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Larry Horwitz joins me this week to discuss

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wit beer and light lagers. This is beer

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Smith podcast number 285

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your host and the author of home brewing with

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beer Smith Brad Smith

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This is beer Smith podcast number 285 and it's late July

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2023 Larry Horwitz joins me this week to discuss

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wit beer and light lager

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And now let's jump into this week's

2:06

episode. Today on the show,

2:08

I welcome Larry Horowitz from Crooked Hammock

2:11

Brewery.

2:12

Larry has served as a board member for the Brewers Association

2:14

and president of the MBAA for two districts.

2:16

He chairs the draft beer quality

2:19

subcommittee for the BA

2:20

and is a judge for both GABF and World

2:22

Beer Cup. Larry is currently the head

2:25

brewer at Crooked Hammond. Larry, it's

2:27

great to have you on the show. How are you doing? I'm

2:29

doing great, Brad. How about you? You enjoying

2:31

your summer? Pleasure. Yeah, it's a nice day. People

2:35

might know it on the video. I'm coming from a remote location,

2:37

undisclosed remote location here. So you

2:40

just made it home, right?

2:44

Yeah, I did. We had a busy day

2:46

today. And it's funny,

2:48

my wife's at the pool. So I swung by for

2:50

just a hot second. She's like, get in the pool. I'm like, oh, I get to

2:52

talk to Brad now. That's

2:55

awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking the time

2:57

to be here. And my pleasure.

3:00

It's great to have you on first time guests.

3:02

So I thought I might start by just asking you

3:04

a little bit about your background.

3:06

You've got some 30 years or

3:09

over 30 years of brewing, right?

3:11

Yeah, this 1992 was my first

3:14

year in the industry as a commercial brewer. So

3:16

we're just a hair over 30 right

3:18

now, which is kind of scary to think about,

3:21

right? Like, you know, I was

3:23

talking to an old friend of mine

3:25

today. So

3:26

Jim Lutz works for a draft

3:28

install company here in the mid-Atlantic

3:30

called AC Beverage. And Jim

3:33

famously ran

3:36

Flying Dog for a minute and owned Wild Goose for a while.

3:38

In any case, been in the mid-Atlantic beer business

3:40

for a long time. And

3:41

it's his birthday tomorrow.

3:43

And we were, you know, we get to

3:46

stop for a second and reflect about how long

3:48

we were in the business. And his wife is a lovely woman.

3:50

Well, what's different? And I'm like, well, pretty

3:53

much everything. I

3:55

think there were there were 600 breweries

3:58

in America, maybe in 1990s. I'm gonna get it.

3:59

get that number wrong, but it was small enough that

4:02

everybody knew everybody. Right.

4:03

And, uh, you know, I, I joke

4:06

a little bit, uh, tongue planted in cheek

4:08

that, you know, I, I manage a great group

4:11

of, uh, of, uh, younger men, not,

4:13

not, not boys, certainly. Um, and

4:16

every once in a while they're like, well, it couldn't have been that much

4:18

harder. And Jim actually said to one of them

4:20

today, he's like, we literally had to invent

4:23

a lot of the stuff that you guys take.

4:25

And I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's, that's, that's

4:27

a great way to talk about it.

4:29

I mean, that is true. I, I started in 1987 and most of the knowledge, things

4:33

like IBUs

4:36

and color and all this other stuff that we take

4:38

for granted, you can estimate now. None of that

4:40

existed at that time. Most of that research

4:42

was done in the early 1990s.

4:45

Oh yeah. I mean, the,

4:47

the, the research that existed

4:49

was all around, you know, eight and a half

4:51

Plato 10, IBU, Lager

4:53

beer and mostly focused on how to make

4:55

it faster and cheaper.

4:57

Yeah. Yeah. And

4:59

the Japanese were doing some fun stuff. And,

5:01

and you know, if you could read German, then you could get

5:03

a copy of Kuntzer

5:05

or, or maybe even the declared books and, and,

5:07

and

5:08

learn how beer was made in Southern Germany. But

5:10

other than that, you know, people like Ken Grossman

5:13

and,

5:13

and Fritz Maytag and,

5:15

and the folks that full sail and on

5:17

the East coast, you know, uh, Ches

5:20

Bay and Alan young and that group were

5:22

literally inventing, uh,

5:24

how to, I don't want to say they invented how to

5:26

make beer or we invented how to make beer. It's that,

5:29

you know, the industry was not targeted at customers

5:32

are side, right? Like, you

5:34

know, if you didn't have a rail siding

5:36

to unload mall, how did you get mall? Right?

5:38

You know, you

5:39

had to find somebody who would either give you a little

5:41

bit out of their silos plural or

5:43

their rail siding.

5:45

Or, you know, when, when Roger Breece started to

5:47

bag, uh,

5:48

that the urging of Mary Ann Gruber started to bag mall

5:51

in Chilton, Wisconsin, uh,

5:52

and would sell it to small breweries. It was a

5:54

huge deal, you know, I, and,

5:57

and I joke with somebody recently

5:59

who.

5:59

was humping a bunch of 50 pound sacks. Cause we have

6:02

silos at two of our larger locations.

6:04

Like, ah man, I had to move like 20 bags of grain

6:06

today. I'm like, yeah, we used to have to take

6:09

half truckloads back

6:10

just to get it delivered, you know, months of them

6:13

all.

6:13

And we would unload them by hand on

6:15

the side cobble road into a basement.

6:18

And then everything had to come back up out of the

6:20

basement by hand, you know?

6:22

And he was like, yeah, the uphill both

6:24

ways in the snow, right? Yeah.

6:27

Yeah. Well, um, go

6:29

ahead Larry, I'm sorry. I think the

6:31

biggest change is just the sheer number

6:34

of brews. Right?

6:35

And I mean, that sounds obvious, but it's

6:37

interesting.

6:38

You know, the Brewers Association has a statistic

6:41

that, and I don't remember the mileage number, but it's

6:43

in the single digits. Like some

6:46

shocking number of Americans

6:48

live within about 10 miles of a brewery.

6:50

And a bunch of us live within 10 miles

6:52

of a bunch of brews. And I think

6:54

that's amazing.

6:57

Yeah. I looked up the numbers the other

6:59

day, I think it was on the order of 9,400 breweries, roughly

7:02

in the US now.

7:03

Pretty big number. Sounds

7:05

right. I talked to the people at the Brewers

7:07

Association regularly for all kinds of reasons.

7:09

And

7:10

often to Dr. Bart Watson, who's

7:12

their economist.

7:13

And, you know, I'm like, what's the number today? And he's

7:15

like, you know, we think it's somewhere around 9,840.

7:19

But they, even they can't nail

7:21

the number. They have an entire group of people

7:23

who spend a substantial portion of their

7:25

workday just calling breweries to find

7:27

out if they're open, right?

