If you could ask a brew masters a question....

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SaltyTX

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Ok-

So, turns out a friend of the family has a 3 generation history of brewing beer under their belt- I'm not talking home brew, I am talking serious responsibility, one working at AB as a brew master. The grandfather invented light beer...etc. Kind of a big deal.

I hope to be able to get a few brew sessions with the guy in the near future and take my brewing to new heights.

So, if you could ask him one question, what would you ask?
 
I would wish for more wishes.

More seriously, I would ask him his best methods for concealing high alcohol.
 
I'd ask what his favorite beer was. Then I'd ask, Bud Light? Seriously, what is your favorite beer? I won't tell anyone.

Then I'd come on here and tell everyone.
 
I'd ask if prob brewers get lots of chicks. If I had a second question, I'd ask him if he knew any that would hook up with me.


Seriously, I'd ask about their family and how's it going. Brewers probably get tired of answering the same old questions from homebrewers.
 
In all seriousness, I would ask him if he enjoys his work and if he brews at home. I would love to start a microbrew, but (having beer that people would buy and financial risks aside), I fear that making it a career would take all the fun out of it and I would end up never wanting to brew at home anymore.
 
Are you really the head of the Kwik-E-Mart?
Really?

REALLY?

...thank you. come again.
 
Greg Koch never ever worked for AB haha. Their head brew master did for over a decade though.
 
I would ask what does it take for a brewmaster to get fired from AB?
 
I'd ask him what his favourite type of rice is to brew with.

Ha!

I'm with that other guy about dumping a batch. Itt would make that one batch I dumped seem insignificant.
 
I think its safe to say you guys arent going to agree about anything. So ill just say that were all homebrewers here. Were not professionals, no matter how bad some of us want to be. Not every homebrewer will become a pro but probably every,or most, pro started out homebrewing. For some of us its a hobby that we take great pride in. Youre both obviously in that category.

Whether you drink BMC or not, or whether you agree with their business plan or not, i'd say that AB or Coors or Miller would hire brewers that know their trade. Its assinine to think that the brewers of beer that dominate the market (and dominate by a very large margin)dont know what theyre doing. Im sure there are homebrewers that were (Bob), will, or are(JZ) work in a brewery. If any of us are worthy of being a pro, hopefully we will be. But until were putting our beers up against the pros, we should not be comparing our beers to the commercial brews on the shelves.

I appreciate the attempt at mediation, and apologize if I offended anyone. I'd like to especially apologize to Bob, didn't mean to piss you off, we don't agree on the subject and that's fine with me. I do understand what you are trying to say, I just don't agree with everything you're saying. I hope you understand my position, even if you don't agree.

In response to mikey

I don't think the thread or the thread-jack had much to with anyone wanting to be a pro-brewer. I know I don't want to be a pro-brewer, and I personally ain't all that interested in competing or having my beer judged next to anyone's commercial or homebrew. Just don't see what's so wrong about thinking my beer or someone else's brew is better or more enjoyable just because it's homebrewed.
 
I'd ask where in Colorado does he live?

(p.s. there are 25 deleted posts, so i don't know what was said.
the only thing i can add, is that I *may* not drink Bud much [etc.], but to be able to make the same damn thing every day, in different states, with different water, and hops shortages, phucque! will you pay me 50k to help? those guys know their schitte, and I'd love to have a 3 day weekend at their r and d headquarters! if i COULD, i'd even pay for it, but i can't))
 
I'll try to re-post what I had said earlier about questions for a masterbrewer.

For a larger scale brewer, such as an AB brewer, I'd ask him what equipment he would choose if he did smaller scale brewing, and by smaller I mean less then what is done at AB. If there are any sort of techniques or equipments he wants to use, but can't because of the scale of brewing done by AB. Along the same lines I'd ask about how they go about scaling up any sort if techniques or equipment for such a large mass production. I'd probably also ask about the refrigeration, since the systems they use must be awesome.

For a smaller scale brewer (regional, craft, micro), I'd ask them about the balance of brewing traditional beers vs. beers that are more trendy. I think that would open up conversations about market trends, their current set-up, their customer's tastes, their own tastes, profits, etc.
 
I don't think that my post was completely off topic. I did tell him what I would ask. I would ask about how to achieve such low FG's as Bud Light achieves. At least I think that's what I said, that and a bunch of other stuff that was off topic and was deleted.
 
ongreystreet said:
I appreciate the attempt at mediation, and apologize if I offended anyone. I'd like to especially apologize to Bob, didn't mean to piss you off, we don't agree on the subject and that's fine with me. I do understand what you are trying to say, I just don't agree with everything you're saying. I hope you understand my position, even if you don't agree.

In response to mikey

I don't think the thread or the thread-jack had much to with anyone wanting to be a pro-brewer. I know I don't want to be a pro-brewer, and I personally ain't all that interested in competing or having my beer judged next to anyone's commercial or homebrew. Just don't see what's so wrong about thinking my beer or someone else's brew is better or more enjoyable just because it's homebrewed.

I was just trying to say that were all in thw same boat. We all brew beer in our driveways or garages or basements. Were not pros and none of our beers should be compared to the ones on the shelves. Theres probably good reason their beers are being sold. Thats not to say some homebrewers beers COULDNT be sold, but theyre not, for whatever reason. We also all know BMC is easy drinking beer that is consumed by far more people than craft beer. It may not sit well with us but its a fact of life. Just ask Tootie and Jo.
 
