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Corn Coast’s High and Tight Hazy IPAs Find Success Through Discipline

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Corn Coast’s High and Tight Hazy IPAs Find Success Through Discipline

This podcast episode from Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine features host Jamie Bogner interviewing Will Walter, co-owner of Corn Coast Brewing in Lincoln, Nebraska. Walter shares his brewing origin story, which began in high school through his father's homebrewing and was further shaped by his military service, travels to European beer destinations, and time in Southern California's craft beer scene. His experiences culminated in founding Corn Coast with partners, named as a nod to their coastal military postings and Nebraska roots. The discussion highlights the brewery's award-winning beers, including a gold-medal English Mild and hazy IPAs, underscoring its competitive success despite opening in 2021. Walter explains the brewery's creative angle, blending diverse regional influences into a focused lineup. The conversation also touches on practical aspects like using local manufacturer ABE Equipment. The episode is interspersed with sponsor ads for industry suppliers such as G&D Chillers, Berkeley Yeast, and PakTech, promoting equipment, ingredients, and sustainable packaging for brewers.

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This podcast is brought to you by Craft Beer and Bring magazine for those that love to make and drink great beer. To learn more or to subscribe visit beerandbring.com or find us on social media at Craft Beer Brew. [Music] It's episode 465 of the Craft Beer Brewing podcast time Jamie Bovner and this is the third of our mini series of Nebraska podcasts exploring this interesting pocket on the eastern edge of Nebraska and Lincoln. And all of these GABF and World Beer Cup metal winners that seem clustered around here joining me for this episode as Will Walter of Corn Coast welcome to the podcast will. Yeah, thank you for having me Jamie excited beer. The you had a you've had a few years of awesome metals and you know in fact recently in the from grain to class issue of Craft Beer Brewing your wind surfing on the Tim's English miles scored a 98 as I was looking at that. And as I come that's a anomalous high score in that category did a little more research and realized that you'd also won a GABF gold for that last year and like oh well that makes sense that makes a lot of sense. And as I was looking at like you know they've also won two silver's the year before in hazy and juicy categories and also won a bronze the year before that 2022 for citrus soaker and imperial juicy. And you guys have just been kind of crushing here obviously share the stoke for those readers of craft beer and brewing they may remember in our best in beer issue last year share the stoke west coast pills was the highest score earlier in the year and got it not as one of our editors picks for the best 20 beers of 2025. Just kind of crushing it on on all of those ends and so through this episode we are going to talk about happy beers we're going to talk about hazy IPA we're going to talk about west coast pills we're going to talk about English style beers. And we just before we started this had some English milder English bitter on on casc on the end gram casc engine and I am I get made the entire trip worthwhile. I made driving to Nebraska 100% worth it just to have it on on a casc engine right here. We're going to talk about all of this things but first the craft brews conference is coming up April 20 through 23rd 2026 and G&G chillers will be there if you're heading to CBC swing by and talk shop with the folks who know brewery operations inside and out. G&G's biggest strength isn't just the equipment is their deep understanding of how a brewery runs from seller layout to production flow their team brings decades of hands on experience to every install and every conversation. Whether you're running a single stage 5 H unit or scaling up with a vertical air chiller. G&G build systems that are reliable efficient and built to last because when your chillers solid your beer stays cold and your operations stays on track plan your visit at gdchillers.com/podcast and come see them at CBC booth 1518. And Berkeley yeast just launched dry tropics London their best selling liquid yeast strain now with all the ease of use benefits of dry yeast. Dry tropics London delivers the soft pillowy mouth feel and juicy character you'd expect from a top tier London ael strain but with a serious upgrade a burst of thiles that unleash vibrant layered notes of grapefruit and passion fruit. Lot of brewers love the clean passion fruit you get from tropics but they don't want every IPA to be a tropical fruit bomb. At the dry yeast price point you can pitch and ditch without breaking the bank where you can co-pitch with your house strain to adjust the intensity of the notes. And with nationwide free shipping there's never been a better time to try dry tropics order now at Berkeley yeast.com and experience the ease and impact of dry tropics London yeast. Also this episode is sponsored by Pactec delivering craft beer multi packing you can trust. Pactec's handles are made from 100% recycled plastic and are fully recyclable helping breweries close the loop in advance the circular economy with a minimalist design durable functionality you can rely on and custom color matching. Packed tech helps brand stand out while staying sustainable trusted by craft breweries nationwide they offer a smarter sustainable way to carry your beer to learn more of is it pack tech dash opi dot com that's p a K T. C. H. dash opi dot com. All right well give us the corn coast story you know mark this arc through brewing and you know what to let the fire for you and how that turned into you launching this is a business with some partners here in out on the outskirts of Lincoln Nebraska. Yeah well growing up the joke was always that the family business was the Marine Corps my grandfather my grandmother three of my uncles cousin and my dad all served in the Marine Corps my dad was a career industry officer did 30 years and then retired. So I grew up moving you know back and forth across country a lot of Southern California Virginia back and forth every two or three years my mom stayed home with us kids her background was in graphic design art very musically talented. But the funny thing was she was kind of the handy person in the house. So you know we're building something or refinishing furniture that was her thing and my dad was definitely the chef in the house. So I grew up doing some cooking you know a lot of just a lot of DIY type mentality. When I was in high school sort of in 2003 or so we got station here in Nebraska my dad was at the tail end of his career and we're living in base housing our neighbor up the street was home. My dad was just kind of getting into craft beer at this time and I don't know exactly how but he made his way over there and they were brewing together stove top stuff. And it didn't take long he got his own equipment at our house you know glass car boys big pot. I don't even think we had a a chill or anything it was just like ice bath in the sink to give everything cool down. And to me this was like the coolest mix of cooking and science project. So I'm watching this and eventually I talked to me to let me kind of make the you know make a couple recipes here and there. This is extract brewing so you know pick the the malt extract color pick a random hop variety and then he could be kind of the ultimate evaluator of the beers and he get. So eventually I was able to sample some of the the finished product you know I didn't didn't drink in high school or anything that was all college but tried some of these beers and I'm sure they weren't great they're probably under attenuated sort of very multi beers but to the 16 or 17 year old palette pretty tasty. So that was kind of my first exposure to the whole thing and I'm trying to figure out what I want to do career wise at this time and I was like well I have no clue you know family business I'm going to join the Marine Corps do it the way my dad did. Go to college or an degree and try to earn a commission that way. So I was in college I brought a little bit here and there but it wasn't so much about the quality of the beer was more about how do you get this into a keg so I could take it back to my buddies and Lincoln and we could you know drink this at our house off campus. So did a few batches there. As soon as I graduated college got married would a great college party like you show to college party like away where's the natural light instead you've got your home brew on draft like yeah surprise oh yeah my roommates were crushing the stuff massive headache the next day after finishing a five gallon keg of this stuff. I have fond memories in college my that would have been like 1995 for me but like buying for a party that we threw a keg of like pizza wicked summer ale and man everyone hated me for that like why did you just get you know some this back cheat macro logger which is you know just the the one thing that we don't mind drinking and instead you're making this drink this crap to be or they were so pissed. So good stuff but yeah so I mean since I want to have it in my mind they're like you know for a lot of them like well I was drinking craft beer even back in college because but you know like I think the story may change you know like get revised in their own head. I was in the ABV like double those I should be like double your value on those but as soon as I graduated you know got married around college and then went to Virginia for a year of training in the Marine Corps. And then following that got orders to camp with you North Carolina so my wife and I went down there got a house on base checked into my first unit and I found out I was deploying Afghanistan about five months so. Again gone for five months of training did it wasn't home at all then seven and a half months out of the country and when I came back from deployment this is like the first time in several years I just had a little bit more of a normal work life balance