7:29

Breweries that either were closing

7:31

or maybe closed or maybe opened

7:33

or maybe didn't or maybe closed and then opened.

7:36

And so that's interesting. You

7:38

know,

7:39

in the early nineties, if a brewery

7:41

opened two states away, we all would get in the truck

7:43

and schlep over there, right? Yeah.

7:46

Like, great, somebody else.

7:48

Well, Larry, today you wanted to talk about Whipped

7:50

Beer and light lagers. And I thought maybe

7:52

we'd start with Whipped Beer.

7:55

Can you start by telling us a little bit about the style

7:58

and what makes it unique?

8:00

Yeah, absolutely. So I'll

8:02

go full stats nerd on you for just

8:04

a second, which is okay, you know because

8:07

of Keith Vila and Blue

8:09

Moon and

8:10

That particular style has

8:13

has become one of the number one selling

8:15

IRI Crafts use

8:18

in America, right and I'm I'm excited

8:20

about that for a lot of reasons one that group You

8:22

know say what you want about big breweries

8:24

or not

8:25

They do a great job of making a really interesting

8:27

beer and Introducing it to a

8:29

lot of people who've never seen it before and

8:32

and I've made or we've made a product

8:34

in that vein For you know, probably two

8:36

and a half decades at this point. I think I made my

8:38

first one

8:40

96 or 97 the style of course Originates

8:44

and from the town of who garden great Where

8:48

basically this was this was field

8:50

beer right beer beer for the city and

8:52

you know peer sell us Famously after

8:54

the style of course did what so many Western

8:57

European styles did, you know, kind

8:59

of just Became obsolete

9:01

for all the reasons, you know businesses

9:04

go under because small family

9:06

breweries don't have an heir apparent to

9:08

run the brewery or you

9:10

know and pressures from World Wars

9:12

and then of course economic pressures in the 80s and

9:15

90s and

9:16

My introduction to wit beer

9:18

was from here. He's no longer with

9:20

us. But you know He

9:22

was given a talk somewhere around Columbus, Ohio

9:25

I don't even remember the exact location anymore

9:27

because it doesn't exist it was it was

9:29

turned into an arena and

9:31

you know his this this

9:34

You know very nice man who's who's

9:37

trying to resurrect the style of the town

9:39

that he grew up in and

9:40

and I would say He succeeded based

9:42

on the information that you know,

9:44

the number one Irai crafts skew

9:47

in America is a whip here

9:49

So this is this is Farmhand

9:51

beer, right? This is

9:52

you know famously made with not just a

9:54

malted barley, but usually with raw

9:57

wheat and

9:58

also famously flake

10:00

dotes, I mean, common breweries

10:03

today are using flake dotes for the haze

10:05

reason,

10:06

which I think is interesting, right? Because,

10:08

you know, it's a group at Louvlyn that does

10:10

all the research, I think in the early

10:13

2000s, to figure out that the haziest

10:16

grain you can put in your beer is oat,

10:18

right, it has all the haze precursors and, and

10:20

all the long chain polysaccharides,

10:22

proteins,

10:24

and fats that that give a beer haze.

10:27

And for most of my career, we worked really hard to make beer

10:29

that wasn't hazy.

10:30

So we'll talk about that whole thing in

10:32

just a minute.

10:33

So, you know, Pierre's resurrection

10:35

of the style is famously

10:38

spiced with coriander and bitter

10:40

and sweet orange peel. And

10:41

there, you know, I think a lot of people

10:44

missed the idea that

10:45

these were small producers, not just

10:48

farm house breweries, even small commercial breweries.

10:50

So the spices that went into the whip

10:52

beer, especially around the Tona Tona Hoo Garden, and

10:54

I can't remember the number, but I think there were seven or eight

10:56

breweries in town when it was a

10:59

day, didn't all use the same spices.

11:01

I joke with the young men

11:03

who work with and for me

11:05

that, you know, they're like, well, this is a traditional whip

11:07

beer. And I'm like, well, I agree with

11:09

you. But which tradition? You

11:11

know, I think this is great. You know,

11:14

you know, the gentleman who wrote the What about Barkley

11:16

Perkins book, he did the deep dive and all

11:18

the British brew logs, why can't I think

11:21

it's

11:22

name? But in any case, I

11:24

think that the research that he did, sure, I'll get

11:27

the book of the show. We'll get his name in a little bit. But

11:30

it's Ron, Ron Pattinson. Yep,

11:32

Ron Pattinson. A number

11:35

of times actually.

11:36

Oh, that's great. I need to beat

11:38

Ron.

11:39

And Ron did this thing, which I thought

11:41

was amazing. He went to a brewery and

11:43

I'm coming back to whip beer. I promise. Ron went to

11:45

this with the Berkeley persons

11:47

and a few other British breweries. And and

11:49

I think there's

11:51

something about the collegial

11:53

nature of our industry that's amazing. Brewers

11:56

talk to each other. And we share

11:58

secrets. I mean, there's always

11:59

a few people who keep things tucked in their pocket.

12:02

But we talk to each other

12:04

because I think we all tacitly

12:07

understand that we're better together.

12:10

And so Ron does this thing where he goes

12:12

and looks at just one beer from

12:15

this brewery, and you can see the iteration

12:18

over generations. And so

12:20

I find it interesting that especially in America,

12:22

crappers say, well, I want to make

12:24

a traditional British bitter, right?

12:27

And he's really shone

12:29

a light on the fact that, well, from

12:32

what decade or what year or what

12:34

brewery or what latitude.

12:36

Yeah, Ron was telling me that, you know, the

12:39

bitters changed during

12:41

the interwar years, and they also changed even

12:44

when they started raising taxes, for example.

12:47

Oh, yeah, totally, right. But the idea

12:49

which I think he has illuminated

12:52

for us is that, you know, beer

12:55

moves, it changes throughout time.

12:57

So when my team was putting

12:59

together and developing the recipe for the whip beer,

13:02

I got to talk to my group and be like, like,

13:04

well, we're gonna make a traditional whip beer. And I'm

13:06

like, well, which tradition, right? I

13:09

mean, you know, where we where

13:11

we ended up is in the

13:14

in the pure cell center of patient with beer, right,

13:16

which I think is pretty commonly held now. And

13:18

I really enjoy that style with, you know, with

13:21

a really beautiful Pilsner Mall as the base,

13:24

white North American wheat mall. I'm a

13:27

fan

13:27

of that. I think the red wheat is sweet

13:30

and round and soft. But

13:31

there's something about the white wheat that I think just adds

13:33

some character to here. I mean, it's a white beer,

13:35

right? And then, of course, raw wheat and, and

13:38

famously the spices of a sweet or bitter

13:40

orange peel, and a little bit of coriander and

13:42

are not so secret, secret spice, we dip

13:45

a little bit of,

13:46

we dip a little bit of grades of paradise in

13:48

there, because I think that adds some character to beer.

