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Charlie Bamforth: A Life In Beer
2 Plays1 second ago
"I’m the one who can have a beer and advertise my endowment. The Edward Teller professor of nuclear physics is not walking around with uranium. And you can join the pet food industry, but on a Friday night you can’t have a few cans of Chum."
Charlie Bamforth is a name and voice familiar to many in the beer world. He’s one of beer’s great storytellers and has worked in the industry since 1978, the year he started at the Brewing Research Foundation before moving to Bass in the UK.
He later spent decades as a professor of brewing at UC Davis in the States, teaching countless students the science of beer. Today, he’s Senior Quality Advisor at the legendary Sierra Nevada after an attempt at retirement was foiled by an offer from his old mate Ken Grossman.
Will and Craig caught up with Charlie while in Hobart for the CIBD conference earlier in the year for a chat about his life in beer, his experience teaching and working at Sierra Nevada, and his passion for the liquid he’s spent his life around.
Prior to the interview, James and Will discuss the week’s news, including Mountain Culture’s purchase of Fox Friday, our story on KAIJU!’s blossoming love for lager, and our features on two of beer’s rising stars: Julia Santos Muriel and Anaya Summer.
Don’t forget to like and subscribe to the show, and listen out to discover the identity of our latest Bluestone Yeast Brewery of the Month.
Start of segments:
- 13:55 – Charlie Bamforth Part 1
- 32:04 – Bluestone Yeast Brewery of the Month
- 37:50 – Charlie Bamforth Part 2
Relevant links:
- The Pope of Foam
- Mountain Culture Acquire Fox Friday
- The Metamorphosis of KAIJU!
- Brew & A: Julia Santos Muriel
- Anaya Summer Slays Beer
- Nominate a Brewery of the Month
- Cryer Malt
To find out more about featuring on The Crafty Pint Podcast or otherwise partnering with The Crafty Pint, contact craig@craftypint.com.
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Transcript
Introduction and Greetings
00:00:06
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Crafty Pine podcast. I'm Will. I'm James. Good see you again, Will. Absolutely.
Mountain Culture Acquires Fox Friday
00:00:12
Speaker
Yes, I was off sick last week and just as you guys finished ah recording the intro, there was some big news that broke, wasn't there, James?
00:00:19
Speaker
ah Yeah, I think we pretty much just ah hung up and let Matt, our producer, know that the the intro is ready to be added to the Moffat Beach episode. And yeah, there was a very short and to the point message from Mountain Culture um or on behalf of Mountain Culture about their their acquisition of the fox friday Fox Friday and every part of Fox Friday that we've been going through administration as well.
00:00:43
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So um obviously a lot of excitement when when the news came out. There's still a lot more to understand, I think. it's It's effectively still in process, although the sales confirmed they've still got a long way to work through it. Obviously, they're effectively buying it from the administrators.
00:01:00
Speaker
It's a complex one and I'm i'm sure they'll um have more to say soon or we've been told that they will have more to say soon, but it will be interesting to see where it
Future of Fox Friday Brand
00:01:08
Speaker
goes. I mean, my number one question would be, what does this mean for the Fox Friday brand? Would they continue it on or is it more a matter of making a mountain culture in all these locations so they'd have a Brew pub in Perth, potentially one in Richmond, Melbourne and and another in Tasmania.
00:01:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think if I was a betting man, that would be the way I'd expect things to go, but we'll see. But it so certainly, know, we'd heard stories, i guess, you know, during Pine of Origin and around the traps at and at Abers, a number of breweries, I guess, of that sort of the the larger size that had been through to have a look, certainly at Richmond. And there was...
00:01:47
Speaker
A few of the names you might have pegged having gone through.
Mountain Culture's Expansion and Developments
00:01:50
Speaker
yeah, it just continues the remarkable rise of mountain culture, a little more than five years old. um And yeah, just, you know, they've taken over Atomic when that was closed down by Gage Roads or Good Drinks Australia um in Sydney. um You know, they've've there's been a number of pop-ups. They've done a partnership with Wildflower.
00:02:10
Speaker
Now this, it'd be interesting see if they you know if they want to keep carwin sellers as well and what might what might happen there. um But yeah, we've we've we certainly let DJ and Harriet know we're keen for a chat. So, you know, when they when they're free to say more, we'd love to, you know, we' we'll bring that
Impact on Fox Friday Staff and Community
00:02:26
Speaker
to people.
00:02:26
Speaker
And I guess the other thing is to is to find out, you know what it means for some of the staff that were made redundant after we went into administration. Obviously, they kept on number of staff at the venues, but sort know, brew brewing staff, a lot of people associated with that side of the business were let go.
00:02:40
Speaker
um and I noticed a few comments and so so on socials amongst all the Hooray, you know, this is amazing news going, but what does it mean for staff that have been let go but you by the administrators? So we'll keep a keen eye on that as well.
00:02:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting how these conversations change a little bit, doesn't it? One day it used to be all about suppliers and now it's all about staff. So I think a lot of perceptions around how these VAs work are certainly
Financial Struggles and Debt Report
00:03:07
Speaker
changing. And we did manage to get access to the administrators report ah last week as well, which sort of lays bears the significance of the debts owing. So we're talking about across the business, so including Carwin Sellers and Muna Hotel and and the breweries,
00:03:24
Speaker
more than $8 million dollars owing to more than 500 people. and And that's such a range of, it is suppliers, but obviously some of the suppliers to the bottle shops and bars are breweries as well that have been pretty heavily hit by what's occurred.
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, certainly, It's quite different to any of the other voluntary administrations or liquidations that we've covered before. and I guess mainly due to the fact that Carwin Sellers was part of the business.
Supplier Challenges and Mountain Culture's Strategy
00:03:52
Speaker
um And then there's a lot of small breweries who would have been suppliers. I guess not just breweries, other producers would have been suppliers to Carwin Sellers. um you know Breweries that haven't been through this process, ah no doubt have looked on other business other businesses of restructuring with some sympathy or with some interest and certainly would have been aware that there's been an impact on you know supply their suppliers who may have tightened terms and whatever. But in this case, a lot of them will have been hit as hit as well. They will have kept supplying beer to you know car wind sellers and and not been paid. And there's definitely been some fairly outspoken commentary there. and
00:04:25
Speaker
Yes, I guess going forward, we'll be keeping eye on what Mountain Cultures plans are for the brand and for the various assets, but also what it means for the people who have been impacted negatively by what's taken place over the last few months. So um I guess as ever watch this space, really.
00:04:39
Speaker
Yeah, and interestingly, in the administrator's report as well, there were ah number of businesses interested in taking this ah over. Mountain Culture, in the end, put through the only sort of final bid for the entire entirety of the business, but there were others looking to buy sections of the business. So we can assume that that's people wanting to buy carwin sellers potentially on its own or one of the breweries or all that kind of thing as well, but didn't see the...
00:05:07
Speaker
didn't have the ability rather to to buy all of it.
Kaiju's Lager Innovation
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. um And I guess in in more sort of, guess, beer, actual beer and brewing related news, that you've put together ah really lovely long read um on something, I guess, that we've probably referred to certainly on the podcast in the past and and maybe sort of in writing every now and then, um which is Kaiju's metamorphosis from hop monsters to um very successful lager brewers.
00:05:35
Speaker
Excellent plan words and I really needed help with that headline. So thank you for that. ah That's why you're the editor. But yeah, I've been wanting to tell this story in one way or another for some time. i remember way back 2017 talking to Nat about how he drunk Pilsner Uquil fresh at the brewery and he just had this love for Pilsner after that and and really wanted to make it themselves.