weekends back so it's time to get into some hobbies again. So I was excited to start dusting off the brewing equipment needed to make some upgrades on that so this is like 2012 you know the big thing that if you're a home brew like going all grain that was like the elite status home brew if you're like brewing all grain so I got a cooler mash ton you know kettle with some valves and gas burner set it all up my garage and you know join the local home brew club and started devouring information off the forums and jump right back in. Also during this time was super fortunate my wife and I took some space a trips. So space available flights. If you're active duty, reserve, or retired military, you can go up to any major airport. And there's always flights, commercial flights taking service members all over the world. As long as there's open seats for about 15 bucks, you can jump on these flights. That covers your price of your meal, and you land wherever. So we fly in a Germany, get a rental car, drive around. Went to Octoberfest a couple of times, just hanging out in German beer gardens, go up to Cologne, drinking colch, and then my wife's dad is actually from England. So we take the channel over, stay at his place for free, and there was like 20 pubs in the Soltaun, he lived in Chipping, Norton, England. So we had hook, Norton, brewery there, and just had our fill of cascabees at that time. So I mean, this time was just like a lot of exposure to what these low ABV session style European beers could be. And as I was just diving into the hobby, and I'm just falling more in love with the beer thing in general. As soon as we were done in North Carolina, I got orders to camp Pendleton, California. So this is like Southern California, just in between San Diego and Los Angeles. We lived on the north side of base, so San Clemente was our hometown. Basically lived walking distance from the Pete support there. Artifacts was the new up-and-coming brewery at the time, and we didn't have kids yet, so I'm brewing probably twice every Saturday, and then on Sundays, we were free to drive around Southern California, drinking awesome beers. There's so many breweries you could never really get to all of them. But every time we were down in San Diego, we were going to the White Labs tasting room. And it was just an awesome time to be in Southern California, and into home brewing is a hobby. A lot of cool stuff opening up at that time. This is a 2014-15 at this point. And at some point I just realized, I need to be around this all the time. Like I wanna, you know, the industry, you could see it from the outside. There's just this way of working together, a positivity around the whole thing, and brewing was taken up more and more of my time and my headspace. And so I decided I was gonna leave after duty, started a brewery, and we had basically become regulars there at Artifacts in San Clemente and Tom, the owner there, agreed to sit down with me a couple of times, and just kinda go over my very rough initial business plan, gave me the hard truths, some numbers, and what it might take to do my own thing. And I think I figured out like, I wasn't gonna leave after duty and walk into a business that I started up that's paying me anything in any short period of time. - Right. - So I needed to kinda figure out something as a transition. So I got a job with a San Diego-based medical company to be their sales manager back here in Nebraska. And, you know, at this time my dad's health wasn't really gray, starting to go downhill, so, you know, we wanted to be closer to family. And my wife's family lives here now, so it's like, you know, we're gonna do this in Nebraska. So I got that job here, did that for four years, and that was just a lot of brewing, knowing that I was gonna be eventually as a commercial brewery, so we're trying to dial things in, saved up the funds. Super lucky I've got a couple guys who are willing to partner with me on this whole thing. So Dan, he's the other owner manager, who's here with me every day. He was, I met him in ROTC, so he went on to the Navy to fly helicopters, and then Ben, my brother-in-law, he was also going through school at the time as an enlisted Marine to get a degree at our commission. So, you know, as a story kind of goes, three of us, you know, we met here, ended up going to the military active duty, and living on, you know, the three different coasts, one of us in California, Virginia, and then the Gulf Coast of Florida, and we'd come back here for Christmas, see the families wherever, and the joke, we'd lovingly refer to Nebraska as the corn coast, and that's kind of how the name came to be. But yeah, we didn't have much in the beginning. It was just the money we could save up between three of us. So we started small, bought a five-barrel system from Abe Equipment here in Lincoln, and had 40 barrels of solar capacity, and we still have the exact same five-barrel brew house today, but we're, you know, added some more tanks and some other little things here there, canning line, but yeah, it's been pretty crazy from the get-go. - It's so funny when I've been touring through breweries here, and you know, in addition to the podcast, I've visited a couple of other breweries, just trying to squeeze it in while I'm out here, and the amount of Abe Equipment, like you can tell, like this is an Abe state there right here, and you know, I said, "I want to go to your three-head Abe "and it's just like standard issue, and it's so funny, "because if you go to Southern California, "it's a lot of C&D AGO's premier stainless, "because they're down there." Like, you end up with this kind of technical specialization, but it's fun to see it here, and then obviously they're real benefits to having a company that close, that they're right here, and if it needing breaks, you can go right to them. - 100%. I can't say enough good things about Abe Equipment. I mean, yeah, they're 10 minutes down the street, so we're running cans, if there's an issue, they're usually same-day to come over here and fix it, and it's kind of funny talking to them, they're traveling to other countries to help out fixing things, do some welding, and we have them right here in town, so it's been awesome. - Yeah, anyway, just that, it's like, as much as everything in this podcast, and everything else is just international, and has a broad reach, like, there's also just these interesting local things that you see when you go to place, it's like, oh yeah, everyone here just does this, 'cause this is the most sensible way for them to do that here with connecting to local manufacturers and local ingredients, all those other things. So, finding these pockets, it's just been fun and visual to it. Let's talk about, you decide to launch the brewery, but you've now pulled from inspiration on the East Coast, you've pulled from inspiration on the West Coast, you're pulling it together as corn coast here in Nebraska, and that means thinking about what beers you're gonna make and what you wanna be known for, because in this kind of brewing environment, you knew you were getting started, and you actually opened just after the pandemic or at the tail end of it in 2021, and so, you know, walking into that world of beer means being competitive from the outset, and understanding, like, if you're going to get any attention from anybody, it has to be great beer, but it also has to be focused beer, and you have to have some sort of hook to connect people on the same wavelength. 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You can also change which side the doors on or how you want the shelves to be arranged, the 5050 totally flexes to fit your life. Plus it's designed to maintain a stable temperature even in non-climate controlled conditions. So you can crack a cold one even on the warmest days in the man cave, take your garage to the next level, check out myDia.com/us to get more information about this game changer today. Also the Beyond Beer Space is booming and old orchard is here for it, supplying breweries with fruit ingredients for all your beverage needs, low no alcohol, hard lemonade, silencer, cider and more. Old orchard has supplied hundreds of industrial customers across 49 states, including nationally and internationally love brands. So you'll be in good company, more information of free samples are waiting at oldorchard.com/brueur. That's oldorchard.com/brueur. - All right, well, so you started corn coast. Getting the brewery up and running is a giant pain in the ass as it always is and takes way longer and costs far more than you expect it to. It's the normal story. We all know that one. But figuring out then what the creative angle was going to be on the beer that you're going to make. You've been home brewing at this point for a better part of a decade and have some idea of what you wanted to plant your flag around. It's talked to me about how you started thinking about some commonalities and flavor and what those styles and that approach to those styles was going to be. - Yeah, truth be told, I don't think I had my first like hazy IPA example until maybe 2018 or 19. It was pretty far. And in Southern California at the time, at least the places that we would frequent, you just didn't really see a lot of them. You had heard about some of the stuff they were doing on the East Coast, but I had not really found those commercially available in Southern California from this like 2014 to '17 time period. And the first couple that I had were just absolutely horrible examples of the style and they were things you would find at the bottom of a firmer and I just was very turned off for the first maybe a couple times that I had at hazy IPA. But you heard the buzz that this was kind of the thing. So most of my home brewing was centered around [BLANK_AUDIO] classic. I think around 2018, I think it was 2018 when CrossDrain won a medal for Fairy Nectar out here in Nebraska. Maybe it was 2019. Yeah, yeah. So during that time, we had some great, you know, local examples. Obviously the first, you know, the, I have this memory of the first time I really have in like, I just didn't drink a lot of them. So I didn't try very many. But when I went out to my brother-in-law's wedding out