13:51

But you know, it's,

13:53

it's interesting, because we've gone through this cycle

13:55

recently, where everybody is kind of chasing

13:57

strong, poppy beer. And I'm a fan of beer. And I'm a fan of beer. And I'm a

13:59

fan of beer. I'm not going to judge too

14:01

harshly, but we have been

14:03

trying to really tick back a

14:05

little

14:08

bit towards some

14:10

more drinkable, sessionable,

14:14

lighter traditional styles. You

14:17

can see the hoppity in the market and

14:19

why we still make and sell love beautiful

14:21

hoppy beer. As a matter

14:23

of fact, I had a New England IPA before we sat

14:25

down. As a matter of fact, I did a very

14:28

bad job of planning here. I should have brought a beer in.

14:30

I

14:33

can't drink five of those,

14:35

not that anybody probably ought to,

14:37

but there was a time in my life as

14:39

a younger man where that was a relatively

14:42

responsible evening. Can't do it.

14:45

I think there are a lot of people out there who, whether

14:47

they can or can't, it's really not relevant.

14:49

They want to drink beer that's a little

14:51

bit different. We've seen a whole resurgence

14:54

in craft breweries making a larger

14:56

beer, which we'll talk about here

14:58

in a second. I think

15:01

it's the puzzle I'm trying to swing back just

15:03

a little bit.

15:04

I find whipped beer to be a very drinkable,

15:06

enjoyable beer. In

15:08

fact, a lot of my friends

15:11

that aren't into craft beer

15:13

still can enjoy a whipped beer.

15:16

In

15:18

the olden days of the 80s and 90s, we talked

15:20

a lot about transition beers. If

15:23

your brewery only made three or four beers, which

15:25

most of us only did because we had one or

15:27

two or four fermenters.

15:29

We had to make

15:31

a friend of mine made a beer

15:33

they called Bill Payer Ale. I

15:36

was a little on the nose, but also it was

15:38

a good introduction to

15:39

people who would walk into the pub and

15:42

tap rooms weren't really a thing there. We were mostly

15:44

brewery restaurants

15:45

in the craft beer industry. If we weren't small microbreweries

15:48

and they'd say, well, can I get a Bud Light?

15:50

Can I get a Miller Light? Can I get a High Life? Can

15:52

I get a Bud Heavy?

15:54

The answer was, no, we make our own beer

15:56

here.

15:57

The question is,

15:59

what do you have?

15:59

like that. And, and, and,

16:02

you know, the answer to that is a mixed bag, at least

16:04

in the in late 80s, in the early 90s, based

16:06

on the kind of equipment that you could afford. And,

16:09

and did you have the space and time to make lager?

16:12

I think Whitbeer falls into an interesting space

16:14

in between, right? It's still low in flavor

16:16

impact, but complex. It's,

16:19

it's got sweet multi flavors,

16:22

but enough

16:23

dryness and spiciness, keep

16:25

somebody who

16:25

might enjoy one of those premium

16:28

American lagers interested. So,

16:31

you know, we don't really talk about it anymore internally

16:34

as a transition product. I really think, great,

16:36

you know, if my brother in law who really likes

16:39

to crush and the natural light, can

16:41

pick one up and say, Yeah, it tastes pretty

16:43

good. I think I think we're on the right path.

16:45

But, you know, plus, it's

16:48

a sneaky seller. Our

16:51

staff suddenly has is drinking it. Right?

16:53

Where I mean, we're famously at the beach, right?

16:55

And,

16:56

and it's, it's kind of tough to tuck

16:58

down a crawler of,

16:59

you know, 100, IBU ish, West

17:02

Coast IPA on a 95 degree day.

17:07

Well, let's dive into actually brewing

17:10

one. And I guess I want to start with the grain bill. And you did

17:12

talk about the use of unmalted wheat

17:14

and oats, both very important here.

17:17

Unmalted wheat, I find very interesting,

17:19

because it's really not that fermentable,

17:21

right? And there's a large percentage use.

17:24

Yeah, I mean, let you know,

17:26

there's, there's this

17:27

interesting idea around hot

17:29

American malt, right? So

17:31

gone are the days when most of our grain

17:34

bills include under modified malt, you

17:36

know, I,

17:37

we buy premium

17:39

domestic Pilsner malt, and

17:41

it's still 120 140 degrees. Right? I mean, this

17:45

stuff nearly glows in

17:47

the dark with enzymatic power. So, you know,

17:50

we all know that

17:51

the alpha and beta amylase that

17:53

are in our mashes,

17:55

mostly can't

17:57

break down sections, right? Anything

17:59

more than about 6 glucose units

18:01

from the 1,6 bond in

18:04

the

18:05

starch molecule or the amylose

18:08

or amylopectin molecule. But

18:10

there's so much enzymatic power

18:12

that we still get a pretty decent amount

18:14

of starch conversion to extract.

18:16

At the very least, we're

18:18

getting solids that we're measuring.

18:21

Just out of curiosity, what percentage

18:23

of unmalted wheat are you using?

18:25

We're around 25%.

18:28

I think

18:30

that it wants to be a pretty decent

18:32

chunk of this grist bill. We're

18:35

a little on the high side. We are 60% non-based

18:37

malt. Wow.

18:40

So we use a lot of oats too

18:42

then, I guess. Yeah, we are. Because I

18:44

brewed wit before with 40% unmalted

18:47

wheat, but of course I don't use oats typically.

18:50

Yep. Oats are

18:52

interesting, right? I think that the

18:55

flavor is pretty pronounced.

18:56

I used

18:59

to keep the oat load down because

19:02

for a long time early in my career, we were

19:04

really chasing clear beer almost all the time,

19:06

even in the unfiltered beers. People

19:09

didn't want to see a sludgy beer. They didn't mind

19:11

a nice haze in a

19:13

heff of ice or a

19:16

few of the Belgian styles where you would expect it. But

19:18

as a rule, you didn't want a sludge.

19:21

So we kept the oat load down,

19:23

but I think we all understand that

19:26

that permanent haze is really reinforced

19:28

by the use of oats. So

19:31

we're buying it in large

19:33

quantities now, especially for the New England IPA styles.

19:36

And so we leaned in a little bit and said,

19:38

let's focus on the adjuncts for this beer. Plus,

19:41

we have a couple of louder tons in our company that can

19:43

take that beta glucany mess. That's

19:46

a big gummy mess. We do work

19:49

a little bit

19:50

with rice hulls.

19:51

Everybody's

19:53

got to get home at the end of the workday. Every

19:56

once in a while,

19:58

somebody's not paying close attention to the cry.

