Thoughts on homebrewing vs commercial brewing

As is discussed from time to time here, you can't help but be impressed with the quality control standards of commercial breweries, regardless of what you think of their products. As homebrewers we know how much the same beer can vary from batch to batch (to say nothing of how much fun we have tweaking it a little differently each time) due to a whole host of variables that may be very difficult for us to control. This goes double for standard American Macro lagers, which have so little color and flavor that even the slightest deviation would be noticable.

Which leads me to this thought...

Homebrewers all probably fantacize at least a little about going pro, but I bet it's not nearly so much fun as we imagine it might be. How stimulating do you think it is for the New Belgium guys to brew their 100 Bajilionth batch of Fat Tire according to the same recipe? Good thing there are always test batches to work on.

It's no wonder seasonals have become so common, even with some macrobrewers: there's room to try new things and room to tweak the recipe in a little different way than last year's version.

when the GRABASS club (no offense, Kaiser) toured the Carolina Brewing Company, I asked the guy if he still homebrewed, and he answered with an emphatic, "No. We just brew here now."

I asked about test batches, thinking maybe they use homebrew-scale equipment for experiments, but.... again... "No. Out experimental batches are full batches." (I don't recall how big their fermenters were exactly, but that's irrelevant.)

That's a LOT of beer for an experiment, especially if it turns out badly.

-walker

Ya, you'd think that commercial brewers would have a six gallon carboy sitting in their nice office with some new recipe they are trying to tweak. On another note, I bet Jim Koch still kicks it old school with homebrewing, the man is too cool not to.

I couldn't agree with you more, Walker,on your thoughts about Hydrometers.

Yeah i think it would suck to brew professionaly. When i was at Anchor brewery i asked if theyll ever make a new beer, and they emphaticaly said 'NO'. (Although they do make whiskey now). How boring would that be? Make the same 6 or 7 beers, day in, day out, for years and years and years....Unless your 'Stone' or DFH, or a hand full of others that experiment, i dont think id like it.

I just toured the Highland brewery on Monday, and they had a homebrew setup right in their mashing room. The guy (Kevin) who showed us around said that they encourage all of their employees to brew a batch anytime they like, because it gives them a sense of how crucial it is to do every step of the process the right way in order to make good beer.

If you find yourself near Asheville, NC, I highly recommend paying them a visit.

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My advice is that if you ever are foolish enough to go pro do so in a pub where you can make variety. I made the same @#*& brew for three years before adding a second style. And the last thing I wanted to do was homebrew. Actually, that is when I REALLY GOT INTO DRINKING WINE AND DISTLLING!

Quality control isn't that hard and batches do vary, but if you watch it they are real close. Of course there are all those factors you 5have no control of once the beer leave your brewery! Distributors, retailers, customers...

Homebrewing is the way to go, if your friends don't like your beer let them go buy something they do like!

roblogic said:

I just toured the Highland brewery on Monday, and they had a homebrew setup right in their mashing room. The guy (Kevin) who showed us around said that they encourage all of their employees to brew a batch anytime they like, because it gives them a sense of how crucial it is to do every step of the process the right way in order to make good beer.

If you find yourself near Asheville, NC, I highly recommend paying them a visit.

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Welcome! I love Highland, and most of the other WNC breweries. I can't believe how many micros there are per capita in the western part of the state compared to the rest.

I find it really hard to believe that any microbrewer in business wouldn't have a pilot brewery, but my knowledge of the industry is pretty slim.

Baron von BeeGee said:

I can't believe how many micros there are per capita in the western part of the state compared to the rest.

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I can't believe how many raleigh area people are here on HBT.com!

Welcome, rob!

-walker

Imperial Walker said:

I can't believe how many raleigh area people are here on HBT.com!

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Cheers, Rob! I'm chronically unobservant.

Thanks guys!

I amazed by how many homebrewers there are in the area. Every time I tell someone I've started brewing, they rattle off a list of other people in town they know who do.

