The Current State of Hazy IPA with Monkish, Brujos, and North Park

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. It's episode 500 of the Craft Beer and Bring podcast. I'm Jamie Bogner and here we are at another milestone episode every time we've hit one of these big round numbers. I've tried to do something special in the timing worked out perfectly for this one. As we just held our annual brewers a treat out of Bill Breaker in the hop country of Yakima, Washington. Once again, it was an amazing experience. Brew and on Ruby Street 10 gallon systems and groups led by some amazing and inspiring brewers like Vinnie and Natalie of Russian River. Sean Lawson of Lawson's finest Bed Edmonds of Breakside, Whitney Burnside of Grandfur, Neil Fisher of Weldworks, Chris Bomb of Variety and more. The team at Bill Breaker is straight up incredible and Megan, Quinn and SmittyMature everything went flawlessly. A huge thank you to them for being such great hosts. We made pellets and freshly kiln tops with Zach at Single Hill during the kickoff bottle share. We enjoyed some killer live fire cooking from Yakima local The Fat Pastor. We brewed a bucket after bucket of wet hops and literally made it rain hops in our final group photo. Our team of Michaela Paul and Joe crushed it in the folks who attended this year from as far away as Japan, Norway, Mexico, Canada and the Czech Republic kept the vibes rocking. It was an incredibly special time and I'm going to hold on to that memory as long as I live. Another fun thing we did was record a few of the morning panel discussions for podcast episodes as we've done before. One difference is that I knew one of these was going to be episode 500 and while I felt the pressure to make that special, I had no idea that the brewers assembled for the retreat had something even better in store for me. I'm not going to spoil that surprise but listen through to the end of this episode for yet another moment that I won't soon forget. Joining me for this panel discussion on current approaches to hazy IPA, we're Henry Nguyen of Monkish, Sam's or Manu of Bruhos and Kelsey McNair of North Park, three luminaries in that corner of the brewing world who have some strong opinions about what makes hazy IPA great today. We're going to jump into that conversation in a minute, but before we do. Hey there, Justin from GND Chillers. Sustainability isn't just a buzzword. It's a necessity for breweries today. That's why we've engineered solutions like the Elite 290 Microseries running on natural refrigerants with near zero GWP. That's right, GND's new Elite 290 Microseries is built for brewers who care about sustainability and performance. There runs on a natural refrigerant with near zero global warming. Potential has a compact footprint and features variable speed fans for efficiency. They've chilled beer for over 3,000 breweries across North America and with 24/7 support and remote monitoring your cold side stays dialed in day or night. Get the details on natural refrigerant technology at gdchillers.com/podcast and at the World Beer Cup this year. Gold for West Coast IPA. Gold for Session IPA. Bronze Silver and Gold for New Zealand IPA. Bronze Silver and Gold for Classic IPA. All these beers are fermented with one yeast. Fresh Chico. Berkeley's low diacetyl ale yeast. There's something you need to know. Diacetyl is not just a path or fail. Yes, at high levels it's tragically bad, but even at low levels it masks the good flavors. So if you want hop notes to pop, you need diacetyl to be ultra low. These brewers trust Berkeley yeast for an ultra clean fermentation because on the finals table every little detail matters. And now fresh Chico is available in dried bricks for as low as 88 dollars at Berkeley yeast.com. Also, this episode is sponsored by PackTech, delivering craft beer, multi-packing you can trust. PackTech's handles are made from 100% recycled plastic and are fully recyclable. Helping breweries close the loop and advance the circular economy. With a minimalist design, durable functionality you can rely on and custom color matching. PackTech helps brands stand out while staying sustainable. Trusted by craft breweries nationwide, they offer a smarter, sustainable way to carry your beer. To learn more of visit packtech-opi.com, that's p-a-k-t-e-c-h-opi.com. All right, now our panel discussion from the breweries retreat on Hazy IPA. Good morning everybody. Hey, so how is your day yesterday brewing with wet hops harvested that morning? Brewing out here on these Ruby Street systems next to these beautiful hop bines here at Bale Breaker and hop country Yakima washing. Good time, good time. All right, well you guys brewed way too fast yesterday. So we're going to try to figure a way to slow everybody down today and I think we're going to, we're going to make Neil's group eat lunch before they start brewing just to try to sand bag it a little bit. But we're going to talk about Hazy, bring Hazy IPA and obviously we've got an awesome panel here with Henry Nguyen from Monkish and Sam Zermanyo from Brew House and Kelsey McNair from North Park. And I have this sense that like Neil Fisher is feeling really left out right now because he's not on the panel. And I don't know if any of you guys have talked to Neil about this, but we were back in Maine with one of the retreats. I think it was 2019. Maybe it was 2018, 2019, but there was some late night bottle sharing going on at the cabin. And you know, Neil, Neil started trash talking about the number of times his episode had been downloaded compared to other people like Henry. You know, and then started like, and then that is over the years evolved into trash talking about how many episodes he's appeared on. I think Kelsey sitting here without you might actually pass you in that number of episodes. I think so. Yeah, yeah. Once you had that CBC episode, we're talking, that's five episodes right there. You know, but are you feeling left down? Neil, do you want to, you want to come over and hang out with us? You're going to ask questions. All right. Do you want to host this one? Okay. All right. Feedback as we go. All right. I hope I can live up to this. But yeah, Neil was on episode 100 of the podcast. Kelsey was on episode 300 of the podcast. Neil was on episode 400 of the podcast. And I think it's going to be episode 500 that we are recording right now that we will share out this Friday. And that's a crazy number. Yeah. Thank you guys. And thank you all for listening to it and supporting everything else. Anyway, I want to talk in this one about Hazy IPA and we'll keep it wide open to your questions. I'll figure out a way to get your, if you want to ask a question, just pop up here and I'll give you a mic so you can we can actually have it on good audio and recording or Henry can give you his mic. Somebody, you know, will hand you a mic so you can talk into it. Yes. Yeah. But one of