Master Brewers Podcast

Our friends at Highland Brewing talk about the network of people, tools, forecasts, and workflows that build their production schedule.Special Guests: Abbey Temoshchuk Reynolds and Matt McComish.

What happens when you resurrect an old world landrace barley variety and give it to a bunch of brewers in CA?Special Guests: Colin Johnston and Josh Wurzbacher.

How The Matt Brewing Company deals spent hop material & other things you wish you knew before you built a brewery.Special Guest: Jim Kuhr.

Effects of regional location on the genotype and phenotype of historical Irish brewing yeastSpecial Guest: Daniel Kerruish.

What happens the world's most popular yeast strain gets fermented at different temperatures and pitch rates?Special Guest: Anne Flesch.

The last of the three-part series of Technical Quarterly articles providing insights to the upcoming MBAA publication The Inspiring and Surprising History and Legacy of American Lager Beer: 1941–1948, the focus of this paper is a review of the American brewing industry during the tumultuous years of World War II (1941–1945) and those immediately following in support of global famine relief (1946–1948). This is perhaps the most remarkable 7 year period ever in the history of the American brewing industry, with production rising by just over 36 million barrels of beer—a staggering increase of 65.3%. While the beer before and after this period was very similar, the beer in between was anything but. Surprisingly, the brewing materials that were scarcest during this period were rice and especially corn-based adjuncts, not malt. But perhaps the greatest surprise of all was that the beer fueling the explosive growth was a significantly lighter, lower original gravity, and lower malt-to-adjunct ratio beer. Indeed, for a time during 1945, the industry's overall use of adjuncts exceeded 50%. A stunning array of materials—many never used prior or since—were employed to brew America's adjunct lager beer. Included in the “adjunct potpourri" were an astounding 141.5 million pounds of cassava products (e.g., manioc and tapioca) and 12.8 million pounds of potatoes. Surprisingly, however, both were first used after World War II, during the Relief years, triggered by federal mandates restricting the use of rice and corn in brewing. All material restrictions lifted in the summer of 1948, and supplies of all brewing materials returned to pre-war levels, but few in the industry could ignore that the lighter lager of the war and famine years had triggered a profound upward step-shift in sales. In the decades that followed, annual industry volume remained largely static, even declining on a per capita basis. Not until 1964 would the industry finally reach 100 million barrels of domestic production, followed in 1970 by the surpassing of the post-Prohibition per capita record of 1948. Buoyed by the 1973–1982 introduction of the modern 100 calorie light adjunct lagers, new records were subsequently set with per capita consumption of domestically produced beer reaching 26.17 gallons in 1981 and domestic production of 203,658,410 barrels in 1990, records that still stand. However, despite the phenomenal growth experienced by the American craft brewing industry over the past 30 years, by 2019 overall industry performance against per capita and annual domestic production metrics has declined by 9.26 gallons and 24.6 million barrels of beer, respectively. Insights to spur 21st century growth, for both macro and craft brewers alike, can be found in the lessons of the past.Special Guest: Greg Casey.

This week on the show, something that most brewers new to canning never consider but can make or break a brewery.Special Guests: Hannah Krieg and Vivian Poteat.

Why you need a fermentation recipe just as much as you need a recipe in the brewhouse.Special Guest: Tim Faith.

What’s going on with the recent funding cuts to barely & hops research, and how does that affect your brewery?Special Guests: Alicia Adler, Ashley McFarland, and Scott Dorsch.

How automation enabled one of today’s largest craft brewers to grow to scale.Special Guest: Kevin Martini.

Is your brewery prepared to rescue a team member from an FV or other confined space? Do you train & practice rescue regularly or do you plan to just wing it when seconds matter?Special Guest: Andy Troccoli.

A former chair of the BA’s supply chain subcommittee has advice for navigating today’s challenges.Special Guest: Mitch Steele.

Perhaps the most practical guide to wort separation on planet earth.Special Guest: Travis Audet.