20:01

at the mill, we run into a problem where we're

20:03

like, well, it looks like it's gonna be a four hour louder,

20:05

right? It is one of the stickier

20:07

beers to mash, that's for sure.

20:09

Yeah, absolutely. But Knockwood,

20:12

we're coming out around 12th Play-Doh.

20:14

So we're not overloading our

20:16

mash tons. I think that there's a, I

20:18

don't think I know this, that there's a geometry

20:21

problem in both craft brew and mash

20:23

louder combos, right?

20:25

They tend to be made the size

20:27

that the brewery equipment manufacturer thought

20:30

was convenient for shipping

20:31

and not necessarily

20:33

convenient for brewing.

20:35

When the diameter

20:37

of a louder ton is the same in your little

20:39

brew house as the diameter of your brew kettle,

20:42

I twitch a little bit, right?

20:44

We have one brewery that has

20:46

that geometry problem and he's gotta use rice

20:48

hulls.

20:50

He's gotta use rice hulls. What

20:53

are your thoughts on yeast? I

20:56

know some of them have a slightly

20:58

from all I take to them.

21:00

Almost approaching a Bavarian wit and

21:02

other ones are a lot cleaner.

21:04

We like, I like personally. So

21:07

I guess

21:07

I don't wanna speak for my whole team, although everybody seems

21:09

to be drinking the beer. I like a fairly phenolic

21:12

whip here.

21:12

I want people to understand that

21:15

there's a complex flavor here, right?

21:17

So we're using the

21:19

yeast that Pierre Sallis used famously. It's

21:22

available commonly and commercially at all

21:24

the labs. We

21:26

buy it from four or five different sources

21:29

depending on availability and time of the year. But

21:32

everybody I think is familiar with, I've

21:34

tried to think of it, man, I can't remember the number. White

21:37

Labs, I think it's

21:38

WLP. Well, 500 is Chame, it's maybe 530.

21:42

But it's the

21:44

Pierre Sallis strength, which he

21:46

got from,

21:49

well, I don't remember where exactly he got it, but

21:51

it seems that the lure is,

21:53

he got it from a bottle of beer somewhere in or

21:55

around the town that he grew up in,

21:58

or more likely, and this is probably the. real story,

22:00

it got nicked by one of the big yeast catalogs,

22:03

right? So it either either came from Vychefon,

22:05

who famously keeps that stuff, or maybe

22:07

even the Bandiac catalog at Molson

22:09

Miller course, there's, there's a whole

22:12

bunch of sneaky yeast

22:14

libraries floating around the world.

22:16

And I've been very fortunate that

22:18

people will usually let us in on that.

22:20

It's again, it's 30 years later.

22:22

And now if you need yeast, you don't have to, you

22:25

don't have to drive two hours up the road to borrow

22:28

some from the commercial brewer, who's a friend of yours,

22:30

you just pick up the phone and stuff shows up in two days.

22:33

And it's really high quality.

22:34

I'm

22:37

waiting for someone and I can't believe I'm

22:39

gonna say this out loud, because if you'd have told me

22:41

I was gonna say this 30 years ago, I would tell

22:43

you crazy, we have started

22:45

to spend more time experimenting

22:49

with and using regularly the really

22:52

stunningly high quality commercial

22:54

dry yeast that is suddenly available.

22:56

I mean, I think we all read Charlie's book

22:59

or or other publications early

23:01

in our home brewing and commercial brewing

23:03

careers that basically said take the yeast that's on the

23:05

can and throw it away. You

23:09

know, back in the 90s, that was a good advice.

23:11

But

23:12

but as you point out, the quality of the dry yeast

23:15

is substantially better now.

23:16

It's shocking, actually. And

23:18

I'm glad about that. That's innovation I didn't

23:21

expect in our I'm pretty, I'm

23:23

pretty stoked So we traditionally

23:25

we use the we use the PR cell stream

23:28

of who garden with with you.

23:31

One thing that I do that a lot of other people don't

23:33

do

23:33

is we ferment that beer very

23:36

warm.

23:36

I'm leaning into the phenolic.

23:39

And I do one other thing that accentuates

23:41

the extra package, which is

23:43

we use about 5% dexterous. And

23:46

I think it has

23:49

two things happen when we do that that

23:51

that I love. One of them is it

23:53

helps with the attenuation, right? Yeah, it

23:56

is my opinion, and the opinion of

23:58

some pretty famous people.

23:59

in the beer world that the degree of apparent

24:02

attenuation

24:03

is a pretty good indicator of the drinkability

24:06

of beer.

24:07

I think that we all know about

24:10

this idea that a lot of home

24:12

brewers who are famously underpitched

24:14

yeast for the last 20 years or so, we're

24:17

getting better about that,

24:19

would get under attenuated beer,

24:21

which is not necessarily

24:23

a terrible thing. And we're talking about, I'm slicing

24:25

hairs here a little bit, right? We're talking about the

24:27

difference between four Play-Doh and two Play-Doh

24:30

on 12 Play-Doh beer. So it's

24:32

by percentage a pretty decent amount, but we

24:34

get variability just because fermentation

24:36

is a biological process of plus or minus

24:39

as much as a half a degree Play-Doh, even

24:41

on this beer. But I love using the dextrose

24:43

because it spins out the body just a little bit. It

24:46

punches the alcohol just a tiny bit.

24:48

We don't use it for cost reasons.

24:50

Somebody was harassing me about that. They're like, ah,

24:53

you're cheap in the beer when you put dextrose in it. I'm like, yeah,

24:55

we pay a buck a pound for dextrose. Marshall

24:58

L.

25:17

So

25:23

I'm not going to

25:24

go through, uh, in the Whirlpool, uh, just

25:26

a tiny bit at a low enough threshold that

25:28

it blends in my opinion, nicely with the spices.

25:31

And you know, those, that, that hot tends to be subtle,

25:33

a little steeder in my opinion, a little wildflower.

25:35

Um,

25:36

on the front end, I bitter almost

25:38

exclusively with, uh, Columbus

25:41

Tomahawk Zeus. Um,

25:43

you know, we used to talk about those

25:45

three hops separately, but because of a bunch of patent

25:47

fights and, and, and, and,

25:49

and the ability to do relatively

25:52

inexpensive genetic work, I think we all kind of understand that

25:54

that's all almost the same. Hop CTC.

25:56

Yeah. Yeah. You know, low cohumulone,

25:59

high.

25:59

Alpha, I try to keep the green

26:02

matter low in the Whirlpool and

26:04

in the kettle here because we're looking for good yield.

26:07

I think it provides a really nice,

26:09

soft, fine bitterness.

26:12

I am not of the

26:14

school of thought that one should only use

26:16

low Alpha varieties for bittering.

