Reblogged from theskyis
Building a Brewery
A friend and I are looking into the prospect of starting a Craft Brewery. Follow our progress here. Your input is appreciated.
The familiar Bass symbol, a red triangle, was registered in 1876 and is the world’s oldest trademark.
Hope this doesn’t come to NC. But it seems like its not to big of a problem.
![beerdd:
One aspect of beer that I want to learn more about is yeast. Quantity wise it makes up a minuscule portion of the ingredient list - the liquid malt alone for my recipe weighs in at 6 pounds while the yeast pours out of what looks like a big sugar packet. Despite the diminutive demeanor these fungi (yeah, fungus, I didn’t know either) have a huge impact on the final brew due to a multitude of byproducts (numbered around 600 distinct compounds) produced as they munch the malt.
The most recognizable are ethanol and carbon dioxide. Ethanol is what makes occasionally drinking extra beers extra fun (when extra responsible, of course) and carbon dioxide is responsible for carbonation. Other notables include various esters, responsible for aroma and often imparting a fruity tone to the beer. I tried a Wikipedia search to get a concise definition for what an ester is but…I majored in graphic arts so, they’re just one of those science chemicals. Several organic acids are produced, such as acetic, citric and lactic acid, which you may already know if you’re a milk drinker. In some brews these acids are already present in the wort and become more prevelant as the yeast goes to work. On the possibly negative side of things, some volatile sulfur compounds may be produced in varying levels depending on the particular strain of yeast you happen to be using. In some cases small amounts are acceptable, but too much and your beer may remind you of rotten eggs. [source: http://www.beer-brewing.com/beer-brewing/brewers_yeast/yeast_byproducts.htm. There’s a lot here I didn’t write about, still interesting though. Check it out. image credit: http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/Hayes/after.jpeg]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kz5moxVNCW1qbpxwmo1_400.jpg)
One aspect of beer that I want to learn more about is yeast. Quantity wise it makes up a minuscule portion of the ingredient list - the liquid malt alone for my recipe weighs in at 6 pounds while the yeast pours out of what looks like a big sugar packet. Despite the diminutive demeanor these fungi (yeah, fungus, I didn’t know either) have a huge impact on the final brew due to a multitude of byproducts (numbered around 600 distinct compounds) produced as they munch the malt.The most recognizable are ethanol and carbon dioxide. Ethanol is what makes occasionally drinking extra beers extra fun (when extra responsible, of course) and carbon dioxide is responsible for carbonation. Other notables include various esters, responsible for aroma and often imparting a fruity tone to the beer. I tried a Wikipedia search to get a concise definition for what an ester is but…I majored in graphic arts so, they’re just one of those science chemicals. Several organic acids are produced, such as acetic, citric and lactic acid, which you may already know if you’re a milk drinker. In some brews these acids are already present in the wort and become more prevelant as the yeast goes to work. On the possibly negative side of things, some volatile sulfur compounds may be produced in varying levels depending on the particular strain of yeast you happen to be using. In some cases small amounts are acceptable, but too much and your beer may remind you of rotten eggs.
[source: http://www.beer-brewing.com/beer-brewing/brewers_yeast/yeast_byproducts.htm. There’s a lot here I didn’t write about, still interesting though. Check it out. image credit: http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/Hayes/after.jpeg]
This is a nifty tool. I think it’s just getting underway, but it will help lots of brewers and drinking make and appreciate more good beer. Join up with them and add help build their database!
So I have been working on this post for a while to tell all of you fantastic readers the specifics behind what Pat and I are working on. You know we love beer and you know we want to start a brewery. That’s pretty much all you know (about us, at least), so far. We want you to know more. The primary goal of this post is that. For you to know us better.
We’re also trying to go on a trip. This post will help us do that, too, hopefully. One of my favorite authors is a man who resides in the Pacific Northwest, Donald Miller. Don has written a lot of great books, maybe you could call them memoirs, about his life and the things he’s learned. These include Searching for God Knows What, Blue Like Jazz, and recently A Million Miles in A Thousand Years. Anyway, he’s hosting a seminar in Portland on how to live your life as a story. You can read more about that by clicking this link, or watching the video below:
Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.
