319: Upslope’s Alex Meyer Thrives in the High Pressure World of Craft Lager Brewing

Boulder’s Upslope has been brewing Craft Lager since long before lager brewing was “cool,” and today the small brewery has built a production methodology for the longtime core offering that optimizes both quality and production efficiency. In this episode, head brewer Alex Meyer discusses the way the brewery makes their signature lager with a litany of unconventional ingredients and processes, and shares how they employ similar iconoclastic approaches with their Japanese-style rice lager, and 4-year-barrel-aged Grand Reserve. Along the way, Meyer discusses:

• brewing lager with standard two row malt and white wheat
• lager fermentation under pressure
• managing sulfur production in pressure fermentation
• cropping and repitching yeast
• using exogenous enzymes to facilitate rice lager fermentation with 55% flaked rice
• American lager hop varieties like Sterling and Contessa
• feeding healthy high gravity fermentations
• managing long-term oxidation in extended barrel aging

And more.

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