00:05:57
Speaker
They then came back, made a Hoppy Pilsner. And since then, matt's been Nat's been spending a lot of time in in Germany. is His wife's from Germany and ah he's been sort of picking out what he can. And and more recently, he's literally brought back a variety of yeast, a yeast strain. And thanks to Derek and the team at Bluestone, they've managed to biobank that and it's it's their house lager yeast but he's just very passionate about what this yeast can do and it's last year it won them champion Pilsner trophy for their cold split which was West Coast IPA and this year their cerveza was champion Australian lager so it's it's obviously impressing judges back to back and um it's just fascinating to sort of talk to a brewer who's
00:06:40
Speaker
probably done that journey that I think a lot of beer drinkers has done as well, where they've really fallen more and more for lager and potentially as their breweries changed a little bit and the market's altered, they've found a fascination with it and really wanted to commit to it in a certain way.
00:06:55
Speaker
yeah Yeah, for sure. And I think um it takes taking me back to when we did a cerveza blind tasting, um was it a couple of years ago? and one of the people on the panel was working for Kaiju and they brought in a little bomber, really. It was a sample of that first ever pilot batch what of what became cerveza using that yeast.
00:07:15
Speaker
And Nat talks in the article about how it could throw out a lot of phenolics, a lot of essence, a lot of, you know, flavor compounds they didn't necessarily want And they've worked out... It tasted like a Belgian wit beer. It was, yeah, we were, it was very Belgian. It was very, very aromatic in all those, yeah, yeast-derived manners.
00:07:34
Speaker
um I think they may have brought us a second trial not long afterwards and you could see where it was heading, like really just reining that in. And it's kind of amazing to... think that Nat would have tried that first pilot batch that was so far from being a clean lager. It was like, it was so pungent, you know, an OTT that but he must've seen something in that, that he knew he could work with. So yeah, no, it's pretty, yeah.
00:07:57
Speaker
He effectively dragged the end product, didn't he so he? He was drinking beers, using this in Germany. So he sort of, in a weird way while piloting it, he could see the future, I think, a little bit and see where it was all going.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for sure. um Actually, and and talking at a Bluestone, we do have our latest Bluestone Brewery of the Month winner are coming out later in the show. So um listen out for
Julia's Brewing Journey
00:08:17
Speaker
that. um And actually, we had a couple of other stories have been really well received on socials this week, featuring a couple of um female brewers um in different parts of the country.
00:08:27
Speaker
um Will, you spoke to one who's been at Capital Brewing, came over here backpacking to hang out on the beaches for a while and eight years later is, ah you know, trailblazing beer judge and and brewer at Capital.
00:08:39
Speaker
Yeah, Julia or Jules, to her friends. It was really great to chat with her. She's, ah it's a classic sort of story of of Europeans coming to Australia in one hand, isn't it? That like working out how to get your permanent residency, falling for the country and then sort of having to navigate work with that.
00:08:56
Speaker
um So she moved from hospital, but she loved beer and had a background in science. So sort of moved into brewing, still hasn't got a permanent residency, but is able to still be here, fortunately. And um yeah, she's a plays a really key role at Capital as part of their, or basically leading their quality and sensory team and as a technical brewer. So it was ah really good to chat with her about her story and how she was the first female Spanish judge at the Ebers recently, which follows in her mum's footsteps, who was a um an actual legal judge and ah was the first female judge in ah in a part of Spain.
00:09:32
Speaker
There you go. um And also then Mick did an entry into our Slaves Beer series celebrating young people in the beer industry. Now, i probably should have checked how she pronounces her first name. Is it Anaya? I'm not too sure.
00:09:47
Speaker
Summer, um who works at Batch. Another lovely story there about how um she had a first IPA the age 18, having never been a beer drinker, and it sort of blew a mind, changed to her world.
00:09:58
Speaker
and So we're discussing... both her, I guess, career in beer, but also how she thinks um the beer industry can better engage younger people and, you know find a new audience. So that was a real fun read as well.
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah,
Charlie Bamforth's Career and Advice
00:10:11
Speaker
definitely. And without further ado, I guess, onto this week's guest, Charlie Bamforth. But um no Charlie, i remember going to ah an event, probably an IBD-related event, best part the decade i ago, I think, over here.
00:10:25
Speaker
And I guess, you know, we... share time spent in a similar part of the UK and you know he worked for bass I used to love drinking bass flat from the jug at the cap and stocking in Kegworth but you know he was there I think technically to talk about beer and brewing but essentially just regaled people with hilarious you know tales from his journeys um you know over would have been decades and decades even at even at that point and and you were lucky enough to sit down ah at Craig and yourself with Charlie in Hobart earlier in the year Yeah, so this is our last conversation recorded in Hobart.
00:10:57
Speaker
Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in, but but yeah, I realised we still had one more to go. And yeah, it was a difficult, almost difficult sort of conversation to go into because he's had such a long career.
00:11:09
Speaker
He started in the world of beer in the late 70s. You sort of don't know where to begin. And we just sort of sat down and i was like, well, how about we begin at the beginning of your career and just tell us stories for the rest of the, for the next hour, Charlie. And he, for a very long time, he was teaching at UC Davies and doing research and that kind of thing. He then went to retire in 2019 and Ken Grossman of Sierra Nevada sort of convinced him not to, and instead to work with the, you know, what the pioneers of craft beer in the
00:11:41
Speaker
america So it's a great conversation, I think, because we get aspects of his teaching career. And he also sort of, by way of that, the story of Sierra Nevada as well. He's known Ken for an incredibly long time. So it's a good ah behind the scenes look, I think, of that very storied brewery.
00:11:58
Speaker
It's a shame you weren't there, James, because he was also very keen to talk about football or or soccer, as we might call it here. But I'm sure we'll be able to get him on again and you can talk about the Wolverhampton Wanderers.
00:12:11
Speaker
Yeah, I'm always happy to chat about Burson Albion after their great escape this season. And they're called the Brewers as well, you know, so he'll know them well, no doubt. Yes, absolutely. And interestingly, there was there's a bit in the conversation, ah maybe an Easter egg to listen out for where he talks about a well-known lager that he doesn't like drinking because it tastes of diacetal to him, which is very much Nat's story as well, tying it back in together for kaiju. Although Charlie wouldn't name the actual beer, I can't help but think that maybe he thinks the same about a certain beer as Nat does.
00:12:43
Speaker
So now you've got so yeah you know double task. You know not only have to listen to the episode, you have to go and read Will's article with Nat to see if you agree with his supposition about the lager in question. um Yeah, we best get to the the main interview, which is up after the break. and Before then, Will?
Cryer Malt's Contribution to Craft Beer
00:13:00
Speaker
Make sure you like and subscribe and also get your nominations in for Blue Stones Brewer of the Month and rally have you done a rally? Cheers.
00:13:13
Speaker
For over 30 years Cryer Malt has supported the craft beer revolution, supplying top quality malt, hops and yeast to brewers across Australia and New Zealand. They offer world class ingredients, including premium malts by Barrett Burstyn, Best Malts and more, and top tier hops from Yakima Chief Hops, as well as yeast from AB Biotech.
00:13:37
Speaker
With a passionate on-the-ground team, Cryer Malt is the trusted partner for brewers ready to break the mould. Discover how they can help elevate your brewing journey at cryermalt.com.
00:13:56
Speaker
Charlie, thank you so much for joining us. Pleasure. Always pleasure. Yes. So obviously you've had a very lengthy and far ranging career. It's kind of hard to know where to start as a result, but maybe we could try and start just with what what you've been doing and and how you found yourself um here. Here.