Let us begin
Pat and I are both students at NC State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. We will both be seniors in International Relations this coming year. We’re great buds. We take lots of classes together, we go to a great church downtown, we share a multitude of friends, and make and drink beer together.
We started brewing beer together in April of this year. We made an American Pale Ale first. That turned out alright, but was a bit sour in my opinion. Pat is the optimist, he loved it. Second, we made a Chocolate Blackberry-Honey Stout. I humbly say, this is a great beer and I plan on drinking one this evening. We’re about to begin an Irish Red Ale or an Amber Ale, and our honey supplier has also beseeched us to make a Honey Mead (yum, maybe with fresh peaches?). We’re learning a lot, and growing more and more curious. We’ve been touring breweries and trying different things.
So, naturally, as with any hobby, we want to do it for the rest of our lives. And we want to do it professionally. This isn’t too far fetched. The RDU area has a dozen breweries and brew pubs in the area. The market is definitely there. We have the drive. We can probably raise the start-up funds pretty easily. But we also want to be different.
Pat and I go to a university that is incredibly diverse in study. NCSU is mainly a science and agriculture school. Lots of chemistry, biology, engineering, and agriculture (including food science). There are also majors here for business, supply chain management, marketing, design — you name it, NC State probably offers it.
The interdisciplinary nature of the beer industry makes NC State a fine university for a fermentation science program. A “campus brewery” would be an outlet for all types of majors and focuses at the university to work together for a great project. From growing hops to distributing product, students could get hands on experience through the brewing industry.
This can also bring other benefits to the community. When a brewery works together with the university, there is great potential to help other breweries both start and maintain production. The wine industry, of which North Carolina ranks ninth in the nation, can benefit from fermentation science programs as well (the study of grapes and wine is called enology and viticulture). Grants, loans, and resources could come straight from the university into the hands of breweries and wineries.
A brewing-campus cooperative program is beneficial both to the university and the state. Programs like these already exist at large schools like UC-Davis and Oregon State, but nothing really yet on the east coast.
The Story
That’s the… ah… “brief” synopsis of our goal. That’s the Story that Pat and I would like to write for our lives. Something personal, something real. Craft Brewing is something we’re learning to love, and we want to share it with as many people as we possibly can — specifically with our university and with our city and state. We have the idea, we have the passion… we just need a bit of a push.
The big issue, really, is that Pat and I are both International Relations majors. We don’t know a whole lot about how to take our Story past the initial passion and actually put it into motion. We’ve talked to some university faculty. It has some interest.That’s about as far as we’ve gotten.
I think this seminar in Portland, Oregon is a great place to get some insight on where to take our story, how to take it there, and how we can apply it in our lives. We want our lives to have an impact right here in our city. And we want to do this with beer. And we want to have fun. And make beer. And drink it. And maybe be able to support families eventually. I think this seminar would steer us into the right direction. We need some direction.
This is what we’re passionate about. Thanks for taking the time to read. Your feedback is much appreciated.
- Win Pratt
Recently I walked into a craft brewery in Stevensville, Montana, where a dozen men at the bar sat decked out in the mottled browns and crusty grays of ranchers and farmers. Grizzled men with facial features worn like the crags on the nearby Bitterroot Mountains. I asked the bar tender why they were all drinking dark beer, unfamiliar as I was with the sight of men of the land drinking anything but Coors or Bud Light.
The bartender gave me a knowing look and told me she’d trained them up on a light, blond ale and moved them to an even amber and eventually to the brewery’s signature Black IPA, perhaps the strongest of popular beer styles today.
“You only opened four-months-ago,” I said, incredulously.
She winked at me and smiled.
There has often been an unfortunate association between beer and low brow masculine behavior; it is after all the go to beverage for guzzling through a funnel or imbibing via a keg stand. But like fine wine, as one learns to appreciate the basics of beer, the core ingredients and the role they play in flavor and experience, one is prone to move up the taste scale and into a world of unimaginable flavors where it becomes enjoyable to sip and savor rather than guzzle.
http://artofmanliness.com/2010/04/29/a-beginners-guide-to-craft-beer/