the things I love about Hazy IPA is it's still dynamic and it's still, you know, it's still a driving force in not just in sales for brews, but also in creativity and expression. And so I'm able to kick it off with a big broad question first to get some things going. But also, again, if you have questions about the way these guys make Hazy IPA, throw a hand up and we'll get a mic to you and get those questions out there. Henry, maybe you started off. We, Kelsey, you're gonna make Kelsey since he's been out of more and more experienced. Well, it's, yeah. I'm a little nervous. Oh, come on now. Give my second time there. This is your, at least your third time, at least third. Yeah. All right, Kelsey, since Henry is nominated you, let's talk. Let's talk about the last couple of years of Hazy IPA. Or the last three or four years, we've talked about it a bunch, but, you know, the amount of tools in your toolbox for building expression and saturation in these beers have just continued and continued to increase. You know, and your goal, as we've talked about plenty of times before, is not just to get more efficient or replace, you know, T90s, it is always how can I maximize flavor in this? Or last two years, you know, are there some of these things in your Hazy IPA that you have found that have been helping you continue to push that or not just in the overall level of volume and saturation, but also helping find ways to create some definition within that because if you just make everything loud, it's harder to pull out some of those dynamic notes. So there's some ways you've found ways to use some modern tools to kind of sculpt and push that saturation, but do it in a way that still remains defined. Yes, you know, I think all the different tools that we have at our disposal, you know, whether it's, you know, concentrated pellets, whether it's some flowable, you just had to get that word. I had to get it in there. I figured we'd start out and make sure flowable was, you know, part of the conversation pretty early. You know, we've tried virtually everything that's, you know, been put out there. A lot of things plug into our program and they just stuck, you know, like our, you know, incognito or dynabust, you know, inclusion at knockout is something that's very much ingrained in a lot of our beers. Sometimes it doesn't make it in and we try to see, you know, how the combination of different other hot products or just straight up T90s might compare, you know. So Sometimes we need kind of a reset to remember what a beer that's exclusively dry-hopped with T90 pellets is like, you know, through what we're doing, you know, now with HZIPA. And sometimes those beers are really cool, but the things that just keep coming back, it's like, you know, this, like I said, that knockout process. We've had knockout process evolved, and since, as we've been talking about it, you know, we've simplified it a little bit. You know, we used to do this sort of like hot work knockout through the heat ex, and then just load in the dynabuse and let that steep, and you know, the more pragmatic way is really to just, you know, you can take some hot word or some hot liquor and, you know, mix that up in a, you know, container and just load that in. And then, you know, commence knockout cold as you normally would, that's easier. And more practical, especially when you're dealing with, you know, a relatively large amount of hot word, you know, against the cold word that's going to mix in and you're trying to hit a particular temperature. So that's a more pragmatic practical approach. You know, we really like the hopkey from freestyle or the liquid loop you'll in, which is becoming something that is hopefully going to be more available, you know, over time, the company that distills the hopkey. They will start taking in hops and, you know, allowing you to do river, yeah, and we haven't done that yet, but it's something that I'm very intrigued about just because we're able to add that very late in the process after we've completed, you know, our pellet dry hopping and that adds like a nice punch. And, you know, I kind of want to learn the limitations of where we can go with that because it is a really like nice high tone thing that you can get in at the end. And high tone. What do you mean? It just adds like an additional layer of brightness over the top and it's, it compared to some of the other like really highly concentrated products, you know, very terpened centric, like quantum bright from abstracts or hyperboost. I find that the, the hopkey for the liquid loop you'll in is a little bit more reminiscent of what we get from dry hopping, whereas those other ones that I mentioned really need to go into your tank early to drive off a lot of the mere scene so that it doesn't have this sort of goki awkward kind of like adjacent to the dry hop character that we like. It's, it's like those, those things are great, but they just add so much intensity that if you add them too late in the process, it's like the beer needs to mature for weeks before it gets to a place where it actually resembles beer. Now, obviously you can play with ratios and, you know, dosage amounts to reduce some of that, but like if you're really trying to like build up something that is, you know, that tastes like hops, you know, the way that we know hops to taste and smell, you have to place that strategically. And so, I mean, like, and that's just, you know, as we go through this process and continue to learn and try all these things, like that's putting it all together and having the end result, you know, have texture, flavor, layers, you know, expression that's not weird, you know, is the goal. And so, I mean, in a very round, you know, long, long winded way to get to your, your question. I mean, like, I think we're trying all that stuff and, but T90s obviously still a huge important piece of the of it. And yeah, you know, I love long winded, right? Say, I'm wondering, you talk about how the evolution of modern hop products have figured into your hopping practice. So we're going to, I've got some other questions for you too, especially about, I don't know that I have a malt, but, but let's talk about, you know, like I think that there's something to this. Like I said, if you just raise all the hop, you know, all that hop character, it's just going to be loud but undefined. Like, if I think about it in musical terms, you want to find ways to highlight certain things, pull out some of that dynamics and those definition, how do you, how do you use some of these things to do that? Yeah, like Kelsey said, I think we've, we've focused more now on, at which point, to add certain products versus just adding them all at the same time or all like too late in the process. For the same reasons, he said, if you do end up adding some of these flowables, it can be a little too aggressive at first. So you want to wait