375: Murphy Johnson of BlackStack Gets Goosebumps When Talking About Hops

When he and his two brothers founded Jack’s Abby Brewing in Framingham, Massachusetts in 2011, Jack Hendler thought their craft brewery making only lagers might grow to brew 3000 bbl of beer per year in the first decade. Fast forward to 2018, where they’ll finish the year around the 50,000 bbl mark, and lagers are a bona fide trend with Jack’s Abby as one of the leaders of the charge. In this episode, Jack discusses the ins and outs of their lager brewing techniques, from yeast management to spunding, recipe design, ingredient selection, designing lager recipes for barrel-aging, and more. “I think recipe formulation is a bit overrated,” says Hendler. “There’s only four ingredients, and unless you’re trying to brew a Helles with roasted barley, you’re probably going to be close, plus or minus 3% of one malt versus another malt or one hop versus another hop. You can make great beer as long as you’re in the ballpark on the recipe. It really comes down to process, and for us, our process is what makes us unique. I don’t care about telling people what we put in our beer—what our recipe is—because I know there’s not a lot of people who are going to try to replicate what we do, because what we do is really hard.”

30 Nov 20181h 3min

There's a lot to like about brewing in Portland, Oregon but for Justin Miller the Head Brewer of Hopworks Urban Brewery having access to terrific hop growers just a short drive away tops the list. On this episode he discusses the important relationship between farm and brewery, why all brewers and drinkers need to be more focused on environmental concerns, and why the Cascadian dark ale is a style with substance.

17 Nov 201839min

Jeremy Wirtes, cofounder and head brewer for Triple Crossing Beer in Richmond, Virginia, may never be completely happy with the beer he makes. “We can always be better, and it’s a constant pursuit of that,” he says. But for this two-location brewery in the burgeoning craft beer city of Richmond, things are going right thanks to a philosophy of constant improvement and experimentation, and smart strategies for using their small scale as an asset rather than a hinderance. In this conversation, Wirtes talks about the steps they took to arrive at their current ester- and haze-forward IPA approach, hops blending techniques such as blending lots of the same variety from multiple vendors and farms to achieve more depth in single-hop beers, and how they grew comfortable leaving hazy double IPAs with high finishing gravities. “In my head, I couldn’t stand it. It drove me nuts. But then I would taste them, and they’re great. They sound sweet on paper, but then you have them, and they just don’t feel that way. They feel plush, they feel full. They feel delicate. No matter what the final gravity and the hydrometer was saying, our palates and minds are saying ‘this is what we want them to be.’”

9 Nov 201859min

Dave Engbers, the cofounder at Founders Brewing Company has learned a lot about brewing from both the beers he likes to drink, and how it's evolved to the way to keep the lights on. In this podcast he talks about walking back from the brink of bankruptcy to the runaway success of All Day IPA and how at heart, even with foreign investment, the brewery remains craft at heart. Is Founders the last of the one million barrel breweries in the U.S. maybe. And Dave explains why.

2 Nov 201855min

From his pioneering masters thesis on fermenting with Brettanomyces to his current role running a 10,000 BBL per year brewery and artisan-focused craft distributorship in Denver, Colorado, Chad Yakobson has made his mark on the world of brewing. In this conversation with Jamie Bogner, he discusses his early days of Brett research, myths about mixed culture fermentations, the brewhouse feedback loop with sensory and lab components that work in sync, the importance of water chemistry on beer color, optimizing brewhouse processes to improve the longevity and shelf stability of beer, shaping acidity with hops in mixed culture beers, and more. “Craft beer for so long has been a muscle flexing contest,” says Yakobson. “Sour beer is not meant to be aggressive. This is not the sour arms race. Nobody wants the most sour beer—that’s gross. We want to make the most complex beer.”

26 Okt 20181h 15min

There's a lot of beer that comes through the Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine office each year, and even more tasted at festivals, breweries, and with friends. Our staff, columnists, reviewers, and readers all got together and selected our picks for the top beers of 2018. In this special edition of the podcast be among the first to hear the breweries who made the list and why, and get a peek behind the curtain on how beers are selected. Read the full story at https://beerandbrewing.com/the-best-18-beers-of-2018/ This episode is brought to you by Big Beers, Belgians, & Barleywines (https://bigbeersfestival.com).

19 Okt 20181h 33min

What fruits work best when it comes to brewing a Florida-weisse? J. Wakefield has the answer in this week's podcast. The celebrated homebrewer turned pro also talks about his love of stouts, the art of collaboration and the connection between geek and beer culture.

12 Okt 201841min

Northern Virginia’s Aslin Brewing are brash and outspoken with a no-holds-barred approach that’s reflected in their progressive take on brewing. They’ve been tinkerers and experimenters from their earliest days brewing on a 2 bbl system, and this year they’re on track to brew over 5,000 barrels of beer on a small 8.5 bbl system, almost all of which is canned and sold from their dock because the brewery doesn’t currently have a taproom. In this conversation with Jamie Bogner, cofounders Kai Leszkowicz and Andrew Kelley discuss everything from their collaborative approach to competition (“As much as it’s sad, we look at Untappd every day”), to their processes using hops, adding adjuncts, rousing tanks, and even their pricing strategy with margins that support employees, allow them to grow with little debt, and prepare for a shakeout in the brewing industry, if it ever comes. “We say that we’re competitive, and it sounds intimidating, but at the same time it doesn’t mean that we’re not going to be friends. That we can’t work together. That we don’t have something to learn from you, or you from us. We’ve never said ‘no’ to anybody. We’re still good people and nice. We’re just ‘if this is the field of play, we’re in a game right now, we’re going to win.’ We would like to win. We’re out here to do our best and be the best at what we do. We’ve definitely not achieved that yet, and there are tons of critics that are willing to tell us [so], which is great, because we’re using that as jet fuel to continue our search.”

5 Okt 20181h 7min