26:18

I think you can back yourself into a corner with that

26:20

idea.

26:21

I once made a check Pilsner

26:23

and I said, I'm interested in this idea. It

26:26

sounds great, makes sense.

26:28

We're going to try it.

26:29

And for a while in the early 2000s,

26:31

I don't remember exactly when, but Alpha

26:34

asked on the Noble Hot Fries, it just bottomed

26:36

out.

26:37

We were getting we were getting size, I think, at like 2% Alpha.

26:40

And so we made this check

26:42

Pilsner and this was before

26:45

the four pounds for barrel dry off and four

26:47

pounds for barrel in the Whirlpool days.

26:49

And we lost like 20% of the beer to

26:51

all this hop and it tasted a little

26:53

bit like fresh cut hay,

26:56

which was interesting, but it wasn't what we were going for.

26:59

All right, I made that shift,

27:01

you know, and from my big beer days,

27:04

you know, I spent a lot of time using hop

27:06

extracts, hop products

27:08

and what, you know, those

27:10

high Alpha varieties, which were mostly

27:12

paid. Their product development was either paid

27:14

for or asked for by the big brewers

27:17

for economic reasons. But

27:18

in this case, I think there's a really good flavor

27:20

reason to use a low cohumialone

27:23

high Alpha variety like that. I'm a fan of

27:25

a few others. TTZ is super

27:28

cost effective and I actually

27:30

happen to like the aroma of it.

27:32

We use it sparingly

27:35

as the makeup hop some of our IPAs

27:37

to keep the pine needle

27:39

tea and, you

27:42

know, the geronal flavors of

27:45

that you get out of cascade up. I think

27:47

it does a nice job of punching up that American

27:49

aroma.

27:50

In this case, we're not using it in that

27:52

way in this beer. So only two hop additions.

27:55

Basically, we boil for 90 minutes. We

27:57

use TTZ for bittering on the front end.

28:00

just south of 20 BUs. I think on

28:02

paper, we talk about it at the end,

28:04

but we all know that the math bounces around

28:06

a little bit.

28:07

Perceived bitterness is firm

28:09

but low. For spices, this is

28:16

a great story.

28:18

Obviously, we're using

28:20

coriander. We're in a part of

28:22

the world where there's a very famous spice

28:25

importer grinder and manufacturer called McCormick.

28:28

I won't

28:30

name the group, but I work for the group of people

28:33

who fought with me over this for a while. They're

28:36

like,

28:36

listen, I want the coriander

28:38

from the little Indian shop

28:40

at the corner of my neighborhood. I said,

28:43

well, that's interesting, but we're professionals

28:45

and we brew commercially and we need trackability

28:47

and traceability for the spices for safety

28:49

reasons and for government regulation reasons.

28:51

More importantly, I don't know how long

28:54

that coriander has been sitting in that store. This

28:57

is a problem sometimes with small special stores.

28:59

I have a friend who works for McCormick.

29:02

Obviously, we're

29:04

a brew pub group and at that time I worked for a different

29:06

group. We bought a lot of food

29:09

from companies that bought a lot of spices

29:11

for McCormick. McCormick's in Baltimore

29:13

and my friend said, hey, we've got a flavor

29:16

guy. Why don't we bring him out and

29:18

we'll panel a bunch of coriander.

29:20

I'm like, yes, I'm totally here.

29:23

He said, listen, send

29:25

your guy to his favorite store. Everybody go out

29:28

in the world, find coriander.

29:31

This is quite a while ago. These days I can

29:34

buy really beautiful coriander from two or three

29:36

of my major suppliers. I'm going to cut to

29:39

the end for one second. I'm still using McCormick coriander,

29:42

but we'll come back to that. He came

29:44

to us and he brought some beautiful spice grinders

29:47

and some flavor kits. We did a little sensory analysis

29:49

and sensory training, which I always love. Anytime

29:51

I can add value to my team, that way it's fun.

29:54

He said, I'm going to make preparations

29:57

of the nine or ten different corianders

29:59

that we have.

29:59

have here. And he set it out. And

30:02

then you know how this goes, right? It's the it's

30:04

the French wine paradox, everybody starts fighting

30:07

over which coriander is their coriander.

30:09

And I like cut it out.

30:11

We're not trying to see who won here. We're trying

30:13

to find the best coriander. So

30:14

we worked our way through the entire

30:17

thing.

30:18

And it turns out that the winning coriander is

30:20

the pre ground McCormick's that actually came out of the kitchen,

30:23

and the restaurant we were in that day. And,

30:25

you know, a lot of the team was really incredulous.

30:28

Man, I kind of disheartened by that.

30:30

And I'm like, well, don't be there. There

30:32

are two good takeaways here. One is that we've

30:34

got access responsibly and easily

30:37

to really stunning coriander. And then

30:39

the guy from McCormick put the bottle over and he's like, this

30:42

spice was ground two weeks. Yeah,

30:44

I think a lot of people don't think about the idea that

30:47

a spice has a shelf life rated the ground

30:50

and ground spice,

30:51

even lower. So we

30:53

are still buying pre ground McCormick,

30:55

usually through one of our food purveyors. You know,

30:57

we can it's available to us commercially and commercial

31:00

quantities.

31:01

Get it. And I think right

31:03

now in a roughly 10 barrel batch

31:05

of our wheat beer, we're using

31:07

around two pounds of coriander.

31:09

And it is just

31:10

beautiful, brilliant,

31:13

liminy product,

31:14

and extremely consistent. And,

31:17

you know, I think that not to plug that company

31:19

too shamelessly, because they they can they can

31:21

pat themselves on their own back. But they're

31:23

they they're buyer source, really

31:25

beautiful stuff.

31:26

And and I don't currently know where they're

31:29

getting it. But I know that they're good at that. And

31:31

we're stoked about that. So for

31:34

for bitter orange peel, we use here

31:36

a sale. I buy it from

31:40

it's available for a lot of places. You

31:42

know, we're not here to plug other businesses necessarily

31:45

on the show. But I enjoy Atlantic

31:47

spice or San Francisco spice company, I think.

31:50

And they resell to a couple of my

31:53

suppliers, they put out, they put

31:55

out two kinds of orange on the

31:57

sweet side that I really like.

31:59

And but just the orange,

32:01

the navel orange peel dried is really great.

32:04

And then blue,

32:07

curacao, not blue, bitter,

32:10

but crazy bad look of the sewer

32:12

is blue, right?

32:13

The bitter curacao orange peel, we use

32:15

a decent amount of that too.

32:16

And I think we might be up to even

32:19

a pound, a barrel for that. So there's a pretty substantial

32:21

spice load

32:23

in these products,

32:25

but I want people to feel

32:27

that. I mean, we try to make sure they're balanced in a way

32:29

where, you know, you never want to drink a beer where it's like flavor

32:32

space, flavor space, flavor.