in California, this is like right before the pandemic, like I'm talking like a month, like in 2020, like February 2020. I had a boat shoes hazy from Carl Stross and I think that's like a five and a half percent, maybe hazy pale ale or something. And that was the first time that I tried one that I was kind of understanding of what the style could be or is kind of supposed to be. So at that point, started trying more commercial examples and then sprinkling in some homebrew versions of myself. I don't even really remember where I got the recipes for those first ones. There wasn't a lot of information out there at the time. I later grabbed some good information and craft beer and bring the magazine just to saying. And the World Works juicy bits recipe, which, you know, I think we published in 2016. Yeah. Just saying. Well, I got you. But I think the first like text book or something I had was the Scott Janage book. So I started digging that. Oh, that's a great one. And kept it very simple on those first ones. And the first couple we made actually looked the part. They were hazy and had the soft bitterness you're looking for. So I didn't really think you're too much with that. That first few, you know, batch we made with the recipe. But you kind of figured, okay, this is like the new upcoming style. We should probably figure out, you know, how to brew homebrew this. And then also have our other styles dialed in because we were brewing mostly West Coast style Hoppy beer. It was pretty late to the game when it came to the hazy stuff. I wasn't one of those guys in like 2013 brewing hazy beers at my house. Anyone who claims that now, I mean, there certainly were people who were doing that in 2013. But, you know, I think, yeah, 2015, 2016 was kind of, you know, I wanted to really gain steam even in even in 2014. You know, we published a recipe from the tree house back then. And I, but it still wasn't. I don't think what you would consider a full like hazy IPA in this kind of modern context. And so, you know, but that evolution was happening in real time there as we moved from the kind of heavy topper model of, you know, of, you know, hazy juicy. And then obviously, Hill Farmstead, kind of taking that and running with it and applying that kind of soft mouth feel approach type. Yeah, even though the hops that they were using weren't necessarily the same kind that we've ended where, you know, this general mainstream of where we've ended up now. But anyway, some interesting development at that time. Yeah. And I think we'll get some history of way of the development of hazy IPA at some point here in the future. I'm curious to I really kind of want to get some of these oral histories down and yeah, I think a little bit of a just time and place, you know, where you're at. I'm sure it's some in some places it was a little more popular with like the local home crew clubs and what they were brewing at the time. But we started, I think we had six beers on tap. We first opened two of them were hazy IPA and then we had a couple of loggers in a like a west coast style. I don't think we had any dark beers at the time. And I just remember using, you know, it was all about tropical hops. So a lot of sultana we used some azaka, things like that. You know, we don't use much of that now. But in the beginning, you obviously had your your citrus and some of the heavy hitters. But I remember focusing more on those like very tropical leaning hop varieties. So we had one that was maybe a little higher in finishing gravity and then one that was a little more, you know, there's some kettle hops to it, a little more balanced. And really, I mean, a pretty big hit with our tap room crowd. They were good movers for us in the beginning there. But we quickly kind of evolved that as we went along. Typical brewery strategy. You know, you put start putting things out there and you see what's landing and what people want from you. And then you lean into those in that way. But by year two of the brewery, you know, you win a bronze medal for citrus, soaker and imperial hazy juicy IPA. And I imagine that started setting things off in a even more kind of focused way. Talk to me about that. Yeah. So the funny story about that beer actually was we were coming up on the GABF entries. We had a few lined up that we already submitted. And then we brewed that beer specifically for alfaking because the, you know, the requirement is, I think, 60 ibus or higher. So it needs to have some bitterness to it. And so that beer had a decent amount of kettle additions. And it was just to kind of like hit that, you know, profile that they might be looking for for alfaking. Yeah, about 30 minute or 15 and like a big, a big five minute addition on those early batches. And had, you know, pretty much crashed and burned it alfaking, but then did great at GABF. And it's kind of funny because I think the how that bitterness landed in the finished beer didn't necessarily correspond to what the numbers set on paper. And so, you know, those first few batches, we definitely pushed the limit, I think, on like what you could throw into the kettle. And we've since maybe dialed that in a little further to pull some of that out. But yeah, that was kind of the plan with that beer at that time. So it was this high bitterness imperial hazy GCIPA that kind of cut through with the judges that year for the bronze medal. But also, you know, that kind of bitterness is going to give it some staying power. And especially in a kind of, you know, what's generally a packaging competition as well as a brewing competition like GABF, you know, having that kind of structure deeper into the life of the beer. I imagine probably gave it some benefit. 100%. I mean, you always hear on it, you know, everybody listen to talk those GABF and roll beer cup batches. They need to be punched up a little on the bitterness because they're going to be sitting there for another month. And yeah, I mean, I totally knew that and it didn't make sense how that kind of landed. So then, you know, from 2022 to now in 2026, talk to me up the evolution of Citrus Soaker. You know, so now you've established it and your customers have some expectation of it. But at the same time, it's not like you've locked it in place and never tinkered whether you have continued to kind of mold and adjust that beer to where you what do you think it should be in today's kind of context. Talk to me about some of that evolutionary process. Yeah, I mean, you're always trying to stay with what your customer base is looking for. That's always a moving target. But the, you know, that first the first batch with the extra kettle hopping, you know, we've we're always doing some sort of experiment with every beer that we're making. You know, we tried to play around with is there a way to kind of capture the same balance and bitterness by just upping maybe that whirlpool temp because we were doing the heavy kettle load on this beer, then also bringing the whirlpool temp down pretty significantly and then doing a ginormous like, you know, a couple of pounds per beer. I may not that big, but a good amount of hops in the whirlpool as well. And so if we play around with that whirlpool temp, can we find that balance without doing as much in the kettle. And I think the the ever changing palette has leaned more and more towards the softer profile, the less aggressive sort of profile. And so over time, we've kind of pulled more out of the kettle and put that in the whirlpool. And then, you know, we're always playing around with that whirlpool temp anywhere from 160, 165 up to 185 probably. Like if we're trying to get some IBU from that and and that's kind of where we're at, you know, in present days. So we're between cool pool and warm pool, almost hot pool at that point. 100%. Yeah, I mean, because our, you know, West Coast beers that we make, we're usually shooting towards the high end of that range. We have some limits equipment wise, you know, we got to research through our heat exchanger to cool this stuff down. The first couple batches of citrus soaker, I had to be prepared to after we research to cool, have a plan to kind of back flush the heat exchanger because it would definitely all those those kettle hops would kind of clog things up a little bit. And then our runoff to the fermenter was always a while. So we we had a little bit of there's some logistical stuff there that kind of guided us as well. But yeah, I think the feedback has been that the the versions with more in the late, you know, the world pool stage are better received than the other ones. I think to me and to my palate, having the kettle hops for the most part was was a little heavy on the palate. And maybe you hurt the drinkability just a little bit. I think you still get all the the impact the the hop character that you're looking for through that late addition. But you know, we still sprinkle in some some kettle stuff, but lean more towards the late the late additions. And your mind, well, you know, what kind of impact or even in your brewing spreadsheets for that matter, what kind of impact does some of that, you know, like differing temperature of that world pool have. So between 161, 65 and and 185, like are there, you know, say, you know, specific like five degree Fahrenheit jump that's going to change the kind of bitterness expressed. in some significant way, how do you quantify some of that math for yourself as you're thinking about changing some of these parameters? - Yeah, I don't know how many times I've Googled how to calculate whirlpool bitterness. There's really not, I can't find a formula that gives you a straight answer on that. So it is a lot of your perception, you know, drinking the beer and seeing how it tastes. I know, I mean the textbook would probably say 180 is your isomerization temp. So if you stay below 180, you're not getting any bitterness. And if you're over that, you're gonna pick some up. I'm usually thinking we need to steer clear of like whatever the threshold is. So if we wanna pick up some bitterness, if we're like 178 or above, I'm feeling like that's in the range of, I need to account for some bitterness in the whirlpool. If I really wanna try to omit that completely, it's