So overall, it was a really great experience. It was also fun to talk with Heather and Carol as we went along the process of crafting this malt.

Heather (13:37):
Awesome. I don’t think we mentioned off the top, but this is going to be a limited availability every year. Can you let us know how much will be available this year? How much did we make?

Brandi (13:50):
We made approximately 125 metric tons.

Heather (13:55):
Better get your hands on it when you can.

Brandi (13:56):
It’s good stuff.

Cheyenne (14:00):
It’s very good. Switching gears, we want to jump over to Amanda. Kind of talk a little bit about the brewing and technical side of things. So Amanda, you had worked very closely with Teri Fahrendorf before she retired from the Malt Innovation Center at Great Western Malting. What does this malt mean to you?

Amanda (14:19):
Yeah, I worked with Teri for about four years, and honestly that time was a really once in a lifetime opportunity for me and a total nonstop learning experience for both of us, honestly. It’s been said so many times that Teri is a pioneer for women in this industry, and it’s true. She went through all the work that none of us could or none of us wanted to go through. And I truly probably wouldn’t even have been in the brewing industry if women like her hadn’t laid the path out for me. She really is one of my personal heroes, so props to Teri for all of the work that she’s done throughout her entire life. Ultimately, this malt is really, it’s a small but mighty representation of all of her work and every effort she has made. So it makes me extremely proud to know her, to work for Great Western and to be a part of this industry.

Cheyenne (15:27):
That’s so cool. And it’s almost like we’ve come full circle in the Pink Boots universe that we now have a Pink Boots Malt that was malted from Great Western Malting where Teri used to work. So we’re closing the loop there. That’s very cool. From a brewer’s perspective, what are your first impressions of the malt?

Amanda (15:48):
Well, I start with just tasting it. It’s a damn good malt. It’s a good base malt, nothing bad to say about it at all. And looking at all of the technical stuff, which we can always get into further, it is a solid, solid base for brewers and for distillers.

Cheyenne (16:09):
That’s awesome. And let’s actually get a little bit into it. I know we could go down a rabbit hole of specifications and technical details, but regarding the malt specs, what makes this a great dual purpose malt for both brewing and distilling?

Amanda (16:23):
So all of the specs that you would see on your regular COA. For this distilling malt, it also hits all of the specs for most of our base malts that we put out there. Obviously some differences, but you can basically just treat this exactly the same as any base malt from Great Western as a brewer, at least. Color is wonderful, a nice 1.63 roughly. That gives you nice low color or a good base for any higher colors you want to go off of. Really, really good alpha amylase, really good low beta-glucan and high DP. So all of these specs are absolutely fantastic.

Heather (17:10):
So it’s just going to be like a perfect canvas for any beer you want to make?

Amanda (17:13):
Absolutely perfect candidate. Should not give you any problems. Lautering should not give you any problems really at all.

Heather (17:22):
Beautiful. Okay. I’m going to jump now to the pretty bag design because the first time I saw this I was so excited and I think pretty much anybody in the company that saw, we were on a meeting when it got shown to us and we all just had a total freak out about how cool this was.

Cheyenne (17:39):
We all gasped, I think, when we first saw it.

Heather (17:45):
Yeah, it’s just amazing. So our savior, Hailey, can you tell us a little bit about the design inspiration for this bag?

Hailey (17:53):
I really think when it comes to the bag, it’s a great example of how art imitates life. We had started thinking about the Pink Boots Malt in the middle of last summer. We had just gotten back from CBC in Nashville where we visited the Dolly Parton themed hotel. Highly recommend.

Heather (18:12):
Ten out of 10.

Hailey (18:15):
And like Cait said, our marketing team is all women, which is very special and powerful in a male dominated industry. However, none of us are pink girls, but neither was Teri Fahrendorf who started the Pink Boots Society. And if you’re not familiar with that story or where the name came from, definitely go back and listen to Season 4, Episode 6, “The Herstory of Brewing.”