32:34

If we've really done a good job. Fairly subtle,

32:36

I think, yeah.

32:37

Yeah, exactly. I mean, you were kind enough to send

32:40

some of the beer along and I enjoyed it. It

32:42

was really, really nice.

32:43

Oh, it's awesome. In the interest of time

32:45

though, I probably have to, we probably have to switch over to light lager

32:48

and discuss, you want to discuss

32:50

your light lager. And

32:52

so let's talk about that. What, you know,

32:55

how is this style, you know, really different than

32:57

a Pilsner, for example?

32:58

Well, I will

33:00

say we also make Pilsner, but, you

33:03

know, one of the things that my

33:05

company asked me to do when I came on board is they're like,

33:08

listen, we're ready to innovate a little bit

33:10

and we'd like to change the

33:12

portfolio beers we're making. And

33:15

that's always a fun project.

33:16

So I said, listen, we're going to

33:18

start with American premium.

33:21

And after some focus group work

33:24

and talking to people interior, they're like, we

33:27

had this desire, not just amongst the regular

33:31

employees of the company, but also the brew

33:33

staff. They're like, can you please build

33:35

for us a craft light

33:37

beer? And I said, I have a lot

33:39

of experience doing this. I would love to do that.

33:42

And I said, well, why? And the answer was we're

33:44

at the beach. And we get

33:46

a lot of first timers, a lot of

33:48

one timers who come in and they're interested in the

33:50

experience and they want to be in a brewery and that's awesome.

33:53

But, you know, they need a little help to

33:56

figure out what we're doing. And they'll walk right up to

33:58

the bar and say, Hey, can I get a... name

34:00

your favorite mass market beer. And that's

34:02

always a conversation, which is, hey, we

34:05

appreciate what those breweries are doing, but we

34:07

are a brewery. And if you went to

34:09

the Golden Colorado to the Coors plant,

34:12

they probably wouldn't serve my beer there. And

34:14

I don't feel, I understand that. I

34:17

said, so we're the same.

34:19

And so there was this idea,

34:22

they said, well, can we do that? And I said,

34:24

interestingly, this is a very difficult project,

34:27

right? We can say

34:29

what we want about

34:31

the flavor or lack thereof from

34:33

major market brands,

34:35

but they're extremely consistent

34:37

and their technical ability is very high.

34:39

So it was a good challenge for our team

34:42

to say, all right, how can we do that? And

34:44

I firmly believe that really beautiful lager

34:47

beer is managed in the cellar, right?

34:49

We can do a lot of work

34:52

to extract sugar from grain, but honestly,

34:54

it's not terribly difficult. It's a mechanical

34:56

process.

34:58

It's a biological process

35:00

that I think really separate

35:02

beautiful lager beer from okay

35:04

lager beer. There's a lot of brewers out there making

35:06

really solid beers.

35:09

Our goal was to make one that

35:11

if you were the consumer of a mass

35:13

market product

35:14

and you picked it up, you would find a flavor

35:17

profile that you identified with, rippingly

35:20

clean. But in

35:22

our case, we wanna make sure that there's still some

35:24

actual flavor beer.

35:26

So, part of the reason I'm passionate

35:28

about lager beer in general is

35:30

I cut my craft beer teeth at

35:33

working with and for a man named Alan Young,

35:35

famously of the Ches

35:37

Bay Brewery in Northern Virginia many

35:40

years ago. Alan

35:43

recently retired and he

35:44

has the funniest retirement business

35:46

card I've ever seen, which basically says,

35:48

hi, my name is Alan. If you have questions about beer,

35:51

call someone.

35:51

Nice. He

35:54

trained a lot of us. He trained a lot of us

35:56

to make beer. And

35:58

so he's the one. who

36:01

got me into the craft beer world as a commercial brewer

36:03

on the craft side.

36:04

And I didn't understand at the time that

36:08

he brought me in that it was a very unusual

36:10

in the early 90s for craft

36:12

brewery to make lager beer. And he

36:15

was a very talented person. And I've

36:17

had great joy in my career to

36:19

work with people from large breweries all

36:21

across the globe

36:22

and to read a bunch of great literature

36:25

and to do a lot of great scientific work around how

36:27

to pick the right yeast and manage it carefully.

36:30

And the beauty

36:32

about the state of our current industry

36:35

is that the technology that we need to do this,

36:37

good cooling, good

36:40

lattering, good boiling, they're available

36:43

to us and great heat.

36:46

I think there's a lot of really good choices,

36:48

but for me, it's

36:51

the Weichte van 3470. It's

36:54

a workhorse.

36:56

I think that sometimes craft brewers will

36:58

try too hard here. And

37:01

what's the famous YE strain that

37:03

we all used in the late 80s, near the

37:06

night is that with 2206 or 2006,

37:09

they're Bavarian strain.

37:10

I think it's either Ondex or Augustine.

37:13

No yeast supplier

37:15

will tell you that. They'll say, it's like the

37:19

breeze that you get. I've made beer

37:21

with probably lager beer specifically, but

37:23

probably 20 different strains. And I keep coming

37:26

back to this piece. The Leistefen

37:28

strain is a great strain. So

37:30

good, right?

37:32

Have you fermented with it?

37:34

Yeah, I have. It's fantastic. Yeah,

37:36

it's great.

37:37

I was gonna ask you though, how do you get the carbs

37:39

low?

37:40

Cause you're building basically a low

37:42

carb, low cal beer, to make a lot of

37:44

light lager, kind of

37:45

like the light beers that the big guys sell. What's

37:49

the secret for that? Well, for me,

37:51

it's a three-parter. First is, I don't stress

37:54

about it too much. I

37:56

think the marketing team, I have a great marketing

37:58

team. They're awesome people. And they're like, hey,

38:01

we want to innovate by having you do

38:03

this thing. And I'm like, let's start with beautiful

38:05

beers. Let's make the beer taste

38:07

amazing.

38:08

And then we can talk about whether or not there's

38:10

room inside of that conversation to get

38:12

rid of the carbs.

38:13

But again, it's mostly an attenuation

38:16

conversation. We are

38:18

using the same beautiful North

38:20

American Pilsner malt. And in this case,

38:22

we're talking about a malt that looks

38:25

like

38:25

continental Western Pilsner malt.

38:28

I'm not always a brand guy, but

38:30

I think that the

38:31

Bean and Thomas Krauss firemen

38:34

really did us a service

38:36

by showing us in America,

38:38

especially craft brewers, what beautiful

38:41

Western European Pilsner malt looks

38:43

like. And for many years, I've

38:45

worked for breweries that were fortunate enough to have purchased

38:48

that product,

38:49

but it's pretty darn expensive and

38:51

no offense to them. They're awesome people. They're

38:54

amazing people. But the malsters in North

38:56

America have done a great job of

38:58

figuring out that we're pretty good

39:00

customers, too.