What NIR analysis of roughly 200 beers at UC Davis can tell us about hitting quality targets.Special Guests: Glen Fox and Sarah Suriano.

Understanding the enzymes that drive hop creep and a novel potential control strategy.Special Guest: Matt Cottrell.

Remember learning about Kveik back on episode 102? This time, we catch up with the man who tracked down these yeasts and reinvigorated a traditional farmhouse brewing culture that nearly died out. You'll also hear about a time when it was illegal NOT to brew Christmas beer.Special Guest: Lars Marius Garshol.

The guy who explained how we narrowly avoided an American Reinheitsgebot on episode 174 is back with more surprises. This time you'll hear about the widespread use of malt substitutes in Germany, a beer war, and the birthplace of America's most popular beer style.Special Guest: Greg Casey.

How mousey off-flavor is formed in beer and how it can be measured.Special Guests: Glen Fox and Paulina Streimikyte.

The story of how Bell's brewery reduced its electrical consumption 5% while growing production more than 3%.Special Guests: Kate Martini and Walker Modic.

Practical strategies for controlling trans-2 nonenal in your brewery.Special Guest: Eric Samp.

The father of the gluten-removed beer category joins us to discuss recently updated federal regulations that may affect your gluten-free or gluten-reduced claims. That's the first part of today's show. After the break, stay tuned to hear the story of how the first commercial gluten-removed barley brew came to life.Special Guest: Joe Casey.

What New Glarus prioritizes to maximize flavor stability.Special Guest: Dan Carey.

We look back at the last 70 years of innovations in brewing, we look forward to what the future holds, and we hear a pint full of great anecdotes from an author with whom we're all familiar.Special Guest: Charlie Bamforth.

Why Brewers Should Consider Alternatives to Tri-ClampSpecial Guest: Travis Audet.

We dig into a couple of peer-reviewed papers from the Master Brewers Technical Quarterly that help us navigate the complexities of hop aroma and make better beer.Special Guests: Scott Lafontaine and Tom Shellhammer.

A study of 50 NA beers hunts for human pathogens.Special Guest: Grzegorz Rachon.

In 2018 Goose Island was plagued with a wild yeast contamination identified in post centrifuged products. This is how we systematically sought root cause, and ultimately eradicated the contamination despite our previous process understandings.Special Guests: Alex Nham and Joey Tidei.

The creator of infusion malts joins us to explain what they are and why they're special.Special Guest: Cristal Peck.

Did you know that the gelatinization temperature of your malt could be as low as 136F or as high as 154F? Charlie Bamforth's successor joins us to talk about variations in starch structure and what that might mean for your mash.Special Guest: Glen Fox.

The John Rowley approach to sour & funkSpecial Guest: John Rowley.

The story of how Creature Comforts Brewing tracked down and eliminated metallic off-flavor in kettle-sours.Special Guest: Spencer Britton.

You've seen the headlines. Is the US government really about to change its recommendations for alcohol consumption?Special Guests: Brian Crawford and Christopher Shepard.

More engineered brewers yeast strains capable of "impossible" feats.Special Guest: Charles Denby.

How affordable automation can free up resources and improve quality in breweries of any size.Special Guest: Matt Cottrell.

Richard Preiss discusses his work with genetically unique yeast used to produce Norwegian farmhouse beers known as kveik.Special Guest: Richard Preiss.

How Two Roads Brewing keeps its customers safe…alcohol or not.Special Guest: Karen Stangl.

Employer responsibilities, hazard assessments, finding the right safety glasses, the pitfalls of respiratory protection, employee buy-in, and more.Special Guests: Andrew Dagnan, Corey Martin, and Jim Kuhr.

How to tap into the power of consumer testing for even the smallest of breweries.Special Guest: Tessa Schilaty.

A Master Brewers member requested an episode about CO2 systems, CO2 quality, and best practices. Here it is.Special Guests: Dave Thomas, Eric Meyer, Gabriel Dominguez, Jeff Carter, and Mark Fischer.

