Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

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96: Narrow Gauge Brewing Co.‘s Jeff Hardesty: Exploring Individuality and Expression in Hazy and Sour IPAs Aug 16, 2019

Show notes

The cofounder of St. Louis’ most popular brewer of progressive hazy styles shares the techniques and philosophy behind their sought-after beers, and debunks some misperceptions in the process.

Creating a sense of unique character and difference within a popular beer style like hazy IPA can be a challenge for brewers, but for Jeff Hardesty and Narrow Gauge Brewing, the answer is nonstop experimentation and testing on their small 6 bbl brewhouse. In this episode, he discusses how they move beyond the “easy button” hops (Citra, Mosaic, Galaxy) and blend hops for unique flavor expressions, how trial and error led them to ditch expensive hops in the whirlpool in favor of less expensive bittering hops, using a less-common British ale strain for fermentation that provides an alternate to more standard London Ale III or Conan flavors, the ways they use different base malts to achieve flavor goals and create differentiation, how they construct complex recipes that delicately balance acidity, sweetness, hops, and fruit in sour fruited IPAs, and more.

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95: The Referend's James Priest: Process, Pitfalls, and Methodology When Brewing with a Mobile Coolship Aug 09, 2019

Show notes

The Referend Bier Blendery uses its own mobile coolship and other people's breweries to create spontaneously fermented beers. In this episode, founder James Priest talks about process, pitfalls, and working in the elements and his relationship with farmers to secure the best produce possible. From pre-acidification methods, to using the right wood, Priest dives into his methodology.

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94: Main & Mill Brewing Co.‘s Denny Foster & Brandon Bischoff: Building Compelling But Drinkable Imperial and Barrel-Aged Stouts Aug 02, 2019

Show notes

The brewing duo behind Festus, Missouri’s local brewpub-turned-stout factory share their thoughts on adding adjuncts to stouts, blending batches, parti-gyle brewing, and more.

When he launched the business in 2011, Main & Mill cofounder Denny Foster had no idea they’d be bottling barrel-aged stouts that would be shipped around the country by zealous traders. The goal at that point was a standard local brewpub with great beer and great food—a place for locals to enjoy some pints and each others’ company. But by the time they opened in 2014 (delayed by a painful three year renovation of a historic building), the market had already changed. Foster, and head brewer Brandon Bischoff embarked on a two-pronged strategy of lower ABV beers on tap for their local audience and bigger, bolder bottled beers for a metro Saint Louis audience that craved imperial stouts. Here, they discuss what they’ve learned over the past few years fo brewing big beers on a very small pub system—building base recipes for big stouts, adding adjunct ingredients by using a keg as brink for high-intensity infusions then dosing the blend back into the main tank to achieve the perfect balance, using small-scale blending and beer specifically brewed for characteristics like body to tweak other batches, making the most of a small brew system by using the parti-gyle process to get more beers out of each mash, the importance of naming and descriptions in selling beer, using natural extracts along with natural ingredients to heighten aroma in flavored beers, and the arms race around stout body that’s forcing brewers to rethink the balance of drinkability.

“We’re still trying to find that happy medium,” says Foster, “where people in the industry don’t say it’s thin, but it’s still able to be drinkable where you can also enjoy it, share, and not feel like your eyes are blown back because it’s essentially just a few points away from Hershey’s syrup. We’re always trying to figure that out.”

Note- at approximately the 23 minute mark, Foster intended to say that Ethiopian coffee was more prototypical “coffee” flavor, as opposed to the more fruity and acidic Guatemalan coffee.

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93: Batch Brewing's Chris Sidwa: Keeping the Creative Spark Alive in Australia Jul 26, 2019

Show notes

When you’re more than 2,000 miles from the nearest country there’s a tendency to rely on all things local. That’s what Batch Brewing Co., a Sydney, Australia brewery has in mind when it is creating recipes. From supporting local maltsters to getting the pick of Southern Hemisphere hops, cofounder Chris Sidwa talks about why he’s happy to stay local and what that can mean for the overall health of his business.

An American who moved down under a decade ago and is now back on his native soil, he talks about brewery growth, burnout, and how owning a business can take a toll on creativity. How can brewery owners keep that creative spark alive among all the paperwork? It might be a return to their roots.