probably shooting towards 165. But sometimes we'll dictate it by our water back. Usually in our kettle we'll water back a little bit through our heat exchanger with some, we'll chill the water down and we'll land somewhere probably up or 170s. And so at that point we will research to kinda dial in the whirlpool temp. But if we're for West Coast stuff, I mean I usually push it into the 180s to try to, to try to potentially get some bitterness. And then for the lighter, this is gonna be like gravity dependent too. So if it's a lower starting gravity hazy, we might go a little lower on the whirlpool temp and try to find some balance there depending on what the beer's gonna be. - So in terms of like how do you account for that, not just the amount of bitterness, but also that quality of the bitterness. You talked about how when you add those at some various points on in the kettle itself that there's a heaviness to some of that. And you're talking about heaviness in terms of quality of bitterness in that or in just the overall kind of hop experience. And then how does that differ, say, five or a 10 minute addition versus for you a 185 kind of whirlpool addition in terms of if it were the same hop, what that quality difference is between the experience of those two? - Yeah, this is something we kind of play around with in our lighter beer styles, you know, trying to find a bitterness that just provides the balance and not something where you distinctly point out like there's a bitterness to this beer. And like for the light beers, we, I really like low alpha hops kind of spread through the entire duration of the boil. And so much so that we've tried this on some heavies where we'll take like hollertower something and sprinkle them in, you know, 2.8% alpha hop and just see if we can get the same balance without pointing out that there's a bitterness to this beer. I think that the, when you're boiling citra mosaic, like some of these like 12, 13% alpha hops, it's easier to point out that there's a distinct bitterness quality to the beer without it just providing a balancing effect. You know, you wanna, I wanna just be drinking this beer, have half of it disappear and feel like I'm thinking about the next one, you know, and not be like weighed down. And I think those, the ones where we tossed in, like on a five barrel batch, there was probably five pounds of pound per barrel in the kettle, you could just, every sip had good impact, like good hop impact to it where you're like, wow, this is very hoppy, but also like a, not cloying, like, you know, when you get under a tenuated beer where there's like a cloying effect that makes you not wanna take another sip, but I think there was a bitterness to it that makes you not wanna take another sip. So we're always trying to just figure out, you know, the balance and not so much the, being able to just pick out that bitterness part of it. - Sure, sure. Well, let's, I wanna talk about juicy midtones and modern melody, also, you know, some other GABF, metal winning, hazy IPAs you've made that hit some different kind of ABV points and see how that kind of, and we can talk about then how this range of gravity's maybe impacts some of, you know, the way that you, you know, think about and build these recipes. And, you know, I also wanna talk about all the other fun stuff, like grain and hop choice and fermentation and all the other kinds of things. Let's talk about all that, but first, pumps are critical to any brewing setup from home brewing through Nanoburring and of course, at the pro level, from mash recirculation to warped transfer and even for cleaning and quality pump is a key part of every brew day. 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This year we'll be brewing under the binds at bail breaker and it's sure to be an unforgettable experience. Tickets are on sale now and going fast at brewersretreat.com. I think as my check in this morning, I think we have about four tickets left. So if you want to put it on your calendar, go get a ticket now. All right, let's talk about some of the other lower ABV, well, I shouldn't know that low, but some hazy IPAs that hit lower on that ABV spectrum. And then talk about how you think about building that kind of balance through body and bitterness in each one of these. So where should we start? - Yeah, I mean, we've only talked juicy midtones we could hit that one. That's the grain bill and that's a little different. We do a little higher. - That's a grain bill, by the way. - Camera where I got it. Yeah, so when we're talking like just gravity and scale of these hazy beers, it's a little bit related to the yeast choice that we made in the beginning. And we've tried a lot of different stuff over the years, but we produce most of our hazy beers with the London Vogue from White Labs. And it's probably the most finicky in terms of getting it to do what you want it to do. There's a lot of little things we've figured out over time with regard to nutrient and temperature and oxygen and all that. But the, so our finishing gravity to be a little higher. And I think our customer base has kind of come to expect that. So our standard, I don't know, 7% IPA, usually a little land anywhere. And I typically talk in specific gravity. So around 10, 18, 10, 20s, where we want it to be. We've had some 10, 20 to 10, 24 finishing gravities. But with what we're doing in the kettle, we really want it to land 10, 20 or a little lower, it'll be perfect. So for those, we don't do any no hot side hops. It's all whirlpool. And we find that that provides enough balance to these beers. And the way our kettle is designed, we can actually go up to, I mean, our standard whirlpool hop load is usually two pounds per barrel. And that doesn't really create any issues. We could probably go to the liar if we wanted to. But that seems sufficient to get what we're looking for. So yeah, I mean, our starting gravities anywhere from 10, 72 up to 10, 75 for these single, single days, and we, you know, if we're going below six and a half per cent. So for those hazy pale nails, we'll usually drop that whirlpool hop load, maybe down to a pound per barrel, just to try to, you know, the bitterness comes through much easier on those beers, even if we're landing at 10, 20 on the finishing gravity there. So that's kind of what we're looking at in terms of finishing gravity to, to starting and how we plan that hop, that hop load. Sure. Let's, I want to, let's back up and talk about, you know, grain and building a base for these. Obviously, this kind of like super pale light color is important. And that pale color is very important to you too. And all the beers that we sampled before we started this podcast have a very light, very pale color to them. And that's not an accident. So, you know, but at the same time, they have to support a lot of this hot flavor. Talk to me about, you know, malt choices in these, these hazys across the spectrum and how that might change as you get to the bigger ABB range. Yeah. So we've tried it. I feel like every malt option that's out there from both B.S.G. and Country Mall Group. And we've landed on the Gambrianist Pills for the hazy beers. I have it for the hazy beers. I mean, I get it for West Coast IPA for sure, but pretty much all of our, we rely on the Gambrianist Pills. And then you've got this super lean Pills from Gambrianist that you then don't fully attenuate and get out of here. Yeah, so that's the other thing is the balance. With that yeast, you almost don't want anything to mess that up or be an additional cloying factor to the final beer. I would say we also kind of will adjust seasonally to our grain bill. So I'm a big fan of all the wireman stuff, but specifically [BLANK_AUDIO] the floor malted from a wireman. We will do some 100% floor malted loggers and you'll taste that there's a distinct multi-character to those beers. If we're doing maybe a session IPA or a session Haze or Hazy Pale or if it's like fall going into winter and you just, there's like this, you know, something to the seasonality of drinkers. We might switch it out and start going with a little more malt-forward malt for those and the floor malted provides that. I wouldn't do 100% usually go, you know, 30% or something on the floor malted. Unless it's a 4% session IPA, maybe we go 100% on that one. So that's our base on those. I will say some of these GABF batches we did switch it out for the wireman extra pale based on some stuff I heard on the extra pale. So like the the juicy midtones batch we we use the extra pale. But I think they'll taste them side by side. They're very similar. The extra pale and the game-reinus pills with our yeast provides a very similar finished product. With that we go, I've tried a bunch of different adjunct types and ratios. In the beginning we used to sprinkle in some malted like white wheat or even through some like crystal malt in those first few, very light crystal of maybe 1%. And then we started to do this like 70% Pilsermalt and then it would be equal parts, flaked oats, flaked wheat and unmulted wheat. So 10% each of those. And that we pretty much ran with that for a long time. The first few batches that I homebrewed were almost all flaked wheat. And I noticed that like you get the the look you're looking for with the flaked wheat you don't really have to put the flaked oats in there if you just want a hazy looking beer. Those beers drink a little more crisp. I think there's like a acidic thing to the flaked wheat that the oats don't provide. So the you know we started adding in the oats for a little more roundness and body. And the unmulted wheat I think I tossed that in there for more of the visual of the beer not so much something that I could pick out specifically in the in the body or mouth field. And so recently we've experimented with just taking out the unmulted wheat because from an extract standpoint it does not provide much gravity to the beer. And our mash ton is a little bit undersized for our kettle. And so we're always trying to find a way to like you know increase the little bit of the yield on that side. And so we've done some recently where it's just 10% flaked oats and then 10% flaked wheat and then 80% of the gambrianous pills. And