Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the new hop order presented by hpa our series which explores what's happening at the very forefront of hop innovation from breeding and processing to brewing.
Speaker: You would have noticed the world is changing and so is our industry. Global warming, political instability, rising costs and a shift in customer behavior are demanding that growers and brewers continue to evolve. The Bathurst Group, consisting of Bathurst in Europe, Haas in the US and HPA in Australia, are finding innovative ways to bring hops and brewing into this new world. To talk more about the teams at the epicenter of this continuous pursuit of hop product and brewing process improvement, I'm joined today by Bathurst Technical Manager of Brewing Solutions, Mark Zunkel and Haas Brewing Solutions Specialist, Alejandro Cortes Gonzalez. Guys, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker: Thanks for having us. Thanks. Great stuff. um We're all in different parts of the world. We're all in different time zones. I think it's 5.30 in the morning for me. We've got 9.30. We're all here. We're bright and bushy. We're going to get into it, guys.
Speaker: Awesome. Let's do it. I feel the energy. It's great. um guys i'll start with you mark the the brewing industry as i mentioned continues to face some significant headwinds i guess from your perspective on the ground working with brewers every day how are these pressures playing out and what does the path forward look like um yeah well uh it's from my side also great to be here so uh whatever time it is um I'm based in Europe, so I'm dealing with actually a lot of most customers in Europe and actually mainly in Scandinavia.
Speaker: And we're really looking at ah many different projects with them. And this is exactly where I see them coming to us and talking about issues in the brewery, challenges that they're facing.
Speaker: not only from the brewery commercial perspective, but also from the technical brewing perspective. So it's really interesting. i find it's it's it's great to have that exchange.
Speaker: There's definitely some major trends from the brewing perspective, and we're doing a lot of work with non-alcoholic beer development. That's really actually a huge concentration of what brewers are looking at. And of course, from the Barthaus perspective, ah we are happy that brewers who maybe aren't making as many New England england IPAs, that they're interested in using a lot of hops and in also non-alcoholic beers. Yeah. So we find it may not be at the levels ah of New England IPAs, but
Speaker: um people are really trying to differentiate their non-alcoholic beers. And there's many different products that actually can be used there.
Speaker: And so there's definitely a large concentration in new beer development. um But also we see a lot of brewers coming to me and asking, hey, how can I rework a recipe, maybe work with some flavor matching and look at some of the efficiencies that maybe wasn't the case 15 years ago or 10 years ago where they were double dry hopping IPAs.
Speaker: And is there any way where we can, they can basically get more beer out of the process doing the same thing And we do have a couple of products that breweries are using on cold sides, dosages, Spectrum and Prisma.
Speaker: And they really see that, especially Scandinavian brewers who do, let's just say, follow more of the North American British brewing scene where they're heavily dry hopping their beers.
Speaker: And, um, Yeah. They're using, they're saying, okay, can we do the same thing with Prisma and Spectrum? And we've had ah actually a lot of, uh, success stories there. um, not only from, from the Bart Haas perspective, but also, um, perspective. Yeah. They're saving a lot of time and, uh, uh, actually selling more beer, um, doing the same brewing process. So, um, it's great to be able to, to work with breweries and, uh, um,
Speaker: make basically beers new and successful. yeah so it's It's great to hear and I think a real theme of of this series so far has been around brewing efficiency and and you know in these kind of challenging times, how can we you know create more beer for using a similar amount of product or less product even um and it's fantastic to see HPA coming to the table with solutions there. um Mark, the the team, the brewing solutions team, I guess, is ah you've got a pretty unique mix of
Speaker: that combination of technical brewers and sensory scientists. Can you tell me more about who makes up the team, how you work together and and more about those kinds of problems you help brewers solve? Yeah, we we have ah quite a good team here in Nuremberg. That's where we're based.