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92: Casey Brewing & Blending's Troy Casey: Funk, Fruit, and Fermentation Jul 19, 2019

Show notes

Troy Casey has built a reputation for his eponymously-named brewery by crafting gorgeously nuanced mixed-fermentation farmhouse ales and thoughtfully edited wild and sour beers (many with fruit sourced from local growers and processed by hand). In this conversation, he discusses his approach to open fermentation, using hops to control acidity in mixed culture and sour beers, the seasonal impacts of temperature on his brewing process, acid production in smaller versus larger vessels, blending and selecting barrels of base beer for fruit additions, working with local growers to secure not just the highest quality but the most characterful fruit, the processes by which he selects and macerates fruit, and even how the trauma of processing fruit has impact his own fruit consumption. With a new-ish brewhouse now fully operational and a second (downtown) taproom on the way, he’s making the inverse leap of many brewers by adding non-sour styles to their brewing lineup, and discusses that development as well.

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91: Outer Range Brewing’s Lee Cleghorn: Troubleshooting Cross-Contamination in the Brewhouse and Designing Progressive IPAs Jul 12, 2019

Show notes

It’s been a tough week for Frisco, Colorado’s Outer Range Brewing. Less than a week ago, customers notified the brewery of an unexpected Belgian-ish flavor in the week’s IPA release. After testing and confirming cross-contamination by one of their aggressive saison yeast strains, the brewery notified customers of a voluntary recall and dumped almost 4,000 gallons of beer fermenting in tanks, then cleaned the brewhouse and cranked up the brewing schedule to fill those tanks again. In this candid conversation, cofounder and head brewer Lee Cleghorn discusses their challenges in troubleshooting the cross-contamination and the aggressive steps they’ve taken to recover from the setback. The conversation then turns to their creative process on IPA design and brewing, yeast choice, driving attractive esters from New England-style IPA yeasts, blending unexpected Noble hops into progressive IPA hops blends, the effects of warm dry hopping temperatures on their dry hopped saisons, and more.

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90: Root Down Brewing's Steve Bischoff: Developing the Great American Beer Festival American IPA Gold Medal Winner Jul 05, 2019

Show notes

Steve Bischoff, lead brewer at Root Down Brewing Co. knows a thing or two about traditional American IPA. Last year he won gold at the Great American Beer Festival in the category and nabbed best mid-side brewer and mid-size brewery in the process. He talks about developing the Bine recipe, layering hop flavors, and why the usual boil times and addition don’t work for him.

Bischoff, a long-time brewer in Eastern, Pennsylvania for places including Sly Fox, opens up on keeping the creative process top-of-mind and how it’s led to experimentation with new ingredients and processes.

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89: Modern Times' Jacob McKean: Growing a Brewery and a Brand Takes Patience and Determination Jun 28, 2019

Show notes

The founder of Modern Times Beer talks about how his homebrewing hobby led him into the beer industry and different jobs before starting his own company. Now, with a growing number of breweries and tasting rooms, he advocates for opening in well-saturated and savvy beer areas because the friction of competition keeps his brewery sharp.

This episode is brought to you by:
CraftBeer.com (http://craftbeer.com): This episode is brought to you by CraftBeer.com, whose mission is to tell the stories behind America’s small and independent breweries and the cities and businesses that support them.

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88: Allagash Brewing’s Jason Perkins: Belgian Tradition Meets American Creativity in Everything from Wit to Spontaneous and Funky Beers Jun 21, 2019

Show notes

Over his two decade tenure at Allagash, Jason Perkins has made a mark on the world of brewing. The Portland, Maine brewery is best known for their Belgian-style beers, from the iconic witbier Allagash White to their groundbreaking forays into spontaneous fermentation with the Coolship Resurgam series. In this episode, Perkins discusses mash and process regimens for haze stability, the impact of various inputs on ester production in Belgian yeasts, controlling time and temperature for more consistent results in spontaneous beer, blending strategies for sour beer, adding fruit in horizontal tanks to improve contact and extraction, working with Brettanomyces, and more.

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87: Modist Brewing’s Keigan Knee: Brewing Otherwise Impossible Beers Using a Mash Filter Jun 14, 2019

Show notes

Mash filters are common in commercial brewing—most large-scale commercial breweries use them—but they’re far, far less common in craft brewing. While most breweries use them to maximize efficiency, Modist Brewing (Minneapolis, Minnesota) cofounder and head brewer Keigan Knee has pushed in a different direction, using them to produce IPAs with no barley (only wheat and oats) or pushing the percentage limits on alternate grains like spelt. The result is unique-tasting beers that surprise and delight. In this episode, Knee discusses the mash filter process and unique design considerations, the finer points of malt in designing hoppy beers, layering cryo and T-90 hops of the same variety on top of each other for heightened effect, locking in flavors using cryo hops on the hot side, designing fruited beers to finish at the same gravities as that fruit, and wood prep processes for foeder-aged lagers.

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