Well, this certainly didn't garner the responses I was expecting.

Surprising how nobody mentioned the topic of clear beer (Which is attainable, but most just write it off as 'home brew') or really anything other than blasting someone who has more knowledge of beer than most on here (family tradition speaks of a lot of knowledge) because the worked for a brewing giant.

Oh well. I'll have a brew session with him eventually and I'm sure I'll learn tons. Perhaps I'll be better able to answer questions on the board in the future.

Thanks to BM for cleaning up the largess of the nonsense.
 
I agree, clear beer would be a good thing to ask about. I would also probably ask what he thought were the three most important keys to making great beer. Or perhaps what he thought was the key to repeatability in brewing. As you say, there's a wealth of knowledge there.

Brian
 
Not that it matters (we all get to pick our own questions for our own reasons) but I wouldn't ask about clarity because they filter and do so on such a large scale that I'm not sure how applicable it would be. And since I have no intention of filtering my beer that wouldn't really interest me. IME you can get perfectly crystal clear beer without filtering (but it does take longer).

I would like to get some of the hop extract they use though. Can you hook me up brew master?
 
I would ask how they adjust batch to batch for exact same taste.

I mean homebrewing you can brew a batch w/ exactly the same ingredients and same procedure and come up w/ slighty different colored or flavored beer. In my opinion the biggest claim to fame for the big brewers is the ability to replicate batch after batch the same exact product. The hops they use differ in AA%, yeast could be slightly higher in attenuation....etc.
 
Not that it matters (we all get to pick our own questions for our own reasons) but I wouldn't ask about clarity because they filter and do so on such a large scale that I'm not sure how applicable it would be. And since I have no intention of filtering my beer that wouldn't really interest me. IME you can get perfectly crystal clear beer without filtering (but it does take longer).

I would like to get some of the hop extract they use though. Can you hook me up brew master?

Well there is a difference between asking a general question and asking one that would relate to homebrewing.

Maybe the difference is what would you ask them on the spot, or during the course of conversation, or something you have a specific interest in. I am sure they can explain the techniques they use to achieve clarity(or as much as they are allowed to), but you could look some of that up in a book, or online, or ask the question here and probably get a variety answers from many experienced brewers.

Not that there is anything wrong with asking a question that the answer is readily available. But I wouldn't compile a list of questions such as "how does a larger boil increase hop utilization", you can find that out today, but it wouldn't be a bad question to ask on the spot while brewing.

I'd want to ask questions beyond what resources are readily available. Again, I would be more interested in the industrial process then the actual brewing. Whenever I spoken with commercial brewers they usually know about a lot more then just brewing, marketing, distribution, legal, financial, etc.

I might ask about "green" building, hate that word. Have they had to convert any systems to be more environmental friendly or energy efficient. Have these changes been forced, or did AB make these changes voluntarily for some reason (they care about the environment, they care about energy costs, or maintenance or replacement was req'd anyway). Do they use heat reclaim and how. Such as, do they use the heat rejected from their cooling systems for water heating or space heating.
 
Good point about the 'green' stuff, that is something I would find very interesting. I toured New Belgium Brewery and some of the stuff they do there is pretty cool. At the scale AB is I'm sure they do lots of things to conserve energy. It would just save too much money not to.

But I was the one that wanted to know what their biggest dumper was.:drunk: I'd ask trivial stuff and not really anything that I would expect to help me homebrew any better. Not that I don't need a lot of improvement, I do, I just wouldn't expect to get that here.
 
Good point about the 'green' stuff, that is something I would find very interesting. I toured New Belgium Brewery and some of the stuff they do there is pretty cool. At the scale AB is I'm sure they do lots of things to conserve energy. It would just save too much money not to.

But I was the one that wanted to know what their biggest dumper was.:drunk: I'd ask trivial stuff and not really anything that I would expect to help me homebrew any better. Not that I don't need a lot of improvement, I do, I just wouldn't expect to get that here.

How about put those two together, how would you go about dumping a large amount of beer? I am assuming you can't just pour hundreds, or thousands of gallons of brew into the sanitary sewer. I wonder if they have to treat it or dilute it. I wonder the same thing for every day loses. I am sure a big brewery such as AB keeps loses at ridiculously low amount, not so much because of the money, but because of their efficiency. But when you brew that much beer, you gotta be sending quite a bit down the drain.
 
I would like to get some of the hop extract they use though.

From what I have read they use whole hops (at least with Bud for sure). I know Miller Lite uses extract though.

I would ask how they adjust batch to batch for exact same taste.

Blending and taste testers. Saw it on a documentary. They also brew it to a high gravity and then dilute with water, fyi.

I would also add that he probably isn't at liberty to discuss a lot of the details about how they brew their beer. The big boys keep things pretty close to their vest.
 
I agree, clear beer would be a good thing to ask about. I would also probably ask what he thought were the three most important keys to making great beer. Or perhaps what he thought was the key to repeatability in brewing. As you say, there's a wealth of knowledge there.

Brian

Now...you guys talk as if homebrewing and clear beers are mutually exclusive. :D

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