for this beer to be a little more balanced. I think for us being young and ambitious and trying to make noise as we started, we tried, we tried everything and we're like, just pummel this fucking beer with as many hops as you possibly can. But now we're on year three of being open for business and, or going towards year three, learning to tone things down, find balance more than anything. We've played a lot, we've played around a lot with a pHs this year. Something we weren't doing as much of in the very beginning, pH and what way? Like knock out pHs and post-packaging pHs or, yeah, before you package, pHs need to be a certain level for us. Something we weren't monitoring as much at first, but we are very, we were playing very close attention to that stuff now. So where were you and where do you find yourself now with like a Hazy Double IPA? I feel like at first we were maybe knocking out at 5152 pH. Whereas now we're at 4.7, 4.0, 4.8 because of the bigger dry hops that we're dealing with. We're seeing a big spike in pH in the beer. So we want to keep that low. I feel like we've learned that these beers tend to be a little brighter, more aromatic, more balanced, more drinkable. Whereas before they were nice and then like we felt like they felt a little flabby after a short amount of time, so I think it all came down to us figuring out that pH is much more important than we thought it was initially. I've always thought it was important, but this past year we've played around a lot with that. I don't know that I can add much more to what Kelsey said on the flow bowls and all that stuff. We're very, we're very inspired by this guy and we've learned a lot from this guy. So a lot of what he does is stuff that we try because we were like, yeah, the Kelsey method works. We'll be back with more of the conversation in a minute, but first Oregon hop country is heaven to world class logger varieties. And Indie hops is proud to have introduced Oregon's newest logger hop, Lauren in 2022. Lauren is in a growing list of beers that have found their way to the podium and more importantly into the hearts of logger lovers across the country, discover Indie hops, Lauren side of X may include random festivity sales bumps and exceeded expectations. Indie hops life is short, let's make it flavorful. And this podcast is sponsored by the idea of 50/50 flex the industry's first dual compartment three way convertible freezer 50/50 flex designed to flex with your life. It can convert to all fridge, all freezer or half and half with just the touch of a button. Plus with reversible doors and adjustable storage compartments, you can stay organized, no matter your food storage needs 50/50 flex is also designed to maintain a stable temperature. And in non climate controlled spaces, so it's perfect for your garage, man cave or wherever you need a little more space. Maybe use all 20 cubic feet as a beer fridge, check out mydea.com/us for more information on how to take your beer storage to the next level. Also today's episode is brought to you by ADM, are you ready to shake up the beverage world? ADM is passionate about helping you craft your next breakthrough from cutting edge natural ingredients like hops to advanced technologies, ADM brings together science and creativity to live a taste, quality and recipe design, whether you're developing a beer innovation or a bold new flavor experience, ADM is your trusted partner in innovation. Let's create something extraordinary because the future of beer and brewing starts with inspired ideas and exceptional expertise ADM is where nature meets precision learn more at ADM.com/alcohol. Now back to the conversation. Henry, when it comes to hops, you know, over the last couple of years, where have you found your experimentation and development taking you? I think for us is always trying to really try to figure out what's going on. You know, we talk about bowel transformation and there's just this, there's just, there's a point where things get different in a good way and just trying to watch that whether, you know, it's other brewery friends have cut their dry hop rest times and we're still like to see the magic on day four and sometimes day five, but you know concerns with hop creep. Of course, maybe it is better to go with the shoulder and figure out how to get your brightness and get everything you want. So we were just trying to figure out how we do things, how we've done things and what are a lot of the variables that we never really thought about. So we don't temperature control our warehouses. And so ambient temperature in, we're located, we're always in the seventies, we're closer to the beach. We're not very in the downtown LA, which is 10 degrees warmer. So when we dry hop and there's significant changes during the winter, things are acting a lot more different. So we're always watching why is it bio transformation happening a little later during the winter? And so one thing I started doing, I don't think I've only told one person, so for podcast 500, I'm going to let it out. One thing I do is we will warm up our hops before we dry hop. So we put in the, we actually just drag it on the parking lot and open it up, take it out of the boxes, air it out, and then it comes in eventually, and then we sanitize it, and then we do the cut open test. But we warm it up, and the reason why, there's a couple reasons. One is that I didn't like the idea of adding ice cubes coming from a cold box into a beer that was already struggling with a challenging ambient temperature. So in some sense, I'm presenting, I'm stressing the yeast out, we have to overcome more obstacles. And thinking about consistency while during the summer, the opposite happens, but at least glycol we could use to maintain some better control and predictability. So I started doing that, and I got that, I thought it would work out very well because we were dry hopping a beer, how they had Simco in it, and the box, the pallet came, and there was a ripped bag, and the whole brewery just smelled like amazing, I'm like, like, what is this? So I opened it up, I was like, oh, they sent me really good Simco, it's not my Simco, and then I just really like, nope, it's my Simco, but it's been transporting warm for a day or two, and so it just really opened up. I'm like, all right, so if I'm dry hopping cold, I'm not allowing that expression, even like for us, when we do hop selection, we all warm it up, we all, you know, they bring out a new lot, it's been sitting there as it warms up, it expresses more, so why not try to capture it at a more opportune time for the yeast to interact is when the hops is more receptive, I guess, to that temperature. So things like that, I've actually been focusing a lot more on yeast these days with HZIPA, we've had some pretty weird anomaly happening, and we've just been focusing more on yeast and trying to figure out what's happening, I think