00:14:15
Speaker
yeah You always start right at the beginning. Well, 1978 actually is when i I joined the brewing industry. yeah um I was a postdoc up at the University of Sheffield.
00:14:26
Speaker
and When you're a postdoc, you spend the the first year sort of beavering away trying to get some fancy publications. And the second year, you you look at the the job advertisements.
00:14:36
Speaker
and the first job advertisement that took my eye was they wanted an enzymologist to work at what was called the brewing research foundation um and so i thought well give me a job i can do that because i was an enzymologist and brewing you know and so bring the two together um this was a big old country house in surrey just south of london and It was it was ah an amazing place. it It was funded by basically a tax on beer.
00:15:05
Speaker
So every barrel of beer, there was a few pennies that went to pay for the Brewing Research Foundation. So mostly British brewers, but but we we always had Australian and New Zealand brewers involved as well. So I'm not quite sure how much they paid, but but they did. um And it it was basically a rec recruitment ground. and and doing fundamental science. So things went well for me. And then the biggest paymasters was the old Bass Brewing Company.
00:15:31
Speaker
And they took a a shine to me. They they liked the look of me. So in 1983, I joined Bass in the days when Bass existed as an independent brewing company.
00:15:42
Speaker
And they were the biggest brewing company in the country at the time, probably one of the biggest in Europe. And I became research manager. And then they sent me off to one of the breweries to to get to the sharp end.
00:15:54
Speaker
And then I went back to the Brewing Research Foundation because we went international. I spent a lot of time going all over the world, including in every couple of years, at least down to Australia, New Zealand, ah to all the centers of brewing.
00:16:08
Speaker
Loved it, i always loved it. And so I was a director of research and and then I accepted the position of as the brewing professor at UC Davis, University of California Davis back in,
00:16:24
Speaker
1999 and I retired in 2018 and Ken Grossman, Sierra Nevada yeah um said, what are you going to do now? said, I'm retiring. He said, no, you're not. You're going to advise us. So I've been advising Sierra Nevada ever since. I absolutely love it.
00:16:40
Speaker
and I've been in this industry since, as I said, since 1978 and Ken Grossman is easily the the most impressive guy I've ever ever encountered. He's an astonishing guy.
00:16:51
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's a um it's a fascinating brewery here in Nevada how they have managed to weather everything um that that a lot haven't. They're still independent, still family-owned and run. like that is such a rare thing in America. It is, it is and and it and it will continue in that way and now of course they have two brewers, they don't only have Chico which is about 90 miles from where I live um but also of the brewery in Mills River in North Carolina which is the most beautiful brewery in the world.
00:17:22
Speaker
I mean it is astonishing. I have to say, you know, there are two people that really I put on a pedestal when it comes to quality and doing things right.
00:17:36
Speaker
And Ken is one and the other is Tim Cooper. Yeah. Of the Coopers Brew in Adelaide. Both of them, i mean, family concerns, both of them um committed to to doing the best, not only having the best beers, but also everything around the place looks great, is great, and is done properly.
00:17:58
Speaker
um Have you seen Coopers since they've done a lot of redevelopments? I have, you know, and and it's it's mightily impressive. but And Tim is such ah such a great guy. I did a book on on quality systems and and basically, you know,
00:18:13
Speaker
The principle, and the the most important thing for quality is how's it led? who you know it It comes from the top. yeah and and And Ken Grossman and Tim Cooper are all about doing it right and and quality from the top.
00:18:28
Speaker
I told this story to Tim yesterday, i reminded him yesterday and he said, I didn't say that. But what he did say was this, I mean, I was there in in Adelaide few years ago and I was waiting for Tim to to to come in and and have a meeting with me.
00:18:41
Speaker
And phone went I picked it up and he said, Charlie, it's Tim. He said, I'm going to be a few minutes late. I got to go and wish somebody happy birthday on the line. And he's more important than you are. And he said, I didn't say that. I said, yes, you did. And it's quite right. You know, it's absolutely right. yeah ah My old boss at Bass used to say, you know, two things matter. The first is quality, the second is people.
00:19:04
Speaker
um And you look after the people, they'll look after the quality, you know. yeah And that's what it's all about. But I love coming to the Asia Pacific meeting, the CIBD meeting. I've been coming here since 1988 and I love the banter. I'm a Pong.
00:19:20
Speaker
all All the banter. yeah yeah I just love it. yeah Yeah, you must feel like you're at home when you're here. I do. i just you know i yeah And ah for example, Tasmania, I could quite easily live in Tasmania. It beautiful city it it it really is, it reminds me of home, you know, you drive up through Tasmania, you go through Ross-on-Wye, mean, what's more English than Ross-on-Wye, for goodness sake? but um yeah But all of the locations, all the brewing locations and and in Australia, I've just had many, many happy times here.
00:19:55
Speaker
Yeah, and what's your take on it as someone who's visited Australia so many times? I mean the proliferation of breweries for one thing is dramatic. Well that's right, that's right, but I mean that's the same all over the world.
00:20:07
Speaker
um So you know the very first time I came was the convention in Brisbane in 1988. The Expo was there. Yeah, the bicentennial wasn't i Yeah, yeah and and that was fascinating but It was a real eye-opener because that was right at the time when Elliot and Bond, the novel yeah they were going hammer and tongs.
00:20:35
Speaker
It was a ah such an eye-opener because you know there was there was half the people wouldn't talk to the other half and you had to be you couldn't be seen with the wrong beer in your hand. So it's very different now.
00:20:46
Speaker
yeah It's much more congenial and and convivial. not sure what the right word is. It was a real, ah these larger-than-life characters, wasn't it? was um yeah You know, people would go, I was in an elevator one time, um and and and somebody walked in, it was on the opposition, and the guy already in the elevator, turn around.
00:21:05
Speaker
presented his back to who just walked into the elevator it was wow you know but themes with the days a bit of snark and animosity and uh happy days but i was saying earlier on you i used to fly down from from london and fly to singapore and you a few hours and fly on and again i arrived in melbourne and there used to be a guy called don hawthorne who worked for um fosters and he would you know good eye charlie and let's let's talk about foam i'm thinking darn can i sleep but they were you know always you picking picking up the old gray cells and yeah it was great and and uh so i'm not sure how many more times i'll get to uh to come down here but uh no you're always welcome charlie i'm tired of me yet
00:21:51
Speaker
yeah I'm curious, you know picking up on the Sierra Nevada conversation, we we obviously talked to loads of people on this podcast and you know an interesting conversation we had recently with um Jade from the Wheatsheaf in Adelaide.
00:22:05
Speaker
We were talking about that question of breweries is there a path to growth and sustainability and legacy without having to sell to one of the bigger guys or whatever it might be? And and I think Sierra Nevada is an amazing example. Cooper's in Australia is an incredible example.
00:22:22
Speaker
i I don't know. What are your thoughts on that? Are there are there ways you know that brews can grow? Yeah. and And it's got to be, you've got to, you've got to,
00:22:33
Speaker
It's got to come from the heart um and it's got to be right. When Ken Grossman first started Sierra Nevada, he he poured away his first six batches of beer. this This is not right.
00:22:45
Speaker
I can't, I'm not, this is not something I want to put my name to. And i'm I'm not sure I can do it consistently. So it's only when he got that sorted out, it wasn't pale ale, it was stout. His first beer was stout.
00:22:56
Speaker
And he poured them all away. And then he said, OK, I think I've got it now. And then he went and he walked the streets of Chico, basically. And of course, what he was presenting to people was a beer, which is very different. to what people were used to drinking in the USA, you know?
