Brew Masters on Discovery w/ Sam Calagione

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A factual statement is that he has a business that does well. If you want to argue against that, I guess you didn't see the episode where he was expanding his operation, again. Again, as in going from a homebrewer to a brewpub, to a small brewery, to an expanded brewery, and another expansion. Another fact is that if you don't like the beer, don't drink it. And if you don't like the show, don't watch it. I like a couple of their beers. I've only had about 6 of them, and like 5. I'm no beer snob, or a connoisseur, but I don't think that's anyone here's profession either. It would be interesting to taste some peoples beers from this forum, so we could see what "real beer" tastes like, instead of "sugar water".
 
Whoa....had to dump 18K gallons of 120 min.....bad news (although, having had a bottle a while back, the beer is lost on me, 90 min. is about my limit). Says something about their integrity that they wouldn't settle for "good," they wanted "great."
 
rico567 said:
Whoa....had to dump 18K gallons of 120 min.....bad news (although, having had a bottle a while back, the beer is lost on me, 90 min. is about my limit). Says something about their integrity that they wouldn't settle for "good," they wanted "great."
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They should have just bottled it; labeled it as something new, and sold it for twice as much ;)
 
Why dump it? Couldn't they give it to employees who just want free beer? It is a "profit sharing" company. Or some other option? Dumping it seems like a serious waste.

I also doubt they dumped ALL of it. I'll bet they used it somehow.
 
So the 120 IPA crashed in fermentation after 4 days with FG at 9 plato. The temp went up at the same time but only 4° they then brought the temperature down. They recorded readings for another 600 hours or so and the gravity didn't budge. I'm thinking plato would have to get to at least 2.

As far as that Hanna meter they couldn't show us it looked like it was checking SG only because I think the number was 1.132 at first I thought it was a PH meter.

Oh well another good episode.
 
Absolutely the best episode to date. Found it to be more focused on brewing and not as gimmicky which is actually what I expected out of Sam. He has always focused on making Dogfish Head about the beer and the people, keep up the good work.
 
passedpawn said:
Watching the time-shifted episode now. Our local Cigar City Brewing is huge into cedar-augmented beers. They have a Humidor series that is their signature beers.
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Spanish Cedar is a type of Mahogany, not cedar.
 
PolishLogic said:
I thought the show was pretty entertaining (although the rap gave me the ******-chills, but I'd guess that was part of the intent). I wasn't expecting it to be a super-technical, scientific how-to-brew program, much like I don't expect Deadliest Catch to be a show that breaks down the intricacies of the commercial crab industry. It's definitely earned a season pass on my DVR.

As an aside, I'm another who's hoping to see a glimpse into some of their strategy sessions. It would definitely be an added bonus.


As for the dislike that guys like Jim Koch or Sam (or any craft brewer) seem to garner once they realize success, I look at it in terms how bands are treated. They have those fans that were all about how great band "X" was when they played open-mic shows at some dive bar. They were even excited when they signed with some record label that operated out of a guy's garage. However, once they signed on to open for some huge world tour, or were wooed by Geffen, those same "diehards" turned on them and dubbed them commercial sellouts because the band actually began to realize some modicum of success for their hard work.
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I would agree after watching 2 episodes I had recorded on my DVR...it seems that some on here love to hate success and large amounts of money, this means EVIL and GREED. It was his goal and he made it happen, good for him if he gets filthy rich off of it as well.

The guy does what he loves and started from scratch. I think that should be admirable whether you like their products or not. It sounds like people are haters but if you don't like the beers don't drink them. I enjoy that it is spreading the "gospel" of craft beer and what goes into it, and that there is just so much more than BMC.

I just love the fact that two people at my job know I brewed and asked 1 or 2 questions about it, and now since they caught the show they want to know wayyyy more about what I do at home. That to me is the true success of a show like this, of course most of us that have been doing this for any amount of time are going to learn anything on the show, but it is still badass.
 
agroff383 said:
I just love the fact that two people at my job know I brewed and asked 1 or 2 questions about it, and now since they caught the show they want to know wayyyy more about what I do at home. That to me is the true success of a show like this, of course most of us that have been doing this for any amount of time are going to learn anything on the show, but it is still badass.
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True. I've had many of my non-brewing friends call and ask if I've seen the show and what I think; as well as asking questions about certain aspects of production and such...
 
Well nobody can argue with that episode having some REAL drama! Love this show!
 
This episode was okay. It seemed to be a bit out of chronological order as the tree house was in other episodes before they mentioned it tonight. Maybe they should have led off with this episode to give more of a background on the whole brewing process. As far as the 120 minute, my first instinct was blend it with future batches. Atleast that way they don't just flush all that money down the drain. Hell, it might have been worth it to get more fermenters just to keep that around and blend it off down the road. Brewerys blend beers all the time, and I'd imagine that it wouldn't be too noticable if done at a decent rate.
 