(18:38)
Anyways, we were just really leaning into and loving the retro look and bright colors with pink. This was also the summer of “Barbie,” which I don’t think we really thought much about at the time, but reflecting on it now, art imitates life and the color pink really took on a whole new meaning and feeling after the movie. We wanted something fun and funky to represent the different personalities of the craft beverage world, and that’s where the Pink Boots small bag design came from.

(19:08)
And we’re really proud of the Pink and excited for the way it’ll stand out on pallets, on breweries and distillery shelves across North America. But what’s really special to us is within the design, the boot. Typically, when you think about Pink Boots Society, you imagine a pink rubber boot for brewing. But as a malting company, we have roots deep in the farming community. So we wanted a Western boot to represent, honor and celebrate our farmers. So from ideation to production to design, and even this initial brew, the Pink Boots Malt has been all woman led, and the bag represents these feelings of empowerment.

Heather (19:53):
I love it. And I am so excited to see these bags in the brewery. I’m going to expect everybody to A, be tagging us in their photos when they get it in there, or just be sending them to me directly because I will take them. I absolutely love them.

Hailey (20:07):
Yeah, we’re really excited about the bags. We’ve also teamed up with the Bountiful Bag Sisters in San Diego to turn the Pink Boots Malt bag into tote bags for giveaways later this month. So more information to come on how you can enter to win one of those beautiful tote bags to carry around whatever you need, your beer, your books, whatever. But also, if you’re not familiar with the Bountiful Bag, definitely check them out. They turn old malt bags into all kinds of bags and backpacks, duffle bags, and it’s a women-owned business, so we love that.

Heather (20:42):
We did get a chance to chat with them at CBC last year. They were on, I think, our “Live from CBC.” Episode three. Correct me if I’m wrong. And they’re amazing. And yeah, their work is just fantastic.

Cheyenne (20:54):
Their work is so cool, and I just love all of the bags that they do. I’m definitely going to have to try to get my hands on a Pink Boots bag that they make. [Inaudible 00:21:03]

Heather (21:03):
Oh, yeah. I’m going hard for a fanny pack if that happens. They make some pretty cool fanny packs.

Cheyenne (21:09):
They really do. And the bag is just going to look so cool. I’m very excited. Well, awesome. Well, thank you so much to Cait, Brandy, Shelly, Amanda and Hailey for giving us the inside scoop on our new Pink Boots Malt. The Pink Boots Malt will be available in limited volumes this year. It is currently making its way to our distribution centers across North America. You can reach out to your sales rep to be the first to know when it’s available. In honor of International Women’s Day, we are excited to host two inaugural Sister Brews with the Pink Boots Malt. One will be in Vancouver, Washington and the other in Calgary, Alberta. So let’s go check in on those brews now.

Heather (21:51):
And we are live at Cabin Brewing in Calgary, Alberta. It’s me, Heather. I know everybody probably missed me. And I’m joined by, I think I’ve said this a million times every time you’re on here, no stranger to the podcast.

Natasha (22:05):
I love it. I love coming back every time.

Heather (22:06):
Introduce yourself, madam.

Natasha (22:08):
Hi, I’m Natasha. I am one of the maltsters at Canada Malting Company.

Heather (22:14):
You also happen to be the president of the Pink Boots chapter in Canada.

Natasha (22:18):
Yes.

Heather (22:18):
And today we are launching and working with the Pink Boots Malt for the very first time.

Natasha (22:22):
Yes, very exciting.

Heather (22:24):
How excited are you about it?

Natasha (22:26):
It’s like through the roof, excited. This is something that I think has been on minds for a few years, and I’m just really excited to see it come to fruition and have everybody embrace it.

Heather (22:35):
Me too. I think one of the biggest things, and I think we said this in the beginning, this is the first time that something, all the proceeds, when it’s sold in Canada, all the proceeds are actually going to get to go to the Canadian chapter.

Natasha (22:45):
Yes.

Heather (22:45):
Can you let us know a little bit about what those proceeds are going to do for the Canadian chapter?

Natasha (22:50):
It’s going to make a world of difference. For the Canadian chapter, we try and have one very big-ticket, big exciting scholarship a year. And this is going to help support so many women and non-binary folks to go and not just have one scholarship winner, but multiple scholarship winners. So we’re really excited about it, and we’re really thankful for the support.