side by side you really can't tell the difference between you know something that had some unmulted wheat. I think appearance wise body and mouth feel they're pretty they're pretty much the same. And so that's kind of our standard. And the foam is still right there. The foam retention is good. You know we've tried the we've definitely shot country malt is not our primary spot to order stuff from and they're the ones that have the best malls chit. So we usually get like a half-ball at a time and experiment sprinkle some of that in. I really like what that contributes to the beer but we don't do that every time. So we've kind of we've settled into that combination of flaked oats, flaked wheat. And then juicy mid-tone specifically just because the first batch we made was different. We stick to that and that one is 30% flaked oats and nothing else. So it's 70% of the Pills or malt, gambrianous or the wireman extra pale and then the 30% flaked oats. But everything else I like to do the combination of flaked wheat, flaked oats and then occasionally some some unmulted as well on top of that. And then that that same general kind of breakdown also works at that kind of citrus-soaker imperial level. It's just a similar percentage just increased everything. Yeah, citrus-soaker was probably the second or third beer we made with this like new concept of of a mash bill and that was that was the mash bill for that. So like 70% Pills and then the 10 10 10. So unmulted flaked and then flaked wheat. So flaked wheat flaked oats unmulted at 10% each. Let's then let's talk about that kind of fermentation process and then I also want to talk about you know hops and this kind of hazy IPA category. And then we're going to talk about English style. I was like promise not going to not going to forget and miss out on that one this time. You know but but let's you know so you mentioned this fermentation is a little bit finicky with this white lab's London fog yeast. You know in terms of getting it to express the way you want it to express and hitting the right attenuation which isn't too much attenuation. You know what are you know how if you kind of massage to that yeast to get what you think is the best expression from it. Yeah it's taking a lot of batches to figure it out. It's a lot of trial and error. Does that change you know from the smaller you know hazy IPA is up through the largest hazy IPA's? Definitely. So the you know our process that we've figured out here over time. We you know pretty standard knockout we will knock out to the fermenter 65 as what we're looking for. And we put a flow meter on the oxygen assembly so we're running like three liters per minute on that. And yeah that's that's kind of the sweet spot. I mean we'd like to provide enough oxygen there. And then the pitching rate you know I've tried a bunch of different things. I think you can kind of underpitch it a little bit and that doesn't seem to affect too much. But early on we would usually pitch the yeast and then let that temper amp up pretty quickly so I might set the temp on the tank at 68. Usually I'd come in the next morning and the bucket was completely exploded and this thing had just taken off and it would take it down from let's say 1075 down to 1035 very fast. I mean we're talking like you know within a few days and then just sit there and not do anything. So it's just very kind of very strange. I usually think a little bit of a temp ramp at the end might help it out. Nothing seems to move the needle. So what we're doing now is we start pitching 65 and then I found that holding it there at 65 almost like holding it back on the cooler side not ramping up. I get more consistent. I don't get that initial explosion of fermentation but I get a more steady fermentation that doesn't stop at 1030. If I keep going all the way down to the you know the 1018 or 1020 that we're looking for it will definitely want to on the lighter session IPAs or Hazeepales will will under pitch pretty significantly on these. It doesn't seem to matter. That 1075 to 1080 range is where I start having the problems with them not going all the way. So now we're doing a zinc addition and we've tried that both in the whirlpool and in the directly into the firm enter. I like the firm enter. Again I mean it's just like things you've heard people say like on the podcast that know what they're talking about. That's the way to make sure it's in the tank at a rate that you know what the rate is. There is a great episode on zinc in particular an entire episode on zinc from white labs with Julian and Garrett some really good stuff out there. Yeah and so we will do the we do like a zinc hepto hydrate that we dissolve in some boiling water let that cool down. We chuck it in there and the combination of the zinc and the oxygen being right and then holding the temp down seem to give us the best most reliable result. We still get some weird ones where it doesn't want to go and you try everything. Re-circulate the yeast a little bit with some CO2, bump the temp up, never does anything. I mean it's just it's the craziest thing and then yeah getting the yeast to the flock out is also very difficult. It's not the most harvesting friendly yeast that we've found. But you like the flavor so much and it's worked so well for you that it is worth putting up with that kind of finickyness. Yeah the track record is good and we can't ditch it completely. Fascinating well you know but that's an interesting one. I like that idea of slowing it down and not and I mean I guess it tracks with the science of it right you know paste the yeast out and select towards those that are going to continuously work in a steady way rather than letting them do you know all the work at first get burnt out and then just you know yeah you got lazy yeast and nobody wants those at the end when you need to get the real work done. So yeah and I should mention too before we get too far. So because our mash time is a little undersized we will do occasionally like a dextrose or a brewer's crystal addition in the kettle and I found that kind of manipulating that amount can also change something. So like if we're putting I don't know more than 10 to 15% of our gravity from dextrose you you do see that a little bit more of a spike in the beginning and I think that causes some sluggishness down the road as well. So I like I like there's a character to having some dextrose in these beers. But for like the hazy pales that's the sweet spot to dial it back of like 50% of what we might do on a double hazy but then you run into those those problems with the double hazes if you're going that that big on that. How do you solve for that problem in the double hazes you yeah enzymes or kind of other other solution there? Just sacrificing our yield on them. So you know we're able to our fiber or brew kettle we can get upwards of seven or eight in the kettle but we might be at six and a half on a double hazy so we're just sacrificing the yield at the end of the day on those. Yeah yeah let's talk about hops you know I think from the beers that I've tasted from you, I wouldn't say it's a house character, but you definitely have a point of view. And I think that it's an interesting point of view. If I were thinking about it in sensory terms, there's almost like a little bit of this kind of tropical pith or kind of pomegranate seed, like a little bit of berry, but not a ton of it. And but definitely this kind of pithy, tropical kind of underlayment with those obvious and more present tropical fruit characters on top of that. But that quality of the bitterness ends up in the same kind of flavor zone as the kind of flavor top notes and aroma top notes of fruit. And so it means that there's not a rough or herbal or floral bitterness to them, it's all tropical. And like little subtle touches of dankness. Anyway, talk to me about how you think about hops in these. And obviously it's wide open and you're using lots and lots of hops and always experimenting with hops. And it's always a moving target on there. But as you build a core of hop blends that you then want to extend and learn different hop varieties and whatnot, where did you start and how does that extend out from there? There's some commonalities. And then where do you experiment in that? Yeah, I mean there's no secret. Citra is the biggest contract we currently have. And that's-- You kind of put it in the name of Citra so good. And we've done some other some Citra slap beer. And I think 100% Citra beer is going to be pretty good. But that is something we definitely-- But what Citra? Is all Citra the same? Definitely not. Definitely not. Yeah, I mean this was the first year last fall. We went out to Yakima for hops selection. And yeah, I mean there's definitely a variety that you'll find out there from farm to farm that we learned. So that's really the foundation. And those who have listened to the podcast episode with Dan from Lumen understand that maybe selection itself for a small brewery is not the end all and be all of-- and that maybe there are also other methods that one can use to dial in their selection processes. But folks will have heard that by the time this episode comes out. 100%. I mean there's a crazy variety there for sure. I don't think there's anything crazy with what we're doing. A lot of New Zealand stuff. Foundation is Citra Cryo. And there's some variety in where you're sourcing all these things for sure. We just got some Garsten hops, just sent us some Nelson. So we're going to be excited to throw that in some stuff. And then freestyle, progress, or James making the rounds around here and pop it in and see if folks-- Yeah, usually everything's already been contracted. I've done a few centuries with James and everything's always gone. So I was able to actually scoop up some Nelson that I think somebody maybe didn't use up on their contractor something which is pretty exciting. So yeah, I still think the beers that are made with all T90s are all cryo products are really good. The advanced hot products are out there. We use pretty much everything. And I think the dosage rates on that is very important. So we typically start with whatever the manufacturers' requirements are, but their recommendations