00:23:11
Speaker
And you'll never hear me being rude about North American beers. They're very hard to make. They're fairly gently flavored. They're very hard to do because you make a mistake, you'll you'll spot it.
00:23:23
Speaker
and And Ken would never be rude about them. But he what he believed in was full of flavored products and so on. So what he was doing was hawking um products that were ah novelty for for people.
00:23:36
Speaker
and And he had one or two good breaks, you know, Grateful Dead started drinking his beer. And the daughter of a journalist in the San Francisco Examiner, she was a ah student at the University in Chico.
00:23:50
Speaker
So he visited her, drank the beer, loved the beer, wrote an article about it, blah, blah. And it grew, and it grew. and And you really need to listen to Ken telling the story of how it was then and how it is now. you know He shows a picture, there's there's a room there with a door in it and you couldn't put a pallet through the door.
00:24:09
Speaker
It wouldn't fit um because he never dreamed he'd ever fill a pallet. Now! It's the second biggest um k craft brewing company in the United States of America.
00:24:20
Speaker
yeah And as I say, the fantastic two fantastic breweries producing a lot of beer. because he believes in in it doing it right and he believes in quality, he believes in people, he believes in the environment.
00:24:33
Speaker
You know when he when he first um went to North Carolina, he contacted the brewers in Asheville and he said, ive I've looked at all sorts of different locations and I i believe i want to come to Asheville.
00:24:49
Speaker
Is that okay with you guys? Because if you don't want me to come, I won't come. yeah wow And they said, hell yeah. Because all the votes fly up. That'll put us on the map. and And he the first person I believe that he employed was an entomologist.
00:25:08
Speaker
to look at the local insect life to see what impact, what would be the input the impact on the environment. All of the wood that was was cut down to create the site, all that wood was used to put all the material into the restaurants and so on and so forth.
00:25:27
Speaker
He cares. I mean, you know, and and he's got all the right values. He's a good businessman. And you've got very successful brands. You know you don't mess with pale ale. I mean, I can come up with all sorts of clever ideas. If it's anything to with pale ale, Ken will say, no, just leave it alone.
00:25:43
Speaker
um and you know he's innovative and he's you know it's like one step ahead but fundamentally people are so proud to be associated with that company because he's got all the right values and um and and i say as you say tim tim cooper and cooper's brewer it's just the same um in and they wanted to do things right Do you see parallels in more, I guess, the the modern era of craft brewers? And now that we're, what, how many years down the track from Sierra Nevada, sort of walking the streets? Are they kind of and there still opportunities for innovation and growth? and Oh, absolutely. there always't But, you know, you've got to have that right attitude, that right mindset. and You've not got to be...
00:26:28
Speaker
One of these that are saying, well, OK, we do this, this and this, then some nice big brewing company will come and give us lots of millions of dollars. And and and and I go on to the Riviera or something.
00:26:39
Speaker
um And there are people who are like that. Equally, there are people who have sold to larger breweries and you can understand why. If somebody's gonna come with, and and didn't intend that to happen, but it has.
00:26:51
Speaker
and And you you know somebody comes along with a big check. Well, of course you're gonna consider whether that's right or not. Now, Ken and and the Grossman family would not consider it. They they they they believe in it in the family concern and and that's wonderful.
00:27:05
Speaker
And Cooper's the same. But there are others that, you know, There's always going to be so scope as long as people believe and want to to achieve that. You know, people say to me and in the States, is there, you know, is there any room for anybody else?
00:27:21
Speaker
And I say, well, you know, I'm British. And I forget how many the breweries are in the UK these days, but let's say it's 2,000. And you can pick up the whole of the UK and you can put it into California about one and a half times. you know So that would be you know three, four thousand breweries and in California alone.
00:27:40
Speaker
And we've got 10,000 across the United States. So yeah, there's plenty of scope, but the people who will succeed are the ones who, they they understand business.
00:27:53
Speaker
They're not going to be stupid. They've got a good business plan. They've got to have great beer, quality beer. and you know they've got to have the wherewithal to be able to sell it you know it's it's competitive getting onto the supermarket shelves and liquor store shelves and and so on and so forth um but you know so you know sir nevado have got a fantastic reputation and so on so that you know you are going to find their beer but i was i was talking this morning in in the session there about freshness and flavor stability um
00:28:23
Speaker
and people yeah think there's are some clever scientific way of making really fresh beer. Well, and and I did it in a top of the pops way. you know Number 10 is this, right the way through, number one. No, number one is young beer, basically. Number one is, there's nothing better than brewing the beer and and selling it straight away.
00:28:45
Speaker
you know that That's number one. And and you you know ship it big distances and it's unavoidable in some countries, then it's not going to be good for flavour stability. But i mean one of the other big things is keep it cold.
00:28:58
Speaker
And what does Sea of Nevada do? They ship the beer refrigerated containers. So i mean the science of staling is extremely complicated, but but you keep it cold, you slow it slow all the change down.
00:29:11
Speaker
so and And that's another of the reasons he put a brewery on the East Coast because it doesn't make sense to ship a liquid that's more than 90% water, like most beers. It doesn't make sense to ship it 3,500 miles.
00:29:24
Speaker
um It's much better to brew it closer to source at the outlet. and um And it's going to be fresher as well. so So those are the sorts of decisions, Ken. I'm sure when Ken started Sierra Nevada back in the the late 70s, he never envisaged selling the beer in other countries and and certainly never envisaged having a brewery in North Carolina.
00:29:48
Speaker
But of course, heat is the company grew and and ah I'm just very, very proud to be associated with them. I don't know that, and when I retired, if other people had come to see me and said, hey, come and advise us.
00:30:04
Speaker
I probably would say, look, I've done it, you know, I'm done now. But with Ken, I couldn't say no. Yeah, hard to resist. Yeah. I'd love to know a little bit more about that team because I imagine like the people you're working with, there'd be people that have been there for a very long time. Obviously, Ken's been there longer than anyone else. yeah But but um it would be such a desirable place to work, not only for you who was meant to retire, but also up and coming brewers and things like that. It must be really good.
00:30:30
Speaker
Yeah, sure. um and And there's, you know, many people have been there quite a long time. um Some them quite a lot they newer. And, you know, when he first built up the business, there are people who were there right at the outset and stayed with him a long time.
00:30:48
Speaker
People like Steve Dressler, a great brewer. ah Progressively over the years he's he's brought people in from with with expertise from other companies and so on. And he's brought people in from the bigger companies and so on because he knows that you know everybody knows that you know yeah people working for like that, like so I know Zobush, very well trained, excellent technical people and so on. and And they are very proud to come to a company like Sierra Nevada.
00:31:14
Speaker
ah ah Yeah, Ken is still very much involved. The the helm now is a guy called Price Greenow, who actually came out of spirits industry, before that the British Army. So I always i always sit up nice and straight when Price is there.
00:31:28
Speaker
But a great guy, you know. And so they have got people in senior positions now that have come from outside. So it's a combination of the family values and what Ken has built up, but also associated with the very best when it comes to expertise, whether it's business expertise, sales and marketing and so on.
00:31:47
Speaker
So it it truly is a you know a sizable company, as I say, a second biggest craft brewing company in the States, but but still got all those family values.
00:31:59
Speaker
Great, great. Well, we might take a very quick break and we'll be right back. Cheers. yes
00:32:08
Speaker
Welcome back to another Bluestone Yeast Brewery of the Month. James, tell us about this wonderful runner-up brewery in the Sunshine Coast. Yeah, we've had a nomination for Noosa Hinterland Brewing Company, tiny little operation, um as as the name suggests, the Noosa Hinterland, right at the top end of the Sunshine Coast region.