Heather (23:11):
Awesome. First impressions of the malt, as you’re a maltster in training, I believe, at this moment. So I know you didn’t get to work with this one. We’re hoping in the future years that we’re going to bring it up to Calgary to make it. But first impressions of the malt today.

Natasha (23:25):
I love it. It’s incredibly versatile. It’s light, white-bread kind of profile. Perfect base malt. I can’t wait to see what brewers and distillers do with it.

Heather (23:34):
Me as well. Well, thank you so much, Natasha. We’re going to get back to brewing.

Natasha (23:37):
Heck yeah. Have a great brew day everyone.

Heather (23:42):
All right, I’m back and I’m joined by Cass. Hi, Cass, how are you doing?

Cassandra (23:45):
Hi, I’m doing great, thanks.

Heather (23:47):
Introduce yourself.

Cassandra (23:48):
Okay. I’m Cassandra. I do sales for Cabin Brewing, and I’m really happy to be here.

Heather (23:54):
We’re really stoked that you’re here. So when we approached Cabin, I’ve been working with you guys for a really, really long time and we’re like, “Hey, we want to do a really cool brew to launch this malt.” Immediately Jonas is like, “Okay, well, you can talk to Cassandra.” Can you tell me a little bit about what goes into planning a Pink Boots Brew Day like we did today?

Cassandra (24:12):
Yeah, absolutely. So we have been open for five years and we’ve done a Pink Boots Brew every March 8th since we’ve opened. And it’s really important to us, it’s exciting to work with women in the industry and empower women in the industry. And so to put your money where your mouth is, is a big deal. So we were really stoked that you reached out to us. Thank you so much.

Heather (24:33):
Thank you for saying yes.

Cassandra (24:34):
Of course. Yeah, so we did it a little bit on a bigger scale this year. We wanted to do a full day. Thanks to you guys reaching out. We invited 15 ladies in the industry. So we’ve got everyone from brewers to tap room managers, sales, people who aren’t in the industry that are just like aficionados. And yeah, we’re just here to celebrate the day.

Heather (24:58):
And we really appreciate it. Any highlights of the day? I know we went to the malting facility today and got to do a tour. You got to listen to me talk about malt sensory for a while. I apologize. Any super big highlights of the day.

Cassandra (25:10):
Yeah, the malt facility was definitely topnotch.

Heather (25:13):
Yeah, it’s pretty cool.

Cassandra (25:15):
It was so exciting. It was so big. We got to go into the malt facility. We got to go into the grain bed itself, which is really exciting. So there was a lot of smiles. It was awesome. It was very informative. And it’s really cool to see where the malt comes from.

Heather (25:29):
Awesome. Well, thank you again for organizing all of this. Thank you to Cabin for hosting us today. And oh, what kind of beer did we make? We should probably tell people that. Let’s talk a little bit about the beer before I cut this off. Sorry, Hailey.

Cassandra (25:42):
Yes. So we are doing a Cascadian Dark Ale. It is a black IPA of sorts. So it’s a perfect beer to kind of showcase the malt that you guys are so generously donating to this, as well as the hops that we are using through Yakima Chief Hops. Both are being donated to Pink Boots chapters. And so we thought it was a fun style to showcase the ingredients that we’re working with.

Heather (26:07):
Awesome. And when can we expect the release?

Cassandra (26:10):
Three weeks from now. So I’m thinking the end of March.

Heather (26:13):
Awesome. We will obviously have that all over social media. Everybody take a look for it because proceeds are going to be going to the Pink Boots chapter. Awesome. Well, thank you. Oh, can you tell everybody what your name pitch for this beer was? Because I think it was amazing.

Cassandra (26:27):
Yeah, well I said Cascadian Dark Ale and nobody went for it.

Heather (26:33):
I would’ve voted for it. I definitely voted for it. Well, thank you so much for everything today. Yeah. We’ve been so excited and this has been great. We’ll talk to you soon.

Cassandra (26:39):
Thank you.