I still get most of my yeast from my local brewery. The owner/bremeister even delivers it to my basement on brew day. He'll even will hang out for some samples, and provide honest criticism on my beers.

The Widmer Brothers have ... 40 barrel pilot system! One of the things they do with it is brew the Collaborator beers, which are selected from local homebrews. You get to brew the batch with their brewmaster and you get a cool leather jacket.

Some of the local brewers are active in homebrewing clubs, but most aren't. It gets to be a job real fast.

When I went to an AG class that was monitored by a local brew company's (Nimbus) head brewer he basically said that in the production brewing world it really is more of a factory job than anything. I could see that... I had a factory job once and didn't like it! A brewpub like the pastor said probably is the best of both worlds. And could hire waitresses like Rhoobarb's avatar

I certainly won't disagree with the brewing becoming a job side of the discussion, but the point of a pilot brewery isn't for a homebrewing hobby or screwing around! It's basically a prototyping tool. I've worked in engineering for a long time, and while we're better at designing things on paper than we were 10-15 years ago, we still have to do pilot runs of engineering prototypes, and even pre-production runs. I'm amazed that a small brewery can work up a new recipe without running through a small (relatively speaking) batch to make sure it's going to be what they want. If it's not, what do they do with 7.5 barrels, 15 barrels, or 40 barrels of beer that missed the mark?

I also understand that a recipe on a 5-40g system isn't going to come out the same in a large commercial system, but man, you've got to start somewhere!

Baron von BeeGee said:

Cheers, Rob! I'm chronically unobservant.

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I second that. Welcome.

I agree with what has been said here. The bigger the brewery, the less of brewing and the more of process management needs to be done. And the bigger you are as a brewery, the more you have to keep an eye on consistency I believe, because you need to satisfy a large customer base with the taste that they expect.

Brewpub seems to be the way to go. This seems like paid home brewing. That's the only brewing job I'd like to take on. I also like cooking meat. But I don't have the guts to open a business


Kai

Kaiser said:

Brewpub seems to be the way to go. This seems like paid home brewing. That's the only brewing job I'd like to take on. I also like cooking meat. But I don't have the guts to open a business
Kai

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I'm with you on this one. I just started homebrewing very recently (my first batch was just transfered to my secondary yesterday!!) and I already have dreams of beer brats, beer-battered fish and chips, and taps aplenty.

How cool would that be?

Customers in the commercial world all expect consistency. A suppier HAS TO make a consistant product. Homebrewers not so. Before homebrewing I studied Papazians book. It seemed that no matter what mistakes, it's still good beer. The concept of 'relax, who cares if this batch comes out different' agrees with my personality. YOU can get anal about brewing, I'll never enter a competition. Though I have learned to tighten up my mashing techniques... now I'll make heavy bodied beer on purpose.

I worked a production job once- machinist. I lasted four days. When I didn't show up on Friday nobody was surprised, since I looked sick on Thursday. Good thing for me that Thursday evening, the phone rang with a job offer to make onesies and twosies.

You would be amazed at how closeyou can get in a first run. If you know your process and your ratios you can almost taste the end product in your mind. This may sound a little crazy but this is my limited experience with my craft. I make sausage. I'll spend a bit of time in the conceptual stage, take notes and writew a procedure. And of course, I'm weighing and taking notes as i make a 50# batch, it's been years since I've had to discard any. I've spoken to my local brewmaster about this, it's an art. This is a great site!

Most of the brewing research that is and has been done is to get consistent results with varying parameters of the ingredients (e.g. malt, hops, water). Because that's what the big breweries need. If they get a new lot/harvest of malt or hops, they don't want to make test batches. They want to run some numbers and adjust their process.

As a home brewer my target is consistency to. When mashing, I want to be able to hit the expected OG and FG. I also want to hit the anticipated taste. If I do, I'm happy. If I'm not I check my notes and see what I may have done different. But I'm still happy since I still made good beer.

Kai