00:32:27
Speaker
I was lucky enough to go there not too long ago when my mum and dad were out from the UK, run by John andkara and Cara and Tynan in a... ah centuries old building it's not really sort of set up to be a brewery it's got that beautiful sort of old world charm to it I think it's very sort of hard manual yakka making the beers there but they've just sort of really won over the locals um they're making beer that I guess you know bats above that's above its average for for the set up they've got there um And it's been nominated you know for being fantastic little brewery in the tiny hinterland town, um talking about how they have to hand cut every bag of grain up the stairs, they can't use a pallet jack, and how they brought the little community together. um
00:33:10
Speaker
ah know when I um posted something about a couple of the recent limited releases I tasted when I was up there on socials, there was just... sort of bigger than usual, guess, comments section, because there was just a post about some new releases and people just going best brewery in the country, best beers, you know, so they they really have, um I guess, captured and encapsulated a lot of what a community and regional brewery is all about. So, um yeah, so they were our runners up this week. That's ah to Noosa Hinterland Brewing Co. Highly recommend anyone visiting the Sunshine Coast goes and pays them a visit.
00:33:45
Speaker
Those are very top-level words as well, considering how many breweries there are on the Sunshine Coast. Yes, exactly. um But um as as for this this month's winner, I'll probably throw this one back to you, Will. You've ah got had a pretty close relationship with and these guys ever since they they got off the ground.
00:34:02
Speaker
um bit A bit of sort of Gippsland commonality in yeah and your backgrounds. But also, yeah I think you've been a fan of a lot of their beers that you've tried over the years. Yes, yes. Goodland Brewing, ah like all good things, are from Gippsland.
00:34:17
Speaker
Mushroom murderers, alleged. yeah Alleged mushroom murderers, makers of great beef wellingtons and makers of great beer. So Goodland Brewing is run by Jesse and Jimmy, rather...
00:34:30
Speaker
duo really are the main people behind it. Jimmy's been steering it. I was talking to Jimmy before they opened the brewery at Dralgen, just some sort of back and forth because we are both from the same part of the world. He spent time brewing in Europe. So I was always really keen to find out what they were up to. And, you know, I never quite knew what this brewery would be be, but they've um quietly, I think become one of the more innovative sort of breweries, particularly if you like very sweet beers, smoothie sours and all those good things. They, they're, they're really good at making them. They make really
00:35:05
Speaker
It's a weird thing to say, isn't it? But very balanced and very precise beers with like ah with lots of chocolate, lots of vanilla, lots of marshmallows, soft serve even thrown into them. But they they somehow work, which surprises me.
00:35:19
Speaker
And it also impresses Simon Boyd from Grape and Barley, which I believe is a bottle shop. in Warrnambool. um So, yeah, Simon says... It sounded very much like that was going to be your nomination for Goodland there, so glad it's come from someone else. Yeah, no, well, maybe Simon's my pseudonym.
00:35:37
Speaker
and yeah He wants to nominate Goodland Brewery for the incredible passion and dedication they bring to the craft beer scene. Their commitment to quality, creativity and consistency is second to none and it shows in every beer they release.
00:35:50
Speaker
Some of my all-time favorites have come from them. Billions, trillions, Snow Dogs throwing snowballs and gooey hop candy just to name a few. as As you can probably tell by the names, those are sort of the kind of beers I was talking about before. They aren't just drinks, they're memorable, standout experiences.
00:36:06
Speaker
that keep fans like me coming back for more. Their can designs are bold, vibrant and instantly recognisable. Goodland constantly raises the bar and they deserve recognition for bringing fresh energy and originality to this industry.
00:36:19
Speaker
I take it Simon's not really a lager drinker. He's not going to be too fussed. No, you won't be queuing up for Kaiju Cerveza in a hurry. Well, well, they make a great lager as well. Actually a good lager, which is its name. But ah yeah, it's it's um it's interesting. When I go into bottle shops in Melbourne, Goodland are often a brewery that bottle shops really want to talk to me about. Like that they really...
00:36:42
Speaker
that they They, I guess, get the passion from the Goodland team and and they really understand it. And hopefully, I guess maybe because they're so excited, it probably means those beers sell pretty well for them.
00:36:53
Speaker
Do you point out that you're diabetic and it's probably not a good idea for you to be drinking too many Goodland beers? Well, it's probably not a good idea for anyone to be drinking too many of them, given a lot of them are beyond 10%.
00:37:06
Speaker
ah yeah But anyway, congratulations to Goodland. And as this month's winner, you'll score a box of Bluestone yeast brand new Zinc Booster, which is from their booster range. It's a cold side edition of Sterile Zinc, which replaces that zinc that's lost in the boil.
00:37:20
Speaker
And as we all know, zinc is essential for optimal yeast health and performance. ah Well said, Will. um And yeah, if anyone would like to get in more nominations for Bluestone Yeast Brewery of the Month, there's plenty of good breweries out there. um I'm it would appreciate the pat on the back and the zinc booster.
00:37:36
Speaker
um Please get your nominations in at craftypint.com slash bluestone. Anyway, that's it for this month. um Back to the show. Cheers.
00:37:51
Speaker
So we're back. And Charlie, what about as a teacher, that having that long career? I've got friends who are teachers in high school and primary school and everywhere, and they they do like to remind me it's the most rewarding job out there. And I think they're just teachers for the holidays. But um how how was that um period? Because again, you were at UC Davies over such an interesting time, I think, in American craft beer history.
00:38:17
Speaker
Right, right. Well, teaching is in the blood. but Both my parents were were teachers, school teachers. um And indeed when i I first left university I was seriously considering going into a teaching career.
00:38:30
Speaker
As I said, science led me into research but my my closest friend in the industry is a guy called Graham Stewart. And Graham at the time was the professor of brewing at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.
00:38:42
Speaker
and he asked me to become a visiting professor of brewing at Heriot-Watt. um So that was really my first saute into the the teaching and and the education.
00:38:56
Speaker
And when they wanted a professor at UC Davis, they wanted somebody who'd been in the industry, which I had at Bath, somebody who'd got a research history in brewing, which I had at BRF International. and a but and of course somebody who had been in academia, which I was with Harry Watts, so give me a job, I can do that. And I loved it.
00:39:17
Speaker
You know, most people at to the sort of the premier universities in states the their number one interest is research, you know, and and teaching irritates them, you know.
00:39:30
Speaker
With me it was the other other way around yeah and i I did a lot of research. I loved doing the research, publishing papers and very nice and writing books. But I just loved the classroom. And very exciting times.
00:39:44
Speaker
Not only the classroom on the campus in terms of teaching people who were pursuing undergraduate degrees, ah graduate degrees and so on. But also what we used to call extension these days continuing professional education.
00:39:58
Speaker
and and shorter courses. My predecessor at today was Michael Lewis. He started the the Master Brewers program and its we still run it today. And we run it both in the classroom and also online.
00:40:12
Speaker
and And so we got a lot of people from all over the world um who are basically over a period of a few months doing all the fundamentals and learning about the complex complexities of malting and brewing.
00:40:27
Speaker
and it's very gratifying we've got we've got people all over the world that have been our students it's it's a little bit embarrassing people come up to me and say hey hi how you doing charlie and i say yeah he said i was your student i'm sorry there's thousands of yeah um you've got to do something outrageous to yeah to remember you but um um But it's it's so gratifying. and And I don't know how many breweries there were in the States when I first went there in 1999, it was maybe 3,000 or 4,000, and now it's 10,000.