are. But I always taste these beers if we're putting something into the bright tank and we're doing a transfer on top of it. You taste some of these things with the flowable hot products. Halfway through a transfer where the dosage rate is a little exaggerated. There's definitely a flavor to some of these things and finding that sweet spot is the key. So I always like to start with just the T90s, the cryo, the actual hop cones themselves. But I don't think there's much in terms of what we're using. It's all the varieties you would think. And I love a combo right now that is Citra Nectron. And then we'll throw a lot of crush in on these competition beers. It just seems like that's a common trait to a lot of things you see hit for GABF and World Cup. - Rayleigh Crush or Crush Cryo? - A little of both. - I hear Crush Cryo is pretty hot these days. - The problem with the Crush Cryo, I couldn't find any of this. So I actually was able to get some regular T90 Crush. And so that's what's going in the mail for World Beer Cup this year. I think it comes across almost the same. There's like a juicy fruit gum to crush. I don't know if that's buried into some of these beers where they're doing well at competition. It's just like this commonality though. You'll see all these beers landing for like hazy IPA styles have some crush in them for the most part. So sprinkle in that in. But then Nectron specifically, which is also another one that it seems like I buy it and then it's gone and I can't get it from the same place again. And to me, it's almost like just a ramped up Citra. So every time we, let's say we're doing like 60% Citra, you know, 10% Nectron in there. It just seems to amplify everything about the Citra in an awesome way. And then you know, picking maybe a wild card on top of that. Some like Motu Ecker or some New Zealand stuff that we have here. But as you think about the blends of advanced hop products versus these T90s and Cryos, do you have any kind of like, you know, working limits? Like, yeah, just do the oil or extract based products like work up to a certain percentage point. And, you know, but you really don't push past that. Do you have any kind of like working parameters around that? Yeah. So something we almost started doing on every single batch of hazy IPA or hazy paleoel is some hyperboost in the fermenter. So we were, I think at one point, the manufacturer's recommendation for hyperboost to use it like a cold side addition, bright tank or whatever. And after talking to the YCH rep, you know, there's been some, there's more studies been done or more anecdotal evidence that better to throw that in there what when you pitch your yeast, you get more out of it. And you really get, I think you really get something in terms of the beer appearance is different. There's more haze to these beers. And there's, there is like a, almost like it's been dry hopped already as it's finishing the fermentation. And so we will typically do that on every single one. And I like, I usually go about 10 to 15 grams per five barrels. So for those like 15 barrel batches, we might push that up to 50 grams just to round it. It's 100 gram container. So to make things nice. And I don't think that's overdoing it. You could probably push it just a little further. But it's just, it's provided so much by doing it that way that I kind of almost just make that SOP now for haze beers. And we'll do, I like Citra, but I also, I think at one point, they were just out of the Citra I've roost. We switched over to the Nelson. And that's become our house favorite for that. Nelson hybrid roost. Yeah. All right. Sounds great to me. Yeah, sign me up for it. And that's not the only kind of advanced hop product in this New Zealand realm that you really love. The hop keyf is also kind of plays its role in the beers, the IPAs that you make. Yeah. The hop keyf from freestyle, to me, that provides, even at a super high concentration, like as you're doing that transfer, and it's double the concentration of what you're expecting in the finished beer. That to me provides the most realistic, true to style hop character. I mean, just smelling the container. It doesn't really smell like an extract, or like some kind of advanced hop product, it smells like condensed hop aroma. And I don't know if it's just the concentration of it, but I feel like there's maybe a little more wiggle room on the dosage. For us, I think the size I have now is either 275 ml or 300. That's about perfect for a five-bill batch. So we might go three of those for a 15 or two of them for a 10-bill batch. And all the varieties are good. We love the Raiwaka, but the Nelson's awesome. We've done-- I don't think I've tried them all at this point, and they all kind of have the same true to style like character to them. Awesome. Awesome. Anything else to hop on the Haze IPA? Are there any-- I mean, you mentioned Nectaron as being this kind of booster hop that even helps Citra become more Citra-like. Are there other hops that are playing some of these assist roles that you find that you work into blends in smaller ways in order to help lift some of the primary character of other kind of more star hops? Yeah. So I had a Sabro-only IPA at another brewery one time, and it was like to me, maybe the best IPA I've ever had. I love the Sabro character. I also like-- That's a hot take right there. I also like Tiki Drinks and like Pina Colotta style. And then basically it tastes like that in the finished beer. And-- I say this is someone who had a Sabro fresh hop beer on my personal best list two years ago. So I'm with you, but I understand how polarizing that state is. Yeah, it's love that I hate it. That's how it goes with the Sabro. So I actually like to sprinkle in. You get some Sabro cryo, and you chuck that into like a triple hazy. I mean, I'm talking like 10% of the entire hop by weight load for that. And it provides-- a background tropical thing that amplifies some of the other tropical flavors you might be trying to get. And if you tell people it's in there, they'll hate the beer. Like the people that don't like this ever will hate the beer. Yeah. If you don't tell them, it's in there. Those same people will love the beer. So we've done some experiments with just like, you know, let's try a tiny bit and just get that boost of tropical, you know, a Roma and flavor that we're looking for. And so that's one that I like. I can always pick it out. I know it's in there. And I can, I know what I'm looking for. But the, I think if you've got enough other stuff going on, it can blend really nice and just very seamlessly. I also love the 100% outro beers that are just 100% peanut collada coconut. It's not sunscreen to me. Heck yeah, I'm here for them too. But again, I understand not everyone's palate is the same. And what I love maybe just like, you know, pencil shavings to another brewer out there and they just can't, they just can't do it at all. So yeah, is what it is. Understand that. Let's pivot as we finish up here and talk about English mild and English bitter. You know, this obviously connects back, you know, you mentioned at the start that you spent time at this village in England drinking, you know, pub ails in England. And that has certainly influenced it. And as a result, like you've leaned in heavily in the spearwind surfing on the tims, you know, which in the most recent issue of craft beer and brewing scored at 98 also won a gold medal at JBF last year. Yeah, it's hitting hard. We had someone cast here. Talk to me about your approach towards making English style pub ails, cast scales. You know, design them for cask, you design them for CO2 because that's how, you know, how people are more likely to consume them here. You know, but as I drink something like wind surfing on the tims, I think that it hits this malt character that is maybe slightly amplified relative to see a more traditional English style version of this. But it's not full on American like over the top. Like let's let's just, you know, you turn it up to 12 because even 11 isn't loud enough. You know, this is America. I got a, you know, we had to overdo everything. You know, you found this interesting spot with the malt character where it's prominent and maybe, you know, a little bit higher than a, you know, then might be typical and broadly for the style. But you know, as we all know, but it comes to competition judging, finding like standing out, but not too much like just standing on enough and like, and also holding up, you know, as people as these glasses are sitting on a table. Some of those things matter and even some of the mechanics of that work for this style is it sits in a glass and warms up over time like that beer still needs to hold up. So talk to me about your kind of design parameters and how you've, how you have crafted the perfect English style for yourself. Having cask in England, it's like a very eye opening experience. There's something to the, the full flavor you get from those beers, but then the balance drink ability at that temperature and carbonation level. And it is one of those things where I think you kind of have to design the beer for one or the other and we will do, we have a two barrel tank back there and a few fives. And we will do a cask only beer and we won't do the draft and then I can really, you know, dial that in for beer engine service. But yeah, most of these we have to, the majority goes to keg, so you kind of have to design the beer. If you make a beer for cask, that is perfect for cask. The version that serves at 38 degrees with 2.5 volumes of CO2 or whatever is going to taste a very watered down and it kind of works both ways there. So yeah, we usually have some sort of English paleo on tap at all times. So we've evolved the recipe a little bit over time. For the draft version, usually start with the pretty, I mean the recipe for English beers, it's pretty standard. It's like a, there's a lot of caucas. I like to blend both of those things. So we'll do a blend of, usually like Thomas Fawcett, Marisotter and then Simpsons Best Pale, which keeps it kind of a little bit lighter. So it's not all Marisotter and like full malt. And then we'll do, you know, 6, 7% of like a medium crystal somewhere