we kind of figured out yeast really does matter. I've always said it, but this year I've been more convinced that yeast is a very big component. Where are those anomalies? Before we had a, before we would do cell counting, we were pitching in a way that I always questioned, so I always thought, you know, why, why stress about when I sleep good at night, I'm just going to toss in more yeast. So we kind of were always on the over pitch side, and we always kind of maintained that. And then we were looking at how much we're harvesting, like, why can't we harvest? And I was always afraid of letting the beer sit too long before we dry hop, thinking that the yeast would go dormant and won't bile transform as much. And so one of the things we've been paying attention is, if this is how much we are pitching, we should always be removing a certain amount. So playing, adding another day to let it rest and be able to pull off more yeast because we're finding with more yeast leftover, it can be good, but it also can be bad. Too little yeast, it can also be good or also can be bad. And so there seems to be a window with certain dry hop loads. And also zinc, we switched to a different supplier. And we went through a good two months where beers were bile transforming. But for the first time, in six, eight years, how long we've been doing his IPA, they were flocking out. And so I didn't know what it was, but that's one of the biggest variables was zinc. So we started looking at different ways of processing zinc. And I think zinc really did. We probably overdid zinc with the new supplier and then we kind of made it very toxic. That during the moment of bile transformation, it just did something different. It did bile transform, but it just did not have a haze richness and haze stability. Yeah. So we just kind of paid attention more. And kind of made me, I always say this year, I've been kind of just more of a yeast guy again and just trying to think about how that plays with our beers. So what does that mean in terms of cell counts and how you then think about pitching if you reduce to a little bit or if you reduce to a lot, do you know, we always go ahead. We always go ahead. We still go ahead. It's a party. Okay. Yeah, we've got it. It also helps because being a production group, a lot of brews would ask us, do you have issues harvesting and we're like, no, partly is because we over-pitch and we get a lot of yeast in it. And so we create more of an opportunity to pull yeast and continue brewing rather than because every time we get into a bind, then we have to think about do we under-pitch and perpetuate a problem or do we order a lab yeast and try to get things restarted and then every time we introduce the lab pitch is just always, we have to really train that yeast in two, three, you know, generations before it really gets to a point that it knows what we know how it's acting. So you're talking a lot about bio-transformation and you know, when we think about bio-transformation, there's different kinds of avenues for this to happen and especially if you're looking to pull yeast, then you need to accomplish bio-transformation without having a lot of that, you know, pop matter in there, like so, when you say bio-transformation, are you, you're loading a whirlpool but you're not active for mentionation dry hopping, are you, where are you? No, yeah. We are, we still do old school, you know, more tried and true. We pretty much see a solid, diastidal, you know, sorry, terminal gravity that's stable and then we start harvesting over a day, now maybe a day and a half and then we will dry hop once we feel we've pulled out all the yeast. Yeah. And you guys, Kelsey and Sam, what kind of dry hopping process? We've also steered away from dry hopping with T90 or any vegetable stuff during fermentation. Now we're doing like the liquid, the flowable hot products during fermentation if we want to do that. That way we can still harvest this yeast once fermentation is complete and we're not picking up a bunch of the stuff that you don't want in the pitch, like hops that have been sitting in there or dead yeast or anything like that. Is there a process that, you know, like, and what are some of the things you think about if trying to use flowable hot products to achieve that bio-transformation during fermentation? What might drive you to do that to the specific hop variety or a character that you're trying to pull out there or there's some? Well, for me, it's more so like maturity time like allowing these flowables to be introduced into the beer earlier than later so that by the time we feel like the beer is ready to package, it's not, we don't have to sit on it for a while or wait for it to mature, it's already good to go. At first we were using the flowables in a different way where we'd add them in the bright or something like that. Like they suggest that you do, but we found that they were a little harsh. They had this like solventy kind of chemical taste to them that would eventually dissipate, but I feel like that dissipates through fermentation, through bio-transformation, and it allows us to reharvest yeast and keep using that yeast without having to worry about, although it doesn't matter sitting at the bottom of the tank or sitting wherever it is that you pull the yeast from. How about you, Kelsey? Yeah, I mean, a lot of what Sam said resonates with what we do in the approach. And trying to get, you know, obviously anything that we're putting in the kettle also has the opportunity, any of the oil compounds that are making their way through, we're going to bio-transform a lot of the early discovery, especially with the busy yeast strain that we use. We use imperial juice. We just found that with citric incognito, which proceeded dynabuse, now we're mostly on to dynabuse, we're playing with some incognito again in some cases, but just getting the early samples, you know, and tasting them, smelling them, it's like just how that transforms from like this, you know, very intense, you know, concentrate to something that's just really fruity and tropical and, you know, pushing stone fruit, you know, character out, and like the yeast is just really harmonious with it, like before we've even introduced any pellets at all, it's like, wow, it's really wild. And then, you know, when we do introduce hops, and this is something that, you know, we We just started doing, you know, and stuck with it. You know for a few years now. It's like if we are using cryo it generally isn't early dry hop Because it doesn't have all that polyphenol that vegetal and so you know, and and we'll do that dry hop addition Once we see that the croix and has dropped that we're able to pull a substantial amount of yeast out of the tank either to harvest Or to just remove And that's when we might introduce our first dry hop, you know, that could be on like day six And then we do wait for