00:40:59
Speaker
And a lot of the our students are are now there ah doing doing their thing in these companies. And a lot of them went into the bigger brewing companies. we You know the the brewing professorship that I went to is was a brand new endowment, it was the Anheuser-Busch Endowed Professorship, which people thought, well, Anheuser-Busch pay you, no they don't.
00:41:20
Speaker
They put a lump of money into the university and whatever it generates in the market, the stock market, comes back to support your activities. And Glenn Fox, a good Queensland Guy is my successor.
00:41:35
Speaker
um So a lot of our people went to, and I was a bush, and some of them would go to Coors and some would go to Miller and so on. But a lot would, they would say, i don't want I don't want to join the big guys. I want to go into the craft industry. And I always do this with the craft, and the inverted commas, because you know the definition of a craft brewery in the United States is less than six million barrels every year, which is,
00:42:01
Speaker
hell of a lot of beer. mean yeah um and And so it is good and there's there's nothing quite like it. Some some of them are the best students that I find most gratifying to teach are the ones who have actually come from out of a company and come to Davis to learn, whether it's online or whether it's and in ri reality.
00:42:23
Speaker
And they've been in a brewing company, say a small brewing company, and they've done all the grunt work and they've shoveled the grains and all of those things. And then they come and we talk to them and and they go, aha, I get it.
00:42:34
Speaker
you know That's why we mash up this temperature. That's why it's important that we have this pH. now I get it. i understand it. And the other extreme is is the students that say we're on the campus and we educate them and so on. Then they go to a brewing company for the first time and they're like a deer in the headlights. They've got all the theory. They've got all the theory.
00:42:56
Speaker
But they go, yeah. and And they're not you know prepared. So that's why we used to encourage them to do internships and and and so on. but But yeah, it's it it is most gratifying and and ah to know that there are so many people out there that have ah been through the the classes.
00:43:18
Speaker
Yeah. I imagine you you physically, you you possibly couldn't ever try all their beers. that They would be so sort of spread and far. and I'd be all yeah i'll be under the table if I drank all of them.
00:43:29
Speaker
Yeah, one or two of them. It's very gratifying. yeah they actually ah one ah One of the things I like to talk about is cathedral windows of foam lacing the side of the beer glass. yeah So, you know, the foam sticking the side of the beer glass. and one of my former students just named named a beer cathedral windows it's yeah it's very nice you know um yeah i'm sure it was an oak cream double ipa with lactose and no but none of those things well like that that's a very good point you know we and still i mean under glenn they still have the same competition we used to do what we used to call the iron brew competition
00:44:04
Speaker
and every year the students had to design their own beer and brew their own beers and so on. you know Nobody tried to make Michelob Ultra. They all um were making Hefeweiss and meets Guinness and meets Triple IPA meets Sour Beer on the basis that, well, you can cover over a multitude of sins. And I'm thinking, there's a lot to be said for you.
00:44:24
Speaker
And I often say, you know if you can make a Pilsner, if you can make a great Pilsner, then i'll i'll I'll believe that you're capable of making pretty much anything.
00:44:35
Speaker
they They do say it's the ah it's the hardest style to brew, isn't it? You can't hide anything there. No, you can't. It's a tough job. So so making the pulse now, but having said that, um and it's interesting, the the great ah craft brewing industry in the United States has finally discovered something called lager, so that's kind of exciting.
00:44:54
Speaker
um But, you know, one person's great pilsner is somebody else's not so great pilsner you know i you know they're they're without naming names there's a very famous pilsner brand you can name names here we we don't publish this at all so it's fine well there there's a famous pilsner that that i can't drink because it's got diacetyl in it yeah one yeah and i just can't drink I can't finish a glass of it.
00:45:22
Speaker
And yet in that country, they drink more beer per capita than anywhere else in the world. I'd love to. And I'm going to steal Will's question here, but i paint paint me a picture of Charlie Banforth going into any bar and and ordering a beer. like ah you Are you able to switch off the sensory mind or is it ah is it ah a torturous experience of everything? Yeah, that's a great question. i I'm English.
00:45:46
Speaker
I step off the airplane at Heathrow and predict within 24 hours at least, probably within about three hours, I'm in a pub looking for Cascale. yeah I remember last time I was over there a few months ago and I walked in and and i said, I'll have a pint. And he said, I'm sorry, the the line um I'm not cleaning the lines.
00:46:05
Speaker
I've come from California. How quickly can you do it? um And, you know, As often as not, well, not as often as not, 50% the time, I'm thinking, oh, God, this is not, this isn't right.
00:46:20
Speaker
This is not right. And, you know, and I never say, ah Come on, I know what I'm talking about. I am this, but I am.
00:46:31
Speaker
yeah this is Do you know who I am? you know who I am? No, that's a funny story. I was it i was up in Seattle once with my wife, and she gets really cross with me because I never complain.
00:46:42
Speaker
I'm going to restaurant. never complain. So actually, I was i was the Anoesabouche when Dad prefers, so I ordered a bud. So it came, and it smelled of butterscotch. It was obviously contaminated. It was a ah ah dirty line. There was pediococcus in the line.
00:46:59
Speaker
And I went like this, clicked my fingers. Sorry about that. I clicked my fingers. And this woman came across, she was chewing it. I said, huh, what? I said, you need to know this beer didn't smell like this when it left the brewery.
00:47:12
Speaker
So she shrugged and she said, well, I'll choose something else then. And she went away and my wife said, do you know i thought you were gonna say? Do you know who I am? But I never do. I will either finish a defective pint or I'll just sort say, that's it. I'll just go, I'll leave.
00:47:30
Speaker
I have never, I have never, you know, and often, particularly in the United States, you know you're lucky sometimes to even be offered a glass and you know you know you say could i have a glass and then invariably it's it's clearly a dirt it's not been washed properly and that is the that is the normal exception and you know look at it i say i don't wash the glass but i i finish it i drink it you know do do you think there's a i mean more work to be done by the brewing industry or by hospitality operators or whatever it might be i do feel like
00:48:07
Speaker
perhaps wine has better educated the people who are serving wine or presenting wine and in giving it that right, treating it right. Reverence, yeah. yeah i think I think so. I mean, you know I wrote a book called Great vs. Green once, so completely on bias comparison.
00:48:26
Speaker
And there is no question that, you know, Still to this day you you you get the drinks list and you know it's largely wine and and you know and the affectation and the pour and so on. and you know And people even with screw tucks are still smelling you know smelling the beer. Christ, they pour it out in a glass, you they don't think you're talking about.
00:48:47
Speaker
um but But people still perceive wine as as being more sophisticated. They still perceive it as being a better accompaniment with food. They still think it's harder to make.
00:48:58
Speaker
None of those things are true. They still think it's healthier than beer. It's not. And beer's got far more nutritional value. um But the perception is there. And I i think that...
00:49:09
Speaker
It's improved and there are organizations that ah make do a good thing good job in educating people about beer, how to pour it out, how to select it, which beer for which food, all of those things.
00:49:22
Speaker
i was I was with my wife in Belgium a year or two ago and we went into one of those cafes in and Ghent and they brought the drinks list and it was ah eight pages, and seven and three-quarter pages were beer.
00:49:37
Speaker
And right at the end it said wine, red, white, rosé. ah see That's great. Yeah, precisely. yeah And I didn't show her what the ABVs were. It wasn't much below 5%. And I bet you didn't have to send any of those bees back either. And every one in the right glass.