Speaker: We have a brewery here in Nuremberg, our campus brewery. And as you could expect, ah living in Germany, there's a lot of German trained brewers. So ah we have ah actually a lot of people who've done the traditional German brewing apprenticeships, two year apprenticeships. And there's ah ah actually a few German brewing universities here. And most of us are trained there from either Bachelor of Science or Master or Diploma, what they like to say. And we do have a few doctors. They happen to be all women, so ah which is great. Yeah. And we have an international team from Austria, Spain. I'm from the United States. And it's it's actually great to be able to work with all of them.
Speaker: um What's really unique about our team is that we're really interested in learning new things. So many years ago we worked with a perfumist and this is where we actually created a new sensory ballot for tasting beers. And now this is used worldwide. So also at John A. Haas, HPA and Bardhaus China. so That's something there where we did in-depth training and we're we're all beers from the days. So that always helps us ah bring new and up-to-date information to brewers. And I think that's something that is, we really strive to do is to make sure that we're covering current topics in the brewing industry and, um,
Speaker: um Not only that, but we're also looking at new products. We have an innovation arm called the Greenhouse, which you know is part of our wider team.
Speaker: um But it's all to kind of bring new innovations, bring new solutions. to the brewing world and help brewers in any way that we can.
Speaker: yeah Amazing. and and And happily, you're available any time of the day, as we can see from our yeah a call between Queensland night and Nuremberg at 9.30 a night.
Speaker: um I love that you're working with the idea of working with perfumers to to you know better train your team and so on. I think there's so many interesting parallels there and and wonderful to see that just outside the box thinking.
Speaker: Alejandro, let's talk about about your team. You know, whether it's recipe development, sensory analysis, process optimization or or training and education, there's so many ways that brewers can work with the HPA or the Haas crew. Alejandro, can you walk us through, i guess, some of those areas and share some examples of the most memorable impacts that that you guys have had?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely, Craig. You're right. Those are some um some important areas where we work with customers. Starting from a recipe development standpoint, it really all starts with our innovation brewery here in Yakima.
Speaker: It's a 2.5-hectoliter automated brew house with a shiny cellar. And we just wrapped up Hope Harvest here in Yakima. It's always really exciting to welcome brewers from all over the world.
Speaker: ah and then show them in finished beer, what our hub products and new hub varieties bring to the table. So when we're sharing a beer, it's a perfect setting for learning about their pain points, their challenges, sharing ideas and building collaborations.
Speaker: But yeah, remember in particular a case where we helped the brewer ah replace 100% of the T90 pellets in the dry hopping bill in their flagship IPA with products like Lupo Max and Spectrum, right? But being a flagship IPA, a big revenue driver for that brewery,
Speaker: We had to run multiple trials with different ratios of these products so we could find the ideal flavor match while also finding significant yield gains Then moving on to to our sensory panel capabilities, our sensory department is always busy.
Speaker: For example, during Hub Harvest, we do intake evaluations and collect a lot of data data on raw hops. That data is later used for finding the right lot for the right brewer that comes for selection.
Speaker: And also we can use that data to create products with consistent sensory profiles such as LupoMax. But also our sensory panel is trained to evaluate beer samples as well. So we've done that, for example, evaluating multiple lots of galaxy that come to the US. We do it for verifying these sensory plus products like LupoMax.
Speaker: And then brewers can also send us samples and we can provide feedback on ideas on how to optimize the recipes or their or process.
Speaker: So yeah, speaking of process optimization, as I mentioned, at the Research File Library, we have capabilities to do different whirlpool schedules, different dry hopping techniques, and then work with brewers to find what works best for them.
Speaker: And finally, yeah, I mean, education training is one of my favorite things that we do at Brewing Solutions. I would say for me in particular, it's always special to travel to other regions such as Latin America or Asia and bring to brewers in those regions the latest in hub research, hub science, and also samples for them to do hands-on evaluations and and really experience what what we're developing on on a daily basis.