terminal gravity before we do any additional dry hopping and that's usually a couple days later And we don't see a ton of creep from cryo usually You know, we're talking like a couple gravity points minimal and You know, we we step up our Our fermentation temperature into the dry hop so that we're getting that diacidol rest And you know, we do continue to dry hop at temperature at that point So, you know, there's always a little bit of yeast left in the tank So I feel like because we dry hop warm we don't soft crash You know, we're getting this continued bio transformation through all of our dry hopping Do you have any questions out here yet? Got a question Bill It's always fascinating to listen to these guys who are doing this day in and day out, but a lot of us here are home brewers And I have to admit that I tend to buy my hazies because I have not successfully cracked the code so Between the three of you, maybe I'm curious if they're like, you know three or four tips that you would recommend to home brewers based on what we can access Like what are yeast supplies are likely to be just just a just a theorist in the right direction I mean, I think Sam might be Good because you actually home brewed this so yeah, I home brewed hazy for nearly eight years Maybe longer honestly I guess I was very fortunate that a lot of my friends worked in the brewing industry while I was home brewing So I was able to get free yeast that they were using to make their hazies to make my hazies at home When I moved to Oregon, I found that the most difficult thing for me to produce a nice hazy IPA was the water chemistry that I was not aware of Brewing in California. I was using like street water carbon filtered and Whatever the profile was for that specific water worked really well with the hazies I was making that moved to Oregon And it was completely different. So I learned that I needed to basically paint this palette of like salts Create this this this profile that would work that would remind me of the beers that I made back in California So I would say Water chemistry is important for these Depending on the kind of mouth feel you want the kind of sharpness you want out of the hops or softness so Read up on that stuff that stuff is important Pitching a good amount of yeast is always better than under pitching I think I think one of the challenges you'll have is as home brewers. You don't have access to Good hops and knowing what you're actually using And that's one of the advantage that I think we have as pro brewers. So unless the home brewing industry Gives more access to information that you actually know your oil content and you can start seeing like spider graphs of what your little packets are it is pretty challenging and Yeah, so we look like for us you know being here in Yakima um Hop selection is very important to us and it kind of makes or breaks what we do and each year I go through a different direction and I'm finding myself even like I was I was selecting for what I thought the finished beer should be And I wanted that in the hops and then I found out that Sometimes it just got too linear just kind of like once biotransformation happened It just didn't go in that direction um and then started thinking about some of the hops that Starting to make hazy IPA and not having access to selection and just buying whatever was available So probably more like classical profiles Um, I've been selecting more like that mattress selecting for more onion garlic for a different like preservative factor That I think biotransforms well, but we and I know for our consumers that are drinking our beers a little later That OG has a very big contributing factor and like so Um, yeah, so it's one of the more difficult things is not having enough and knowing what you're given How you use it and being able to get that sameness and work with it for weeks on And understand how you brew the style and how that yeah Um, I'll just add to that a little bit. I mean I would I would just say like on on the home brew scale You know, obviously depending on what your equipment is. I mean try and emulate The same things like because I mean when I built my home brew setup I wasn't making hazy IPA back then I I thought I would never make a hazy IPA when we opened the brewery um And you know that changed at some point and really dove in had first to figure it out But I mean like I you know, I had conical for mentors as a home brewer that were temperature controlled, you know, and um You know, obviously that's a big investment But uh at the same time like it allowed me to do the things that I was like talking to professional brewers and figuring out how they were doing stuff And you know just trying to like make sure that those things matched and I think if you can do that Um, you could certainly you know make as good as possible of a hazy IPA is you know Given the ingredients that are available to you, you know, it's and it's just Making sure that there's no oxygen ingress and you know, just making sure that the quality is you know Maintained it at every point so that you know the end result is like just really good beer But yeah, I think that's the That's what I would recommend IPAs are hard to make at home for sure. Yeah, I think uh, we've all learned that Through home brewing. It's um unless you can keep oxygen out as much as possible It's very difficult to make a very good IPA, but I think you can do it if you do the research and and have the tools Can you talk a little bit about the role of oats in the malt bill for his IPAs and how you go about choosing, you know Malted unmelted flaked Moutages is that we said what? Yeah, oats are such a huge thing in this uh, this kind of category. How do you think about uh How what format use them in and? We've used a lot of oats in our beers, but lately I think we've gravitated more towards wheat Um, I feel like there's a lot to take Um, I just I love the mouth feel that you get from oats, but aside from that you're not getting much more so um When you start producing beer at a larger scale and you start thinking about numbers too and Does it make sense to just go super heavy oats and have to use more sugar to To get to the desirable starting gravity that you need Or is it better to use something like wheat that has a little bit more to offer um I prefer rolled oats over the Malted marso because our mill is it struggles to go through those and They can jam up our auger if we're not Attentive to how we're milling So I try to get my guys to mill a little bit of oats and then some wheat some oats wheat that way it's not just oats oats oats and then They tend to be very fluffy So the auger just has a hard time pushing them through they're not as like They don't have as much weight to them. We'll be back with more in a minute But first this episode is brought to you by why East laboratories some strains define an era These three refuse to stay