39:01

And it's funny. In the early days,

39:03

I would talk to malsters and I'm

39:06

coming back to the library, I promise. And they would say, well,

39:08

we can't sell malt to you. And I would say, well,

39:10

why? And they'd say, well, we can't make any money selling

39:13

malt to small breweries.

39:14

And I said, well, walk me through that

39:16

because we have a checkbook and we want to buy

39:19

them all. And then you felt as we give you money. And

39:21

they said, well, for the margins that we get from

39:23

our commodity customers, it doesn't

39:26

make sense for us to sell you 200, 400, 800 pounds

39:28

of malt. And I said,

39:31

charges more. And

39:34

I was talking to one of the larger malsters and

39:36

he was like, what? And I'm like, I

39:39

don't care about 32 versus 42 cents a pound.

39:43

And by the way, don't tell my supplier a thing.

39:45

Right. I'm like, what

39:47

I need is access because we need to sell

39:50

beer. So I think that the

39:52

malt business in North America specifically

39:54

came around on that

39:55

to the point where we can buy beautiful

39:57

specialty malt from even the larger commodity.

40:01

And I'm stoked about that. So for

40:03

me to get where we need to be on carbs

40:06

and calories or where our

40:08

marketing team would like to be on carbs and calories, we

40:10

start with the idea that we're gonna buy

40:12

beautiful ingredients because while it

40:15

is possible under

40:18

certain circumstances to build a really beautiful beer

40:20

out of okay ingredients, it's a whole

40:22

lot easier to make really beautiful

40:24

beer out of really beautiful ingredients.

40:26

So again, the North American Pilsner Mall and

40:28

here's the other magic to this beer. 5% flake

40:32

maize in the product. Again, to lighten

40:34

the body and to keep the attenuation where

40:36

it is. But other than that, that's it,

40:38

right?

40:40

And a pretty rigorous mash

40:42

regimen. And by rigorous, I don't necessarily

40:44

mean that we're working really hard. I mean that

40:46

we wait.

40:48

You gotta be patient in my experience

40:50

with lager beer. So we mash at

40:53

a temperature that I think a lot

40:55

of people would understand, 149 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

40:59

So the low end of the brewer's window.

41:01

Again, even this mall, which is

41:04

slightly under, they call it under modified,

41:06

it's not fair, slightly less modified

41:08

than

41:09

even Kraft domestic two row blend.

41:11

It is so enzymatically powerful that one

41:14

need only weight

41:15

and you're gonna get really great attenuation.

41:17

Then of course,

41:20

careful boiling and we

41:22

use a very traditional German

41:24

and specifically very unhappy schedule. So we're 90

41:27

minute boils, almost always with rare

41:29

exception. Early boil

41:31

for bitterness, 15-ish

41:32

minutes

41:34

for flavor and whirlpool for

41:36

aroma hops in this beer. But

41:39

making sure we're coagulating

41:41

the bad proteins and getting that stuff out of the way. And

41:44

if we're careful about the selection of malt

41:46

and get the corn right,

41:48

then we end up with a decently

41:50

low amount of carbs and calories at

41:52

eight.

41:53

But still have enough

41:55

protein to leave behind some head retention and

41:58

enough of that character.

41:59

from the malt that's grassy and brain

42:02

beautiful to get the flavor we want. And

42:05

also, I mean, we keep the alcohol down, right?

42:07

So, you know, we're a little heavy

42:09

for a light beer at 4.2%

42:12

alcohol by volume. You know, I think

42:15

a lot of people are familiar with 3.8 or

42:17

even as low as 3.2

42:19

in the style category is not unusual. So we're

42:22

a little bit on the high end,

42:23

but by

42:25

mashing carefully and for long

42:27

periods of time, boiling carefully

42:29

the correct adjuncts, mostly to accentuate

42:31

flavor. And then the right

42:34

pitch of good, healthy

42:36

yeast.

42:36

You know, we- So I wanted to ask you about fermentation.

42:40

We're running a little bit low on time, but you mentioned

42:42

fermentation is really the key to a great

42:44

light lager. And so what are some of the tips

42:46

you have on that? Well, the first is

42:48

choose carefully your strain. And I've already told you

42:50

what my current favorite is.

42:52

Although I do believe that other strains can make really

42:54

beautiful beer. I am familiar

42:57

with that strains, pikadillos,

42:58

right? Lager yeast

43:01

is a little fussy and

43:03

it wants care and attention.

43:05

You know, I think all of us have brewed beer with Chico

43:07

for years, pretty much you can throw sugar at and it'll

43:09

eat and there you go. Lager yeast wants

43:11

to be told the pretty, that's very

43:13

pretty yeast and it wants to be handled

43:16

carefully. So first we pitch at about 2

43:18

million per milliliter per plate, right?

43:20

So we are pitching about 24 million

43:22

per milliliter into 12 plate of beer, 20 million into 10

43:25

plate of beer. And that's a pretty aggressive pitch,

43:28

but I think it matters.

43:30

We knock out and ferment

43:32

relatively cold for the style category.

43:35

We're knocking out at 50

43:38

degrees Fahrenheit and we are doing primary

43:40

fermentation at 52 degrees Fahrenheit.

43:42

And I think that really matters, right?

43:44

So good, healthy pitch.

43:47

Oxygen matters. You

43:49

know, we want the yeast to be healthy. We don't want to over aerate

43:51

the work. We don't want to bloom too much yeast. We're

43:54

looking for between 10 and 12 parts per million

43:56

dissolved oxygen,

43:57

a little more than you might get from.

43:59

just using ambient air, but certainly nowhere

44:02

near what one can get

44:03

if you really pound and compress a

44:06

really great oxygen product. And

44:08

then we will do primary fermentation at

44:11

that temperature. On our templatobears,

44:13

we lose about a plateau a day if we're

44:16

doing a good job. When we get about halfway

44:18

to terminal though,

44:20

we are beginning to slowly ramp

44:22

the temperature up

44:23

with a goal, and it's hard for us to do this

44:25

throughout the year, but in the summer, it's easy,

44:28

of ending fermentation or ending primary

44:30

fermentation at about 62 degrees Fahrenheit.

44:33

Chris White has a really beautiful

44:36

treatise on this in his book about yeast, where

44:38

he talks about basically, this is a diastole rich,

44:41

right?

