85: Russian River Brewing’s Vinnie Cilurzo: Sweating the Small Stuff When Brewing Hoppy Beers

Vinnie Cilurzo is a brewer who needs no introduction. The cofounder of Russian River Brewing Company has been pushing the limits of hoppy beers for the better part of three decades, developing innovative techniques along the way while defining styles like “Double IPA” with ubiquitous beers like Pliny the Elder. In this conversation, he discusses the early days of C-hops, the origins and design approach to Blind Pig IPA and Pliny the Elder DIPA, adjusting recipes for iconic brands as tastes shift and ingredients vary, tracking polyphenol levels batch by batch, accurately measuring total packaged oxygen, the impact of brewhouse equipment on beer recipes, how they’reeliminating whirlpool hopping in favor of hopping with a hop back, the impact of hops creep while dry hopping, getting faster extraction by mixing tanks while dry hopping, the variance in hops picking windows and the effect of picking time on hops flavors, and more.

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