in just one to kick off their 40th anniversary celebration why East is celebrating some of their most iconic strains Highlighting the history and impact that each has had on craft brewing These strains each earned their place in this collection the same way not by trending But by staying essential decade after decade from home brew benches to commercial brew houses 10 56 American ale 13 18 London ale 3 and 21 24 Bohemian logger or the proof the quiet backbones bind some of craft beers most familiar pints visit Lab comm slash most dash iconic to learn more about each of these iconic strains right now back to the panel discussion Let's talk about since we're now talking about mom. Let's talk about color This is when I think the most interesting things in this current generation of very hyped hazy IPA There seems to be an attraction towards the palest possible color And so you're accomplishing that not just through ingredient choice and trying to get the lightest, you know, one point two or less love a bond malt in there, but uh, you know, you're also then thinking about the way that other things Change that color things like heat to change that color Talk about what you try to achieve and some of these lightest palest hazy IPAs and some of the Some of the levers that you're pulling in order to keep those as sickly pale and light as you possibly can. The way we approach that is generally just through our grist. But we have done some pretty wacky stuff. We made one hazy triple IPA once that was like 20% brewers crystals. You know, and it had a really odd color. I will say it was like weird like dark or no it was really pale, but like the shade of it was unlike anything I had seen. Like little sickly gray little bit. Yeah. So it was like we won't do that again. Cause there's it's like this canary yellow that we're kind of aiming for that's just really bright. And you know, and when it's very turbid and you know, well, I mean, it's not like chunky, but you know, it's just you can't see through it. It's opaque. And and and there's something just visually stunning about that one. It's just this bright yellow. It looks very appealing, you know, and yeah, it's largely through grist. You know, we I didn't answer the oats question, but you know, we we use a lot of faucet, malted oats, which are very pale. And they have a much bigger kernel than a lot of the oat malt that's out there. So it's a little bit easier to to mill. That's great for watering. Yeah. And even we've kind of drifted into a little bit more wheat use than we used to. And some of we have several grists that we kind of work with. But I've been liking a lot of the malt stirs have been coming out with low colored wheat malt, which is nice. You know, kind of we can add more dimension to the grain bill while also keeping it that really bright light yellow. How about you Sam? Yeah. A lot of what Kelsey said resonates with us as well. We're always in search of like the palace pillsner that has the best um, not just like low color, but also extraction. Like is it, is it going to give us good numbers when we brew with it? Um, low color wheat malt as well. I will say our favorite, um, low color pillsner malt is breeze. Um, kind of sucks because they come in 50 pound bags versus the 55 pound bags. But um, I absolutely love that grain for our hazy IPAs, specifically the ones that we're trying to make canary yellow like Kelsey said. Yeah, low color weeds from rar, uh, from best malls. We use a lot of world oats from grain millers. Um, I love the the mouthful and how easy they are to work with those bags are easy to cut. And yeah, we use a decent amount of uh, brewer's crystals here and there not as much as we used to lately, but um, that that helps lighten up the color a little bit. I think to, um, what about you? We don't really go over 15% we've, you know, of any kind of adjuncts and definitely rolled oats, but I've always liked flaked oats before even making IPAs. I always try to find a reason to add a little bit to sazon's and, you know, Belgian beers just always loved the textured mouth feel. Uh, there were batches that we've done or we don't just two row or pilser malt and it's still bile transformed fine enough body. If, if the goal is body, I focus more on hops and that's hop combination, particular lots, like there are lots in my cold box that are the bodybuilders. And I'm like, if I know that it's one, especially to balance out with a hop that normally doesn't give a lot of mouthfeel or bile transform or give that haziness, it's good to use that. So, for me, I don't really fuss a lot with, uh, malt, we're on a direct fire system, so we will always get color. We have shifted for, uh, using more pilser malt and now we're on the lightest pilser malt that we can find still looks the same. And, uh, yeah, normally by the time we're done before we dry hop, uh, it just always looks like a Belgian blonde always still has a little orange tinge. So for the, and also for color, that's also for me more of a hop issue than lighter grain. I don't really believe that a paler malt will make make that beer much more canary gold. It definitely helps, but I like like galaxy. The reason why we use galaxy is that it creates that look, um, when we started doing this, like, our only reference points were back east and you have a beer called Julius that looks like orange juice. So, orange juice was the flavored juice bomb, right? And then at some point I was using probably too much galaxy and the beers got more milk here. It got more creamier that what we were doing. And then the color just looked more like I was calling a pet pineapple juice. So in my mind, I was like, do we want to still make orange juice, or do we want to make pineapple juice? And I always thought pineapple juice is kind of cool looking. Um, and then eventually consumers started doing those crazy pictures with the right lighting and just making it look like milk. Um, and so I think that became more a trend that we all knew that that's what people really wanted now. I would like to get it more, but I'm kind of having issues with, um, loving galaxy and appreciating galaxy like I used to. And, and then just being direct fire. So I'm kind of in this issue no matter how light of a malt exists. It's not going to get me there. See, I'm how does a temperature whether it's boil temperature or what not figure into this, or the even vigorousness of boil? Do you try to treat heat wise your hot side wort in a more gentle way in order to kind of maintain some of that pale color? Yeah, we're on a steam system. So I feel like that contributes a lot to color as well versus direct fire. Um, and we tend to regulate our boils when we're brewing hazy versus west coast or something that's like very pills are heavy, for example. Um, our hazy's see like a 30 minute boil at most because they're so adjunct heavy. I don't feel like there's a need to boil for 