00:49:56
Speaker
Wow. Every one in the correct glass for that. it's ah I've worked for a number of breweries and it's such a challenge. You spend so much time on the quality of your products, making the best beer, all of the right processes and so on. But as soon as it leaves your premises, your building is out of your hands and and you can really, you can try as hard as you can to educate and inform and keep it cold and do this. But then you see your beer stacked on the floor of a bottle shop and it's, 40 degree heat. It's like ah you know yesterday I was doing the top 10 of beer factors in influence beer foam and today top 10 factors influence flavor stability and number one each case the the top of the pops in each case is what happens in the book you know the end you know I was a QA manager at the Bass Preston Brook Brewery and you know I don't recall anything at any time we had a foam complaint
00:50:50
Speaker
I don't recall any time that it was due to the beer. It was always what happened in the bar. The CO2 setup was all wrong. They'd sawed off the this the sparkler at the end of the tap.
00:51:03
Speaker
The glasses would were not washed properly. There was residual detergent, all of those things. um So, you know, and a number of times i' I've had ah a light North American lager served in a glass that says Guinness.
00:51:19
Speaker
and I mean, ridiculous. um I was in a friend's house in Antwerp once and and he he said, would you like a beer, which is a pretty strange question. I said, yes, please. And he said, what you want? I chose one. And he went away.
00:51:32
Speaker
And 10 minutes later, I said, Guido, where's my beer? He said, I'm trying to find a glass in his own house. He wouldn't serve me the beer unless it was in the glass for that beer. yeah I mean, that is but his complete reverence for beer.
00:51:47
Speaker
And unfortunately, that that doesn't go all that far. Remember somebody saying, well, we can't afford it. People are steal the glasses. And I remember a German guy saying to once, it's it's quite easy. said, you take the shoe.
00:52:00
Speaker
So if people, you know, when they order a beer, you ask them to give one of those shoes and and they return the glass, they can have the shoe.
00:52:09
Speaker
I found that in Bavaria, the German beer servers are also generally quite tall and quite broad shoulders. Like you wouldn't want to steal a glass in front of them. No, not taking the glass of stuff.
00:52:21
Speaker
but but and I was in a restaurant once. I was in the Outback Steakhouse in somewhere in California. And I ordered beer.
00:52:33
Speaker
It was actually cup of sparkling ale. And the woman said, do you want a glass? I said, yeah. Why do you ask? said, well, we don't have many. We don't want to run out.
00:52:45
Speaker
I said, I might ask for a wet red wine. Would you have asked me if I wanted a glass? She said don't be stupid. I mean, it it is it is crazy. But I think things are better. I think things are better. I think one of the things that people are much more interested in beer now than perhaps they were.
00:53:01
Speaker
They're curious. And there are people perhaps who are now prepared to um to go into ah an outlet um and buy a beer who perhaps wouldn't have done that some while ago. so But there's there's, you know,
00:53:16
Speaker
I think the marketing over the years, if you look at some of the marketing for beer, it's been trivializing beer been jokey and and so on. So it, you know, it it perhaps hasn't got the reverence that still, that say wine has.
00:53:33
Speaker
um But so I still think there's room to to go in and making sure people understand that really, if you're talking sophistication and complexity and the the challenges of making know,
00:53:45
Speaker
i mean I used to jokingly say, make w wine, get a bunch of grapes and tread on them and wait. yeah What do you do while you're waiting? You and drink beer. But making beer is is much more complicated. you know Whole conferences like this, whether it's malting, hop selection, hop group, you know all of those things, quite apart from what happens in the brew house and the brewery.
00:54:05
Speaker
um So I'm proud to be associated with this industry. yeah What about in terms of changes? um One of the big things that always strikes me and being at conference like this as well is the suppliers, ingredient makers.
00:54:19
Speaker
That relationship with brewers seems so intertwined now, like like we're we're in hop season in Australia, that the number of tools that go on, like it used to just not happen. and And they used to only have one or two customers here as well. But does that surprise you? or No, no, no. um i mean it It is important. And yet you've got to have excellent relationships with your suppliers.
00:54:40
Speaker
You know, it has happened through the years. I remember back in the day at ba every Every time there new season's malt, we had visitations from the people who sold the Isinglass findings, you know the the proteins from the swim ladders.
00:54:55
Speaker
And every year they'd come along and they'd do their trials. What is the right amount of Isinglass that you should be using? One guy, I remember, had a bowler hat. He was a classic English gentleman with pinstripe suit and so on. He'd come along and roll up his sleeves and do all the Isinglass findings tests and so on.
00:55:10
Speaker
So there has been that rapport and it's critical. you know Over the years, brewers sometimes have been a bit too ready to sort of blame the maltster. I hate that, you know blame the maltster.
00:55:24
Speaker
But but there there is and there should be always a great rapport between the supplier and the user. Because to make a great beer, you've got to have great malt. um And to make great malt, got to have great barley. And all the way down the line,
00:55:38
Speaker
And a responsible, a responsible brewer will maintain those relationships. A few years ago in in the US, there was a hop shortage. One year it was a really serious hop shortage. It was a combination of things.
00:55:52
Speaker
One of the things was the big fire that destroyed a lot of hops. But also there were there were a number of people who said, I'm tired of growing hops, I'm going to do something else. Because certainly at that time there was nothing else you could do with, you know.
00:56:04
Speaker
So the brewers really were dictating the price prices very strongly. And some people said, I'm done with it, you know. and And so there's a shortage of hops.
00:56:17
Speaker
And there were some fairly significant brewing companies that were scrambling to get enough hops. But those companies like Sierra Nevada who had such a close rapport and forward contracting and a good relationship with them and going into the hop yards every year and choosing and seeing what they were doing or that that personal interaction with the supplier is so important and and but whatever it is as well.
00:56:45
Speaker
Water, you know, the number one ingredient as well. You've got to be mindful of what's happening in the world of water as well. So, you know, and it's great to be at at conferences like this where you you do have people from all these different aspects of the ah of the process, all packaging materials and so on.
00:57:08
Speaker
There is a lot of innovation. You know, back in the day at VAS, one of my roles was all the new product development. You know, if I'd said, hey, let's make a hazy beer.
00:57:25
Speaker
but i wouldn't I wouldn't be sitting here with you guys now. But now, of course, um ah Hazy Beer is such a tremendous success story. Hazy Little Thing at Sierra Nevada is a remarkable success story and the extensions of that brand.
00:57:41
Speaker
So how do you you know consistently make it be a beer hazy and who do you need to talk to in terms of making sure that happens? Are there styles like that um you love or hate? I feel like I might be misquoting you, but early on you were a bit critical of haze's, but maybe it was just the poorly made.
00:57:59
Speaker
No, you know, as I said, Bass we were obsessed with brightness. You know, cask and a nail, which is clarified with the Isinglass findings, you know. Wo betide if you had a a haze problem, a turbidity problem in in the trade, you know, all hell was let loose.
00:58:15
Speaker
And that's why we but paid all this attention to optimise the Isinglass dosing. and There's thing called fluffy bottoms where the the the sediment puffs up yeah and and and rises. and Oh, that was a nightmare. People spend lots of time worrying about those things.
00:58:30
Speaker
um you know I've spent more time worrying about how to make beer deliberately hazy now because to make beer bright you can do it. you know There are things called filters or centrifuges.
00:58:41
Speaker
yeah To make beer consistently hazy and the haze stays in suspension, that it really is a technical challenge. So what is my preference? My personal preference is for bright beer.
00:58:53
Speaker
But you know a beer like Hazelty has got fantastic flavour. Fantastic flavour. What I don't like is when some brewers so say, well, the reason it's got fantastic flavour is because it's hazy. Those don't necessarily go hand in hand.
00:59:08
Speaker
So don't, you know, people say, well, you know, for thousands of years, beer's been... cloudy and then all these big guys, they clarified it and took all the goodness out of it. Well, that's just not true.