there, a 1% somewhere in the dark crystal range. And then recently and for that, the wind surfing batch, we like to throw in some golden naked oats. So you know, plus up the body just a little bit. Again, that's more, I think, designed for the draft 38 degrees full carb beer. And I think if you pulled that out, maybe for the cast version, it would just be a little more dialed in there. And then a very slight amount of like roast barley for some background color adjustment, that kind of thing. That's kind of, that's kind of what we're doing right now. The yeast, so I will say it's again, it's almost like the hazy beers, you know, the fermentation on this is a little wonky sometimes. After listening to a bunch of podcasts from 15 years ago from like how they made London pride in some of those. And actually having some email traffic with hook Norton brewery in England. After a couple of those visits in 2012, everybody has like a weird fermentation schedule on these. And we've tried those and they almost never provide the results we're looking for. I've actually found so we really like the the Y East like 1968, it's like the London ESB strain. And so we'll usually pitch that pretty cold like 63. Hold it back for a day or two, go up or 60s and then actually like crank it up to you know 72 on day four or five and let it just sort of hang out. You'll actually see the Esther development over that next like seven days. And then at that point we'll fill some casks. And and then get the beer ready for transfer to a bright tank and then normal packaging from there. But image head pressure or anything on these because I mean a lot of these yeasts are you know these are yeast they grew up in open fermentation. Yeah so if we pitch this on like a Friday you come in on Monday and it's a mess. I mean we a lot of these fermenters were overflowing them from the kettle just to maximize some of that yield. And this for sure top crop for sure it's it's a it's a bit of a mess but I think you're you're getting like that true flavor character that you're looking for out of this thing. I just think the key is start cold. Bring it up hold it back just a little bit and then really ramp it up at the end. And like not being too worried to go to go up and then yeah we just under normal like we'll usually put like one or two PSI on the tank to fill these casks. With some fresh yeast and some dextrose for priming and we give those 10 days or so just hanging out in the brewery and then we'll move into our cooler. And then we have a dedicated chest reason that we've converted for our cask service will bring up to we like them to be about 50 you know 50 to 55 is the where they're supposed to be for seller temp but leaning on the little bit lower side of there makes it whole easier for us. Yeah yeah anything else to you know to the magic here I mean hops don't play a giant role in this no I do so the I do like a good amount of you know balancing bitterness on these beers and we typically rely on EKG as our our go to and we'll do. We'll sprinkle them through the whole boil so 60 30 15 enough five we tried some whirlpool additions and I've done some aggressive dry hop additions with these when I say aggressive I'm talking like a half pound per barrel yeah and with English varieties you really need to be careful it does not have a bag smells if you leave them if you go too high on that so like that wind surfing beer we actually did a combination of challenger hops early in the boil for that 30 and. Or for that 60 and 30 and then for the light later additions were going EKG on that but we'll change it up we'll do some like foggle and progress and some other UK varieties but I think it'd be stick with the EKG you can't really go wrong sometimes we'll do a little dry up in the cask but sure sure anything else to win surfing on the teams. No I think it's you don't want to overthink those traditional English beers you know make them light and sessionable that's the that's the key yeah yeah they are intentionally simple but the devil's in all the details of process and not necessarily in the recipe well let's you know let's look at the big picture you know you've been in business since 2021 and you know so we're going to go on five years this year you know brewing is in a different place now in 2025 2026 you know the at the same time you continue to make the beers that you are successful at and the customers want from you and they're also continuing to try to figure out what that means and and you know hone those skills at this kind of high level. What's what's next for corn coast you open a second tap room up in Omaha or La Vista and on the suburban Omaha and you know so there there's a little bit there's an additional place to sell the beer there and you're making more here to serve that what do you hope to achieve in the next three to five years what do you what future do you see for corn coast here. Yeah I mean the older I get the more I feel like I realize you kind of have to live in the moment, you know, enjoy the present day and every day I walk in here and I have zero production schedule. Nobody's telling me what beers I have to make and nobody's telling me like you can't buy these ingredients to make those beers. So in a way it feels like we're kind of living the dream right now and you know every day we're chasing better beer. That's, you know, I think our customers, they've come to find that we're always going to try to put the best beer possible out there for them and you know do whatever it takes to kind of make that happen. Obviously from a you know a business standpoint you want to keep growing and move it in that direction. Last year was very busy with the second tap room opening up. It's awesome to be able to share these beers now direct to customer for another entire another city. And yeah we were doing a little bit of self-destro out in town. So you know the next year we're really trying to just maximize these these tap rooms that we have here in Lincoln and Omaha and maybe get a little more out on on store shelves and stick into our you know the having the freshest beer on the shelf because we're cutting out the middle man and delivering it ourselves. It's kind of kind of the nice thing there. So you know maybe in the future we've definitely talked about another you know tap room location I think without craft beer looks right now trying to go crazy with a production brewery and be out in town and that's your main thing. I don't I don't know if that's the plan for us but being able to create another place for a local community to come in and us to you know put these beers out for you know direct out of the keg as fresh as they can be you know that feels like the the path forward but yeah we're always looking to make this a sustainable you know model for the for the future so we can keep doing this. Sure. Yeah it's a great place to wrap this up. Stop by and check out their latest innovations of the G&D Chillers Booth 1518 at CBC Berkeley East Dry tropics London offers their best-selling liquid yeast strain with the ease of use of dry yeast. Packed handles are made from 100% recycled plastic and are fully recyclable. The multi-layered wonders of Indy Hop Stratter now easier than ever for brewers to tap into with Strata Cryo. The mighty 50/50 Flex can convert to all fridge all freezer or half and half with just the touch of a button. Old orchard is your one-stop shop for fruit juice concentrates puries and blends. The SS brew pump from SS Brew Tech is engineered to tackle even the messiest brew days. Get your tickets now to the craft beer brewing brewers retreat. If you've enjoyed this episode go to beerbring.com click on that subscribe button and if you are a subscriber I mean hey check out that recipe for corn coasts share the stoke right there on the craft beer brewing website and you know we really didn't talk about that or West Coast bills for that matter but you know I think we jammed in enough hazy IPA talk and English ill talk to to fill that out. Well it's been really awesome talking with you about how you make these award winning beers here on in Lincoln Nebraska and if you want to learn more about corn coast where can they find more from you. The best place would probably just be our social media you know Instagram is a good spot just corn coast brewing on there. Positions of all the time so that's our best spot there. Real phenomenal brewing community now here in Eastern Nebraska obviously between Lumen cross train you guys. Other breweries I visited here like juke's and monolithic. I mean there is it's a very communal kind of brewing community and you all are very tight and work together support each other and also push each other and I think that having that kind of friendly competition where you're supporting but also wanting to compete and beat and you know like both of those things together creates a really healthy environment here and the beer speaks for itself. Phenomenal beer cross everything so thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions on brewing it's been great talking to you. Cheers. Thanks for having me Jamie. Appreciate it. This podcast has been brought to you by Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine for those who love to make and drink great beer. To learn more or to subscribe visit Beer and Brewing.com or find us on social media at Craft Beer Brewing.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. The podcast episode features an interview with Will Walter, co-owner of Corn Coast Brewing in Nebraska, discussing his journey from homebrewing influenced by family and military service to opening a commercial brewery.
  2. Corn Coast has achieved significant recognition, including high scores and medals (GABF gold, World Beer Cup awards) for beers like its English Mild and various IPA styles.
  3. The brewery's philosophy blends inspirations from East Coast, West Coast, and European brewing traditions, focusing on sessionable beers and hazy IPAs, while emphasizing local partnerships like with nearby ABE Equipment.
  4. The episode includes promotional segments for sponsors like G&D Chillers, Berkeley Yeast, PakTech, and others, highlighting products and services for the brewing industry.