60 to 75 minutes. Um, I haven't really noticed any DMS in our hazy's maybe there's one that I missed, but, um, low, slow, gentle boils for us. We try to keep a little bit of the protein in the, in the, in the wort to allow for a little more viscosity after the beer is finished. How about you Kelsey? Um, so we're on a direct fire system too. And, you know, one of the things that we did find early on is that our beers were a lot darker than, you know, the target, um, our kettle rips. I mean, it just boils off a barrel an hour. Um, and so at some point, um, we started doing more of us like slightly concentrated wort. So like on our system, we're kettle full to start the boil at 18 barrels. Um, and on a hazy will boil for an hour. So we'll boil off a barrel and then we'll use cold liquor to water back up to 19 barrels. Um, so it's very minor concentration. But that corrects the color if we ended up much darker than our target. And anything that we want to be pale, that's, that's how we tackle it. Genius. All right, we have any more questions. Wes, come grab a mic. Hey guys, going back to, uh, talking about appearance of haze. Thanks, Amy, your, your conversation recently with Fidenc, I forget how long ago that was, but it mentioned about mosaic being haze negative. Kelsey, we talked a little bit about, they guessed today. Is that something you do take into account though when you're building recipe where you're like, Hey, I want to use this. But maybe we'll pair it with something from New Zealand. That's more haze positive to help balance that out. Do you, is that something that you guys do think about when you're going through your formulations? Absolutely. Um, yeah. And I mean, like in the case of mosaic, that was one thing we saw a lot of times when we would dry up with, uh, very much of that at all. The, the haze was just unstable. It would, it would fall out pretty early. And that was, you know, through using various lots. So it seemed to be very specific to that hop. So I mean, like in that situation, we tend to use it just more as a hot side when we're making haze IPAs and, and little to none, uh, if we're putting it in the dry hop. Um, you know, I haven't, I mean, like maybe Henry can speak to that about, you know, maybe galaxy can fix that. Um, we do use some galaxy, but I don't think we do to the same degree. Yeah, galaxy probably will fix it. We were talking about citra galaxy beers from back in the day on the way here and how magically it's galaxy fixed. Really good lots of citra. That's actually, I spend most of my time trying to find that right galaxy. It's probably what will make or break us for the year. It's trying to find the right lot of citrus, right? Um, and it's hard. Like we know certain farms we can get it from and then somebody bigger than us requested a change in their growing practice and they alter a little bit. I'm like, this is not the same or whatever. It's just, uh, we do take all that into account. You'll never really see a mosaic forward, his IPA. We recall, well, we cancel a can release early on because we did a mosaic one and just didn't bio-transform. It drank great, but it just didn't, like, people lining up doesn't look like what they want. So we just canceled it and we started realizing mosaic just doesn't work for us. But I do see some brews that can do it. And I don't know which lot they're getting or what yeast they're using or something in the process. It is possible. I always thought it was high oil content, but I've had low oil content, citra, that gave me better results than high oil, Nelson. But I do chase for high oil content as a starting point and just go from there. What is high? High over three. Yeah. And so that's, you know, a key point where you start looking for that oil and then you try to make more qualitative selections between lots? Of what I'm looking for. But by this point, I think the suppliers know what I'm looking for, which farms I'm asking for. And, yeah, I can pretty much kind of, it's not too difficult, but it's hard to find that one lot that would just solve all your problems for the year. Yeah. And I love that we're talking about this in terms of its physical contribution to the look of the beer and we're not even really talking about flavor and aroma even though that's similarly an important piece of this. But this is a mechanical effect and function on the beer. Yeah, I was going to say something. I was like, do I really want to come off pretentious? It's like, we talk a lot about haze, but it isn't really the starting point. The reason why I say that because when this kind of popularized the idea, there were brewers that were coming up to like me and JC Atrium asking us questions like how long are we researching the bright tank before we're packaging? And we're like, if it falls, if it falls, don't put it in the package. And just so we do colds, we kind of logger these beers for over a week. Before we package, so try to get it more stable. So it's not really the goal. And I'm always concerned when people think about the aesthetics that's the real goal because I've had some really cool looking canary yellow beers that just taste it like I don't know, drinking yeast, like a yeast pitch. So, but it is a big byproduct that when everything checks off the box for mouthfeel, all the fruitiness you're looking for, and just that great drinking experience, that it does have a particular look to it. And so, yeah, I guess it's more of, it's an important point, but it's not the priority. So we've been established that galaxy is magical for what you're trying to achieve here. Are there other newer varieties of southern hemisphere hops that also have some very positive haze contribution that you find who you're also starting to either experiment more with or work into your process or find and use those in a way that helps compliment and bring out characters and other hops. No, I'm kind of in a, we're kind of in a pickle, as of last week, I just finished by galaxy contract with no future galaxy contract in place. And I just kind of was starting to give up on galaxy and thought that I would deal with this question, what am I going to do? So, I'm not really sure what's going to happen, but there is no hop that will get me what I, I'm looking for, except for the right citra that is very hard to find. So why are you not contracted for galaxy going forward then? Because I think is it more of the aesthetics or actually more of the flavor profile? And so that still is, I'm just, I drink a lot of the galaxy beers we make, even if I could get the look from it. It's still, it's not so much like extreme chalkiness is fine for me, it's that woody tree bark character that doesn't evolve. Like chalkiness, OG, all that will during conditioning time, turning to something kind of beautiful that I think it's great. Except for that woody tree bark character, it just won't go away. And those beers