[ad_1]
DrinkDrinkery celebrates beer, alcoholic beverages, coffee and other potable potables to go. Welcome to Ask Kate About Beer, in which Take awayThe resident beer expert answers everything you've always wanted to know about beer but you were too drunk to ask for it. Have a question? Shoot at [email protected]
Many people asked me which breweries organized the best brewery tours. Without wishing to escape the question – there are over 7,346 breweries operating in the United States, obviously, I have not visited them all – but I would have referred it to the plaintiff instead. What can you to make the most of a brewery tour?
Certainly, some visits are better than others. The good ones are really fun, not just a long mosey through a stainless steel bookcase. Part of the success of a brewery tour, however, is in the hands of the people involved. If you visit to show how much you know about decoction reduction, alpha-acid levels of various strains of hops and biotransformation, you will not learn anything else and all the others will have eyes hurt when rolling .
Instead, approach brewery tours as learning experiences and not as an opportunity to be flexible. Keep an open mind, ask the right questions, do not lose yourself and your road is 95%. Here are suggestions for questions from myself and from the brewery staff to get you started.
"What does quality mean to you?"
A representative from the brewery will try to summarize what his brewery is at the beginning of the tour. You will probably hear words like innovation, quality, flavor, creativity, etc. These are largely the same buzzwords as those you hear from another quite different brewery. To find out more about what this brewery really is, Moh Saade, head of the breweries at The Tank Brewing in Miami, asks what quality beer means to those who go around. The brewery's response – whether it's delicious lagers or borderline jumping experiences, or new frontiers in barrel aging – will really explain the brewery's philosophy and priorities.
Anything that starts with "It's probably a silly question, but …"
Some of my favorite questions asked in this Ask Kate About Beer section are those that seem basic – like what sets a beer apart from a lager? Or what form of beer glbad is the best? The basic questions are often not so basic.
So I totally agree with Shana Solarte, who runs the Chicago Dovetail Brewery tours: "The best questions are often the most basic questions about beer knowledge. Anything that starts with "it's probably a silly question, but …" is never silly and the question is never above anyone's head … We do a malt tasting and hop rub / smell and someone will ask something like "Why would we have tasted malt but not hops?
"How is your typical day?"
Believe it or not, brewers do not spend their day sniffing hops or watching their beer against the light. If you want to know what it's like to work in a brewery, ask a brewer or other brewery employee Actually to do all day. You might be surprised to hear the jack-of-all trades that most small brewers play. They can help on the brewery's canning line, make sales calls or hold educational events in restaurants and bars.
"If there was one question that I would like people to ask more, it's the one that will dispel the romance of brewing," said Joe Ploof, founder / brewer at Hanging Hills Brewery in New York. Hartford, Connecticut. "I do not think people really understand how difficult and boring it is to make beer, because the only landmark of a lot of people is an advertisement by Sam Adams … It's not just a Group of bearded men in uniform standing around a pint of fermentor drinking for the beer to be brewed and wrapped itself. "
Be warned: If you ask this question, you will learn more about scraping than you thought possible.
"Who does your artistic work / design / furniture?"
You may not know much about the current science of making beer. It's very good! (It's done do not believe it or not.) If you start to feel like a brewery visit continues SpeedIn total brewing style, redefine the course with a more interesting question for you. Maybe it's the unique label, the brewery building, the materials recovered from the engine room, or the solar panels on the roof.
"The questions I really like is when someone asks:" Who does your job? "" Explains Ben Ustick, head of media relations and brewery tour at Chicago's Off Color Brewing. "I think it's amazing that so many people are drawn to the illustration and design of Off Color labels and packaging."
If you think your question is too random or beer-related, Ustick is there to quell those fears. "I would like people to ask me to see more pictures of my cats. This rarely happens and I have the impression that looking at photos of cats for 20 minutes seems like an ideal way to end a brewery tour. "
"Why?"
I've been asking this question since I was old enough to talk and, while it probably made my parents climb a wall, it's something that brewery tour guides love to hear. I was on tour when a guide, who had done it 100 times before, accidentally missed the reasoning behind some equipment or brewery practices.
"This is our brand new juicer," they say, making big gestures. "It costs as much as a house." Cool, that's for sure, but why does a brewery need a juicer? Or a dissolved oxygen meter? Or why has the brewery abandoned the grumbler culture? The brewery tours have learned a lot by asking this three letter word. L & # 39; try
Source link