Summary:

This podcast episode from Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine features host Jamie Bogner interviewing Will Walter, co-owner of Corn Coast Brewing in Lincoln, Nebraska. Walter shares his brewing origin story, which began in high school through his father's homebrewing and was further shaped by his military service, travels to European beer destinations, and time in Southern California's craft beer scene. His experiences culminated in founding Corn Coast with partners, named as a nod to their coastal military postings and Nebraska roots.

The discussion highlights the brewery's award-winning beers, including a gold-medal English Mild and hazy IPAs, underscoring its competitive success despite opening in 2021. Walter explains the brewery's creative angle, blending diverse regional influences into a focused lineup. The conversation also touches on practical aspects like using local manufacturer ABE Equipment.

The episode is interspersed with sponsor ads for industry suppliers such as G&D Chillers, Berkeley Yeast, and PakTech, promoting equipment, ingredients, and sustainable packaging for brewers.

FAQs

Corn Coast Brewing was founded by Will Walter and partners, inspired by their military backgrounds and shared love for brewing, combining East and West Coast influences in Nebraska.

Corn Coast has won multiple awards, including a GABF gold for Wind Surfing on the Tim's English Mild and silvers in hazy/juicy categories, with high scores in Craft Beer & Brewing magazine.

Corn Coast focuses on a range of styles including hazy IPAs, West Coast pilsners, and English-style beers like milds and bitters, blending coastal inspirations.

Will Walter started homebrewing with his father in high school, inspired by the mix of cooking and science, and continued developing his passion through military service and travels.

Corn Coast uses a five-barrel brew house from Abe Equipment, located locally in Lincoln, Nebraska, which allows for quick support and maintenance.

Sponsors include G&D Chillers for brewery cooling, Berkeley Yeast for dry yeast strains, Pactech for sustainable beer packaging, and Yakima Chief Hops for hop products.

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