I will, I don't really hesitate to dump, because I just know that it's just going to be bad. So and galaxy over the years just continues to pick up more and more of that quality, even though some lots of last year have been a little bit more promising. Like I was using four-year-old contracted galaxy because I was like, I might not see another good galaxy, so I'm just going to contract for four years with the same lot. So it's still good four years. Yeah, there's, we tried every other Australian ones and they do have some of that similar, if they're grown in the same region that they are, it should have some similarities. And we could find here, and there we were using a nigma that we could get some good action from, but nothing really has that, for me it's galaxy because of pineapple. I'm looking for the pineapple color and the pineapple flavor for me. Like Eclipse has been kind of fun for me in the past year. The lots that we've been able to play with, again, tons of like Mandarin and orange from it. And a good amount of haze from them as well. Yeah, I mean, I think galaxy has come back around a little bit. We've seen some nice or lots in the last year, so there have been more lots to select. Whereas for a while there, there was just like one from one region and one from another. So I do feel some confidence that that's going to continue to improve. I feel like HPAs put a lot more effort into their quality. Eclipse has also been cool. Vixie Grid at times we've used. And I feel like they all kind of contribute a nice, sort of lock-in kind of haze character that also, and when we use these hops, they're usually just like a sprinkle. It's such a small percentage of the total dry hop because of that kind of tree bark, woody grassiness that tends to come through with virtually all of them. I think that if it's really just a background note, it can kind of punch other aspects of other hops that you might be using in a dry hop and also contributes to that appearance at the same time. Do you have more questions? I've been very fortunate as a homeowner of collaborations with professional brewers. And especially on the haze side, the main concern I hear from them because I'm trying to replicate what you guys are doing, is they just don't want to stuck mash. So if there's any tips you'd like to share, whether it's like put the oats in the last, anything you guys would like to share, it would be very much appreciated. Multi-dotes help with laudering for sure, but rice holes, and also how you layer your grist as you're mashing in. You don't want to put all the sticky stuff at the bottom. You want to kind of sprinkle it in throughout, as well as your rice holes and create some nice layers so that the liquid can move through it without sticking. Obviously you stuck mash as everyone's nightmare in the bear world. I guess there's certain enzymes that help with that stuff too. Yeah, our system has rakes, so we tend to run our rakes a little slower. We don't want to beat up the shit out of the mash because that can also contribute to over, like, gunking it, I guess. I don't know if that's the right term, but. Yeah, if you use the rakes also, depending on how big your gap is in your ability to raise your rakes, you're actually creating downward force at some point before you get enough of a bigger grain bed that you'll actually see it. Vinny, you got a question? We're actually going to go a little off script here. So I hope this is the right time to do it. 500 episodes is an absolute feat in milestone. And I think everyone here, professional brewers and amateur brewers and everyone that listen to the podcast, it's just like a huge part of what we do, and just sometimes it's just a nugget that you gain and other times, it's just like a ton of great information. We've been lucky enough to do the brewers retreat several times now and I hear it from first time brewers, like Sam here, and you got returning brewers as well. But anyways, from all the guest brewers, we have a signed three-liter supplication bottle that we're giving it to a little note on there for 500 podcasts. And so just thanks to Jamie and the whole craft beer and brewing crew. Yeah, let's say what you do is a huge contribution to our industry and whether you know it or not, whether you know it or not, it really means a lot to all of us. So congrats on 500 episodes. Well, thank you. I'm glad I'm wearing sunglasses, so you can't see me tearing up here. Hey, I know I say I try to say it all the time, but I appreciate the trust that every brew that I talk to puts into us Everything that you all share your time your expertise the knowledge, you know, we're not creating anything We are simply trying to be a conduit and do a good job of presenting editing curating and building things that are meaningful In the brewing world, but it all comes back to you guys who are making great beer learning things and sharing what you learn Not just with us, but with the entire audience worldwide audience of brewers And this is that culture of sharing that we love so much that Vinny you all have tried to cultivate and we are just so thrilled to be a part of it I am thrilled that we can do something meaningful for the world I'm so excited that all of you can come here and be a part of this So we can continue to do it together. So thank you all for listening. Thank you all for supporting the magazine the podcast the video classes all the things that we do and Yeah, cheers to all of you. Cheers to you guys There it is episode 500 of the craft beer and brewing podcast if you've been a listener since the very beginning Thanks for hanging in there with us and if you've just started listening recently And thanks for finding us and enjoy listening through nine years and 500 episodes worth of brewing Insight to all the brewers you've joined me over the years Thank you for being open and honest and supporting this culture of making craft beer better together We'll focus on fresh hot brewing in next week's episode But until then G&E's new elite 290 micro series is built for brewers who care about sustainability and performance Berkeley East fresh Chico is now available dry Pack-tex handles are made from 100% recycled plastic and are fully recyclable Andy hops lorian is found its way into the hearts of logger lovers across the country the my dea 50 50 flexed can convert you all fridge All freezer half and half with just the touch of a button ADM is passionate about helping you craft your next breakthrough and join why yeast and celebrating some of their most iconic Strains if you've enjoyed this episode go to beer and brewing.com click on that subscribe button become a subscriber to craft beer and brewing and Help us bring you these conversations week after week month after month year after year five Hundred episode strong and who knows maybe we'll produce 500 more. 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