An update from the fast-moving world of gene editing, as it relates to hops.Special Guest: Chris Willig.

For smaller brewers, yeast management can be a challenging prospect. Many mid-size to small breweries attempt to make a wide range of beer styles that require a plethora of yeast strains. Due to production limitations, brewers are often forced to stretch yeast pitching windows or purchase brand new yeast pitches at a dramatically high cost. A study was performed to evaluate potential media that would allow for adequate dormancy and viability of harvested yeast slurries for long term re-pitching opportunity. Various media were added to decanted yeast slurry and viability was measured over determined time periods to track health of the stored yeast. Results indicate that monopotassium phosphate, standard distilled water, alkaline mineral water, and a solution with sunflower oil all provide varying degrees of health preservation of long storage periods up to one month. Minimal changes were observed with adequate dilutions and these results will be discussed.Special Guest: Matt Couch.

An overview of the options for pasteurizing beer, and how pasteurization works at Goose Island.Special Guests: Gus Grosenbaugh and Michael Owens.

Filling equipment within a brewery is ironically one of the best places for microbial growth to thrive. There are nooks, crannies, and blind spots that beer can sneak into, which are also challenging to clean. Beer filling equipment is also constructed using a variety of different materials that require specifically tailored cleaning chemicals to prevent corrosion while working effectively to remove soil. Every brewery has a different filling operation including equipment, surrounding space, and utilities, therefore different needs for chemicals and cleaning practices. As a brewery optimizes its filler cleaning practices and chemicals, it is also essential to validate that the chemicals and method of cleaning are both working effectively. To avoid having every brewery reinvent the wheel with filler cleaning practices and save the time and money it takes to trial new processes, this presentation will share one brewery’s story of developing a robust cleaning program on both of its canning lines. We will discuss how we worked directly with our chemical supplier and equipment manufacturers to find the best compatible chemicals for effective cleaning on both of our lines. We will also discuss the microbiological and chemical quality checks that were put in place to validate filler cleaning process and chemicals to ensure product integrity, and share the improvements that were made from a quality management lens to empower employees to make informed quality decisions.Special Guests: Levi Bainum and Riley Seitz.

What's the buzz in omics all about and how can it help you make better beer?Special Guests: Glen Fox, Harmonie Bettenhausen, and Laura Burns.

The Inspiring History and Legacy of American Lager Beer is envisioned to be a nine-volume series of books covering the history of the American lager brewing industry from the 1840s to the 1940s and the evolution of adjunct lager beer as America’s “national beverage.” The “surprising” aspect of this history is that it ever happened at all, given the half-century-long assault on the industry between the 1870s and 1910s to impose an “American Reinheitsgebot.” Unified in this objective were a plethora of the nation’s political, cultural, and agricultural institutions—all seeking to ban to use of rice and corn-based products in the brewing of American ales and lagers. Equally united in opposition to this effort were the brewers and brewing scientists of America. In battles that were passionate, highly public, and intense in nature, these brewing industry advocates successfully defended the right of American brewers to brew with the ingredients of their choice. It is a powerful legacy not only for America’s first revolution in beer (the adjunct lager brewing industry) but also for the nation’s second revolution in beer (the American craft brewing industry). Special Guest: Greg Casey.

A deep dive on beer foam with a couple of familiar guests, one of whom literally wrote the book on foam.Special Guests: Ashton Lewis and Charlie Bamforth.

Just when you thought light-struck flavor in beer was permanent...Special Guests: Catherine Villa and Keith Villa.

A couple of experts offer tips to help your brewery beat the summer heat.Special Guests: Nick Donofrio and Rissa Spalding.

If you have the same canning line as Jack, you might want to listen up.Special Guest: Jack Van Paepeghem.

Noise exposure may not be on your brewery's radar, but this is an area in which an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.Special Guest: Jonathan Borntrager.