Why not blend it with something else and call it a different beer. A "Brewmaster's Limited Edition" if you may. Though I understand why the can't just do that. Ah, its great to be a homebrewer!
 
sportscrazed2 said:
do commercial brewers not sparge? or do they just suck the wort trough the false bottom?
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They sparge. Imagine how much money they would lose on a 55+ barrel batch if they didn't. In commercial breweries I'd imagine that they want to get the best efficiency possible. At least if it was me I would.
 
schweaty said:
As far as the 120 minute, my first instinct was blend it with future batches. Atleast that way they don't just flush all that money down the drain. Hell, it might have been worth it to get more fermenters just to keep that around and blend it off down the road. Brewerys blend beers all the time, and I'd imagine that it wouldn't be too noticable if done at a decent rate.
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The problem is that with a brewery of that size (yes, it's still relatively small); they don't/didn't have the capacity to "hold" that batch....

Their pipeline is on a schedule and it's not like you can say: "Hey, let's hold this 20,000 gallons for later."
 
I was actually wondering about mash temperature when they said that there was no more fermentables and the cause wasn't the yeast. Even though later in the episode the bald guy (CFO?) blamed the yeast.
 
AZ_IPA said:
The problem is that with a brewery of that size (yes, it's still relatively small); they don't/didn't have the capacity to "hold" that batch....

Their pipeline is on a schedule and it's not like you can say: "Hey, let's hold this 20,000 gallons for later."
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True, but think about how much money was lost. You could easily justify bringing in some smaller fermenters or at the least kegging it and saving for down the road. I get the whole pipeline concept, but there had to have been another way rather than flushing it. Hell, even if it meant renting a food grade stainless truck tanker and storing it until they could blend it. I'm sure there had to be other options.
 
AZ_IPA said:
The problem is that with a brewery of that size (yes, it's still relatively small); they don't/didn't have the capacity to "hold" that batch....

Their pipeline is on a schedule and it's not like you can say: "Hey, let's hold this 20,000 gallons for later."
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Indeed, that's a luxury afforded mostly to homebrewers.

TB
 
sportscrazed2 said:
yeah i just didn't see how they sparged in their test batch setup
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Batch sparge perhaps? I was wondering how they kept the temperature consistent in the mash. You could see they were very concerned about the water blend going into the mash tun. There had to be a way for them to sparge/control temperature. I'm sure they're not going to show all their secrets on the show.
 
schweaty said:
True, but think about how much money was lost. You could easily justify bringing in some smaller fermenters or at the least kegging it and saving for down the road. I get the whole pipeline concept, but there had to have been another way rather than flushing it. Hell, even if it meant renting a food grade stainless truck tanker and storing it until they could blend it. I'm sure there had to be other options.
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Tiber_Brew said:
Indeed, that's a luxury afforded mostly to homebrewers.

TB
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Maybe - I mean, it's easy for us to say "hey - go get another better bottle" - but when you are working on a strict production timeline; my guess is that it was cheaper overall to dump that batch.....for a brewery it's bottom line. I seriously believe it was cheaper for them to dump that batch and keep the rest of their production line going....
 
AZ_IPA said:
Maybe - I mean, it's easy for us to say "hey - go get another better bottle" - but when you are working on a strict production timeline; my guess is that it was cheaper overall to dump that batch.....for a brewery it's bottom line. I seriously believe it was cheaper for them to dump that batch and keep the rest of their production line going....
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Yeah but @ $10.00 a bottle I think Sam said it was something like $500,000 lost? I guess that's the risk you run when brewing a lot of high gravity ales such as the 120. Still, from a business standpoint, there had to be a way to save their most expensive beer from being a complete wash.
 
schweaty said:
Yeah but @ $10.00 a bottle I think Sam said it was something like $500,000 lost? I guess that's the risk you run when brewing a lot of high gravity ales such as the 120. Still, from a business standpoint, there had to be a way to save their most expensive beer from being a complete wash.
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Unless the result of that beer was even ****tier than they portrayed on TV ;)

And I'm sure they're making that 500K back on their contract with Discovery....

Come on - Sam knows what he's doing :D
 
AZ_IPA said:
Unless the result of that beer was even ****tier than they portrayed on TV ;)

And I'm sure they're making that 500K back on their contract with Discovery....

Come on - Sam knows what he's doing :D
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I thought about that, and then my DIPA started doing the thinking for me. What if this whole dumping of the 120 was just staged drama like on other reality shows? I mean how perfect, right? Their most expensive beer dumped down the drain *GASP*! I mean did you see how cloudy it was when they were dumping it? I know, that could have been the yeast but it seem time elapsed to me and it was VERY cloudy the entire time. The 120 they had at the tasting panel was crystal clear. Furthermore, how can you judge a 120 at such an early stage to all the other 120's they have done. And even furthermore, why the hell would you change your tried and true recipe every year and risk the chance of not making something greater? Goddamn I LOVE DIPA! Excuse me while I get a refill :)
 

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