Tour de Bier!

At the end of this course, we will spend nearly two weeks traveling Europe in the name of beer. The line-up is pretty exciting. It’s too bad Pilsen isn’t included this year, but I’m happy with the places we have. Before we leave to Germany, Randy Mosher will give us a lesson on pairing beer and food. This is critical for our stay in Europe. The tours themselves will most likely be very technical, and were chosen based on the brewery itself rather than how gourmet the beer is. However, we will go drink some of the worlds most classic beer styles right from the source, and this time they won’t have those ‘import’ flavors. We will pair them with food the whole time. It’s good to understand why they compliment each other- especially if you open a brewpub. I know at some point in Belgium we are getting a 5 course meal designed to be paired with, rumor has it, top shelf Belgian ales.
We’re going to Bamberg to visit Weyermann. They are a specialty malting facility that makes some of the best malts I’ve tried. I will drink rauchbier (smoked beer) like it’s the last day on earth. We’re going to La Trappe, the only Trappist brewery outside of Belgium located in the Netherlands. We’re going to the newly re-opened Hoegaarden brewery. We’re going to Stella Artois (apparently a verrry impressive brewery and they don’t let you take pictures). We’re going to Uerige Alt in Dusseldorf and apparently the beer is amazing and the food is amazing and they keep your glass full with Altbier the whole time. Altogether we’re making 18 stops on this trip!

Munich

Today I finally got the much anticipated details of the Germany/European Tour part of this course.

For 3 weeks in Germany, we will brew 6hl batches of four styles which will all be brewed with different techniques. I'm super excited about this. I won’t know until I see it, but I've heard the Doemens brewery is an amazing micro setup. It's equipped with some cutting edge technology, including the 'Merlin' brew kettle. I expect to use very complicated filters and bottling systems, as well as operate some cool automated equipment. Not only does the brewhouse create badass wort, it has a research lab. I'll be putting on the lab coat and test the beer to a micro scale. If I get to do all the things I've been learning about, I'll get to look at budding yeast cells and determine how vital they are and identify mutations. I could test the composition of the wort/beer to reveal what I’ve created. Almost all the elements that create flavor can be measured. I will also start my own pure yeast strain by placing thousands of yeast cells on agar, displacing single cells and waiting for them to grow. By comparing their growth I can choose the best colony and build it up to slants. I hope to play with beer spoiling bacteria and learn how to isolate infections in the brewery. This week Michael Eder arrived with an arsenal of lectures that will take us through the rest of the diploma course. He is a German brewmaster you may not have heard of. He has brewed at major breweries around the world, even in West Africa. Some of the most advanced brewers in the world ask for his input. You can partially attribute that to the level of education needed to brew with Germany's purity law- its intense. He has to understand how to naturally produce all those chemicals and nutrients we add in pure form. I’ll expand on that topic later, it’s pretty nuts. And he's not just a macro brew guru, he now brews on Doemens 6hl system doing experimental batches- a homebrewers DREAM.

I know of many homebrewers, and even some commercial brewers who prefer to "wing it" and enjoy brewing in a fun, less scientific way.. and you can make some damn good beer if you know the fundamentals. But think about how fun it can be to expand your recipe into 3 pages of data instead of a list of ingredients. Improving your accuracy and understanding the beer you made in a measurable way, which gives you more direction to your ‘artistic’ creation. So, homebrewers- a hydrometer and proper pitching rates/temps and throwing in some powders for pH control are simple upgrades and you will notice the difference, not to mention reduce the chances of making a headache beer. Even in Belgium, the home of wacky, daring and artistic brewing, they know a ton about the beer they're making. They are scientists too; their process is just more reliant on nature and their design is made for it.

Adios!

There were problems with putting up some pictures. Turns out a lot more people see these blogs than I realized. The point of the blog was to put up cool beer related pictures, so I'll still be taking them and you can e-mail me if you're interested. I may post something again, but, probably not.

First Module complete

1/6 total modules are now complete! It was not easy. In fact, it was hard. Two / Six tests are complete and I believe I'm still holding over a 90 average. Last night was Friday, and while the guys hit the town I slept. I slept 10 hours which means I've doubled my sleep this week. I still feel exhausted but it's Saturday morning with nothing to do and that feels great. In the past two weeks we have covered Malting (steeping, germinating and kilning of barley before it gets to the brewer), Hops and hop products, Water Chemistry, Mashing, Lautering, Boiling, and Chilling of wort. Enzymes for this, enzymes for that, enzymes enzymes enzymes enzymes throughout the process. Did I mention that we can thank enzymes for making wort? Yep. I know enzymes.

For those of you who only look at the pictures, I'll add two more for you. After two full days of lecture from Ray Daniels on mashing, I bothered him for a picture for the homebrewers who read his material. He's mostly known for Designing Great Beers (which really is a fantastic book for those interested in what the title suggests). He's a cool guy; not only did he partake in our typically obnoxious lunch breaks, he did a great job breaking down mashing for us without making it too confusing.

Second is a delightfully cheesy picture of me after one of our Sensory Analysis sessions. This time it was styles tasting of English, Scottish and Irish beers. Lyn Kruger, president of Siebel, runs the tastings and helps us learn to identify the flavors we should taste as well as the flavors that probably shouldn't be there. Unfortunately we've learned a lot about how traumatic importing/exporting beer is. After learning to isolate oxidation and other side affects of failing beer stability, these beers were mostly gross. The only one we didn't pour out was Mackesons XXX (brewed in North America, less oxidized). I kind of liked the Scottish heather tips ale too because the spices almost hid the off-flavors. The worst was Sam Smiths IPA- it tasted like the smell of imported leaf hops. Yes, we poured out gallons and gallons of beer this day.

Success.

We did it. Each week we have a test and the first one is complete. Here are pictures of myself, Brian, and Hank celebrating at the 'beer stube' (the bar located a floor above where we have our classes). Afterwards we went out to the Hop Leaf in downtown Chicago where I gave Brazillian brewers Rodrigo and Leonardo their first American microbrew experience. These guys know beer, but they dont know the variety we get here up north. They may have had more time learning drunken English than they did trying the beer but thats ok.. we had a blast.

Whew.. I'm back

So, it's been a while since I've posted. Siebel keeps me insanely busy, and the hostel internet connection has not worked each time I get 30 minutes to get online. However, I have not fallen behind with photos as I have with the blog. Today I've gotten lucky to find time to post, so I will start with the old and work towards the new, maybe evetually I will be caught up. I haven't figured out how to format the blog to make the pictures and text look good together, so I will start with a paragraph and finish with a list of pictures for now.

Here is the Siebel Institute library which is connected to the Goose Island brewpub. Not a huge library by any means, but this place contains the largest collection of brewing specific textbooks in the entire world. If mortals read every book, they turn into beer. Only beer gods are capable of such things. The third picture shows a wall of Siebel graduates dating back 200 years. My picture will be added to this wall.

Pretty Pictures

I walked down to the coast of Lake Michigan to see an event called Flugtag. Teams from around the country come with large flying crafts and are dressed to fit a theme. They board their craft and roll it off a platform and are judged on their performance. It turned out to be crowded and pretty boring so instead here are some pretty pictures I took along my walk.