Speaker: It's fantastic, Alejandro. And I love the fact that you've got such an expert team on hand for brewers to call upon. And you know that idea of recipe development, I you know i can imagine the the trepidation a brewer must must face in terms of if you're changing a core core range, core beer recipe, you know there's a lot of nervousness there. And I think to have a team like yours on board to guide you through it is is a great resource. um Guys, tell me a bit more about Alejandro, the the analytical lab. I believe we've got a world-class analytical lab at the Haas Innovations Brewery. um Can you walk us through kind of what it's capable of and how it translates into those real practical benefits for brewers? Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely. So in addition of some tools and equipment that we use at the brewery, like the alkalizer, dissolved oxygen meter, and other tools to guarantee that we are brewing to ah to a high quality standard. Upstairs, we have ah a quality laboratory that is also is also staffed by aren't these scientists.
Speaker: But over here, we have UV spectrophotometry, we have liquid chromatography, gas chromatography, And with these tools, we can analyze alpha acids, beta acids, other bittering compounds, total oils, or break down the oil composition of beers and hop samples.
Speaker: We can analyze polyphenols. So basically, a wide variety of ASBC, EDC methods that our team can implement and execute.
Speaker: And that's important for validating, for example, the bitterness utilization of a product like Flex. or breaking down the composition the aroma profile of a new exciting hop variety that we're breeding, or even finding the the right variables to optimize the haze stability when using a product like hop haze. So really our mission is to fully understand the the products we are developing, ah understand their their flavor potential, and also determine how best to to apply them in the brew house.
Speaker: Amazing. um I mean, that brings us to the next point. I guess, you know, we've talked a lot about knowledge, data, really understanding your product. It's such a key ingredient in brewing success. Mark, can you tell us about the training and education side of what you do, including Hops Academy and why investing in that knowledge is so important for brewers at every level? Yeah, it's... um The Hops Academy officially been around for a little over about 15 years.
Speaker: And it started out with us from the technical side or brewing solutions sides dealing with a lot of breweries and they were asking us a lot of questions.
Speaker: And that's kind of where we got the impetus to start a real program and we call it the COPS Academy and it's really taken off from then. Both ah in all actually all areas of the world so um Europe, also the United States and HPA as well as China and David Larson, It's something that we're really proud of because we've continually are looking at the program and start out with basically dealing or going to breweries and offering hops academies and training their burrs on all different topics from. hop analytics to growing hops to utiliz utilization using hops in the brew house, as well as environmental topics, quality management. So there's really quite ah quite a lot.
Speaker: And it's developed into a really nice program where we're actually offering right now a lot of online um, information. Uh, some, some are, uh, more about our products, but, uh, we also have one that's like, uh, it's a hop flavorous course.
Speaker: And so we're helping brewers understand hops really to the level that we understand them. So being able to pick between hollow Toma to through tetanang and uh, pearl and, understand that. So, um,
Speaker: We offer those programs and I think it's a really exciting experience. I know in Yakima, you guys do a lot of work around the hop harvest. So that's an area where it's definitely exciting at that time of the year.
Speaker: um And I've also actually personally done one in Australia. So we also, think every year we're doing some program in Australia where we're traveling around to different locations and delivering the same material that we're delivering either in Yakima or in Nurnberg. And and i know that our master brewer here, Lauren Schreiner is gonna actually be in Australia next March to do the same. So I think he's really excited to be able to travel to Australia, exchange with brewers and really see, okay, on a road show and talk about hops and different hop products and all the research that we're doing, yeah?
Speaker: oh That'll be a ah hot ticket, I'm sure. It's something we can look forward to. And I love that you know Brewers working with HPA, we all kind of think we understand hops and and what goes what's happening there, but to have this huge resource, the labs, the quality teams and so on, the the hops academy really driving further education in hops, it just improves and enhances the whole industry. So it's ah it's a great resource for everyone to have. um Guys, thanks so much, Mark and Alejandro. it's It's great to learn more about the Brewing Solutions teams and the work that they're doing to help brewers unlock new possibilities in all aspects of brewing. Brewers, if you'd like technical support for creating new recipes, optimizing your existing recipes, integrating a new hot product or analyzing sensory data to ensure meaningful, repeatable results... reach out to your HPA rep today and stay tuned for more episodes in the new hop order series presented by HPA, looking at the latest hop innovation. Thanks so much, team.
Speaker: Thank you. Thanks.