44:41

This strain

44:43

is famous for not producing large

44:45

quantities of diastole, which

44:48

I appreciate. But the beer

44:50

still needs, in my opinion,

44:51

to roll up through that temperature range. Not

44:54

only does it tend to get the yeast to

44:56

clean up some of the longer-chain sugars that it might have been

44:58

ignoring,

44:59

and to help that there not be diastole,

45:01

and to reduce acetaldehyde

45:04

into non-flavor compounds,

45:07

but it really drives the

45:09

attenuation. Up in, for me, we're

45:11

looking for attenuation numbers up into the ninth.

45:14

So we end close

45:16

to one plateau on that beer, and

45:19

that really pulls the carb.

45:22

And if we manage the alcohol carefully, so

45:24

we're landing just a little over 100

45:26

calories for 12 ounces,

45:28

and I don't have the carb number in front of me, but I remember

45:30

we sent it out because one of our

45:33

team members was like, well, I'm interested in that, and I

45:35

don't care too much about that. But the marketing department

45:37

was like, we could use that information too. And

45:39

when the number came back, everybody was like, it's really low.

45:42

And

45:42

I'm like, well, we didn't put that many carbs in it in the first place.

45:44

So it's not a complete surprise,

45:46

but go team. And

45:50

then the last thing about the yeast is, of course, we

45:52

cool back down from 62 after we've had a

45:54

solid rest there and done a little screening for

45:56

the diastole is a good, long,

45:59

cold yeast.

45:59

age and period where we were constantly removing

46:02

meat. I think brewers

46:04

sometimes get a little lazy, and

46:06

they're like, hey, we'll crash the tank and then

46:08

we'll pull the yeast when we get to it.

46:10

And I think that if you give the beer

46:12

a little bit more time and attention,

46:14

if you're slow and careful about bringing

46:16

that temperature down and you're thoughtful about

46:18

the removal of

46:20

straight, because we still want some yeast to be in

46:22

contact with beer, but we use Cylinder

46:24

Conical Fermenters, which are famous

46:26

for creating hot spots that kill yeast.

46:28

And again, lager yeast is a little

46:30

temperamental.

46:32

We want to make sure that that yeast

46:34

is not dying, auto-lizing and

46:36

negatively impacting all that flavor that we work

46:38

so hard to get

46:39

beer. So wheat crop for

46:41

repitch

46:42

about day 10, so

46:45

up for diacetyl rest.

46:47

I got that trick from a friend of mine, and it

46:49

turns out to be really wonderful.

46:51

It's kind of antithetical to

46:53

the cooling and collecting yeast, right? Like

46:56

you're going to collect yeast at the warmest portion

46:58

of the ferment, but that gives

47:00

me the most vital and most viable

47:02

yeast for the repitch. Right, right. And

47:05

it keeps our count high, because we

47:07

need a lot of yeast to pitch beer.

47:09

And then I will not release

47:12

this beer without a full 28 days of cold

47:14

aging.

47:15

Oh, good. There's no

47:17

substitute. Urquell famously

47:19

is 13 weeks, three months of aging, and

47:23

there's a reason, it works. Also,

47:26

lager yeast,

47:27

even a little bit that gets left behind,

47:29

it, again, it gets a little lazy and

47:32

we're looking for pretty aggressive attenuation. We

47:34

find if we wait, we might get

47:36

enough, by the time we're into

47:39

nearly freezing temperatures, we might still be around

47:41

two plateaus. We'll get that last plateau reduction

47:44

out of the beer if we're just patient, you

47:46

know? So taking care of the yeast, being

47:48

thorough and patient and timely. And

47:51

I think

47:52

I've got a great team, because I'm like, listen,

47:55

we're gonna have to touch these tanks every

47:57

single day, and sometimes twice. That's

48:00

a lot. I mean, we're all busy. We've got a lot of paperwork

48:02

to do. We've got a lot of raw goods to order. We've got a lot of people

48:04

to manage. But the

48:06

proof is in the pint. We're really

48:09

proud of the product. And I also feel

48:11

like that,

48:12

as my team saw the development of the product

48:14

come together, they were like, oh,

48:16

now I get it. We can be thoughtful and

48:18

intentional here

48:19

and build a beautiful beer that a

48:21

lot of people dismiss because they're like, ah, it's

48:24

not that flavor, right?

48:25

And famously, there are a

48:27

lot of craft breweries out there who, even

48:29

when they go down this route, they don't,

48:32

you know, they may not care as much about

48:34

that product as they do about some of their other

48:36

beers. And so it gets short shrift. And

48:39

unfortunately, you can taste it.

48:42

Hey, Larry, we are running low on time.

48:44

I'd love to have you back though sometime. But

48:47

can you quickly tell us where Cricut Hammer's located?

48:49

I know you got multiple locations. And

48:51

also, you may be just a word

48:54

or two about some of your other offerings.

48:56

Yeah, absolutely.

48:57

So the company I work for is Levita Hospitality.

49:00

And the Brupa brand we have is Cricut Hammock

49:03

Brewery. I'm the director of brewing

49:05

operations for Cricut Hammock. And currently we have

49:07

three locations. So our original location

49:10

is in Lewis, Delaware on

49:12

Route 9.

49:13

Our second location is in Middletown,

49:16

Delaware, so Northern Delaware, not

49:18

quite to the beach, but beach adjacent.

49:21

And then our current largest

49:24

location is in North Myrtle Beach at

49:27

Barefoot Landing. And you can find

49:29

our products there. We offer a full lineup of beers

49:32

at our brew pubs, which

49:34

I'm pretty stoked about, that run the range from light lager

49:37

all the

49:37

way through wild ferment,

49:40

sour beer, and barrel-aged products. And

49:43

we have, excuse me, our

49:46

goal is to

49:46

have a product for you no

49:49

matter what style

49:50

it is you drink. And we usually have somewhere

49:52

between 12 and 14 products on draft

49:54

with another half a dozen products in

49:56

hand. I don't know

49:58

if it's for brew pubs,

49:59

about our brand that I think is unique and very interesting

50:02

is we're about

50:05

the

50:05

backyard and the backyard cookout.

50:07

And almost all of our locations include

50:10

really large exterior spaces,

50:13

which is awesome, especially because

50:15

we're at the beach, and we really lean into if you're

50:17

here for the outside weather, let's let's experience

50:20

it.

50:21

And I hope that people

50:23

who are listening to the podcast, get a chance to come by and check

50:25

out one of the beers we talked about.

50:27

Well, Larry, really appreciate you being on the show.

50:29

And thank you so much for being here.

50:32

Brad,

50:32

my pleasure.

50:34

And my guest today was Larry Horowitz. He's

50:36

the head brewer at Crooked Hammock Brewing.

50:38

And he's

50:40

also a longtime beer judge.

50:42

Thank you again, Larry. There

50:44

you go. A big thank you to Larry

50:46

Horowitz for joining me this week. Thanks

50:48

also to craft beer and brewing magazine.

50:50

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51:03

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52:04

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52:07

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