00:59:18
Speaker
yeah um So I wasn't sure that hazy would survive as a concept, but it it is. And of've it's all to do with the excellent hopper loomers.
00:59:29
Speaker
and And yeah, so sometimes if you do lose that haze, it just settles out. It can carry some of the... the the aroma with it um so there is a some sort of a relationship but it's you know largely it's not the haze and the the aroma are not necessarily closely entwined i feel like the the hazier styles of beer uh are also kind of particularly appealing to a ah newer generation of drinkers as well you you know less bitterness we're seeing more people kind of coming into the fold are you seeing sort of
01:00:04
Speaker
beer trends or just the overall sort of what does the flavor profile of beer look like over time? ah You know, from cask to yeah full bitterness, IPUs, the whole thing. Yeah, well, IPAs are, you know, including the more bitter West Coast IPAs, or if you don't mind me using the term West Coast. like um are still popular.
01:00:25
Speaker
I mean, clearly as the number one segment in in the United States. um But there is a lot of interest in other types of products. um There's a lot of interest in alternative beverages coming out of breweries.
01:00:40
Speaker
um you know the whatever you want to call them alternatives or whatever you know the flavoured alcoholic beverages of course there's a lot of interest in alcohol free or low al alcohol products as well um and and younger people um seem to be stepping back from alcohol um and i'm interested in alternative ways of spending their money if they've got any money.
01:01:04
Speaker
um So, you I'm not a i' not a sales and marketing person. I would be the worst person in the world to predict what is going to happen in 10 years time.
01:01:17
Speaker
yeah I know where my loyalties lie, you know what I enjoy. I mean like ah yeah personally prefer a ah reasonably fully flavoured beer.
01:01:29
Speaker
I'm not a fan of flavoured alcoholic beverages, but you've got one brewer makes a success out of it, then other people want a bite of the cherry. um and so I understand it from a sales and marketing perspective and why people want to diversify but I hope it it isn't at the expense of beer and you you've got to remember you know beer stands the test of time some of these products are going to be reasonably short-lived they're going to come and go but you know Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is still strongly alive and kicking because it's a great beer and it's a beer that that people enjoy love and respect and and there's lots of long-standing brands in in Australia for example mc Cooper's portfolio as well
01:02:16
Speaker
You obviously have all your passion still for beer. Do you know why or where does that... Pays the wages. Yeah, but but a lot of people have jobs that after 50 year careers, they wouldn't want to talk about it for a second. Yeah, i know that. but being a Beer's kind of special, isn't it? yeah When I was the, know was a Bush Endowed Professor at the University of California, Davis, you know, we used to have these Endowed Professors you know dinners.
01:02:44
Speaker
And I used to say, you know, I'm the and' the one who can have a beer and and and advertise my endowment. You know, the Edward Teller Professor of Nuclear Physics is not walking around with uranium.
01:02:57
Speaker
yeah And know and and you can join going you can join the pet food industry, but on a Friday night or whatever, you can't have a new cansa chum or pedigree pet food or something like that.
01:03:08
Speaker
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but but you get my point. yeah So it's... I mean, it's an industry that is very convivial. And, you know, earlier we talked about Bond, Elliot and so on. But for the most part, over the years, there has been tremendous interaction between people employed by different companies.
01:03:32
Speaker
And, you know, here we are, the Chartered Institute of Brewing and Distilling for, you know, it's been one name or another has been around for way over 100 And in that time, lots of people have talked to one another about the challenges they're having, the the difficulties they're having.
01:03:47
Speaker
When I first joined the industry, you know people would be competing with one another to be first to be able to stand up and talk about some something that they'd done and were pioneering.
01:03:58
Speaker
and I was research manager at Bass, and we'd we'd have the i had a big research team. you know We had 30 scientists doing all sorts of fundamental work. on everything from you know genetic modification to you know fundamentals of sensory science and flavor stability and so on.
01:04:14
Speaker
And we we wanted to be the first people up there talking about this and the meetings were full of people giving absolutely novel findings and that other people could could use.
01:04:29
Speaker
These days, you know the powers that be and many of the big brewing companies are saying, how does that influence our bottom line? um So conferences these days are much more to do with conveying existing on understanding but perhaps in different ways and tweaking things around the edges.
01:04:49
Speaker
Not a lot really pioneering research is is talked about these days but nonetheless the sort of the interaction between people.
01:04:59
Speaker
remains a very strong motivator to have ah meetings like this one in the Asia-Pacific section. and And my goodness, down here, you know how to do it.
01:05:11
Speaker
ah yeah ah Over in Africa they used to get very cross with me because i used to say, you know, my favorite meetings Asia-Pacific. What about us? Well, you know. There's something a little bit special about the meetings down here.
01:05:23
Speaker
They're always, always great. well we take our beer very seriously but not that seriously it's always a bit of fun um i think that's probably yeah i mean thank you so much for joining us a i'm sure we could go for hours longer but i we best not and um uh james our editor is is furious he can't be here because he's a big soccer or football fan as but bla well that's the other thing you know i you know i've written twice At least twice as many articles about football as I have in Columbia. Because I used to write in the match day programme of Wolverhampton Wanderers, which is my club.
01:06:00
Speaker
And then I started writing for Walsall and Shrewsbury and Birmingham City. and so So every week I would have at least two or three different articles. So, you know, over a few seasons they'd build up. But I still write for magazines and for a website called Wolves Heroes and so on and so on.
01:06:16
Speaker
yeah that's that's how i yeah Perhaps that's why I still retain my enthusiasm for beer because I have an outlet to yeah think about something else. And beer and football go so well together. They do go. Hopefully sometimes they go a bit too well together. so But yeah, i that's my other... Well, we'll have to get you back on for a completely football dedicated podcast with with James. you guys can I'll just leave you with one what one story that Wolverhampton owners, my team, the the other the other well-known supporter, what am I saying?
01:06:46
Speaker
you want them to the but Robert Plant is a big Wolves fan. I interviewed him years ago for the Wolves program. This was back in the late 1980s.
01:06:58
Speaker
And his son was with him, ah Logan. And years later Logan of course started the Beaver Town Brewery in London. So when I first met him he was you know young lad.
01:07:12
Speaker
oh And then he of course went on to found Beaver Town. And there is good example of a guy who really had no intention to sort of build it up so he could sell it.
01:07:23
Speaker
But he did. Heineken of course acquired. um and you know a Full of respect for for Logan, he did all the right things um and made great beer.
01:07:36
Speaker
yeah It might have been now watching you talk with his dad that that inspired him. as well I wouldn't have thought so, but I do remember walking into Molyneux, the Wolves Ground, with Robert Plant.
01:07:48
Speaker
to do the interview and and the woman said hello Charlie how are you and she turned to Robert Plant and said you need a haircut. ah Fantastic we'll leave you that it we leave it there thanks so much Charlie. All right thanks a lot. Cheers.
01:08:05
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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01:08:59
Speaker
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01:09:19
Speaker
The Crafty Pint podcast is produced and edited by Matt Hoffman. You can get all your beer related news and reviews on the Crafty Pint website, craftypint.com and can stay up to date on future podcast episodes via our socials.
01:09:33
Speaker
We wouldn't be able to produce the podcast or the website, events or festivals we run without the support of the beer industry, whether that's suppliers, bars, breweries or bottle shops. If you'd like to support the show or partner with The Crafty Pine in other ways, please reach out to Craig via the details in the show notes.
01:09:48
Speaker
And if you're a beer lover who'd like to support what we do, you can join our exclusive club for beer lovers, The Crafty Cabal. Visit craftycabal.com for more. And until next time, drink good beer.