343: Natalie Rose Baldwin of Wayfinder Paints Hoppy Pictures With a Broad Palette
Feb 2, 2024
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Natalie Rose Baldwin, Brewmaster at Wayfinder, talks about IPA and West Coast pils, fresh hop West Coast keller pils, flavor as color, yeast strategies, French pils with spelt, healthy fermentations in gose, and more.
Natalie Rose Baldwin focuses on IPA and West Coast pils, highlighting the importance of yeast strategies, fresh hops, and domestic pils base malt.
Natalie Rose Baldwin shares her techniques in brewing gozas, emphasizing healthy fermentations, managing acidity, and using specific ingredients like coriander.
Natalie Rose Baldwin discusses the use of characterful malts in brewing flavorful and balanced beers, exploring the interplay with hops and creating dry and acidic profiles.
Deep dives
Exploring the Creative Process in Brewing West Coast IPAs
Natalie Rose Baldwin, the brewmaster for Wayfinder in Portland, shares her creative process in brewing West Coast IPAs. She talks about starting with an end goal of a specific flavor profile or ingredient and building the recipe around it. She emphasizes the importance of selecting the right hops and malt to achieve the desired flavors and balance in the beer. Natalie also discusses her approach to creating unique and characterful beers, such as French Pils and Vienna Lager, using specific malt varieties and hop combinations. She shares her experiences in making Gozas and the challenges in achieving a balanced acidity and unique flavor profile. Overall, Natalie highlights the importance of continuous learning and experimentation in the brewing process.
Mastering the Art of Goza Brewing
Natalie Rose Baldwin delves into her passion for brewing Gozas and the techniques she employs. She mentions her exposure to beers like German Sparkle Party and Bavarian from Tanya Cornette and Ian Pearson, which inspired her interest in lacto cultures. Natalie discusses the challenge of achieving a low alcohol range without compromising flavor and balance in Gozas. She emphasizes the importance of building a recipe that maintains a healthy fermentation without negative sulfur or off-flavors. Natalie also highlights the intricacies of managing TA and pH levels to achieve the desired acidity in Gozas, and the role of specific ingredients like coriander in adding depth and complexity to the beer.
Crafting Flavorful and Balanced Beers with Characterful Malts
Natalie Rose Baldwin shares her approach to using characterful malts in brewing flavorful and balanced beers. She discusses the importance of selecting the right malts, such as French pills and Vienna malt, to create unique and interesting flavors. Natalie explores the interplay between malt varieties and hops to achieve balance and complexity in the final beer. She discusses her experiences in brewing Vienna Lagers, Berliner Weisses, and other traditional German and Czech beers, focusing on the use of true-to-style malts. Natalie also highlights her fascination with creating beers that have a dry and attentive acidity, using ingredients like wheat and diverse hop profiles. Overall, she emphasizes the joy and creativity that comes from using characterful malts to craft distinctive and enjoyable beers.
Exploring Fresh Hop Beers
The podcast episode delves into the process of making fresh hop beers, specifically focusing on two different approaches. One approach involves using nitrogen to freeze the fresh hops and then adding them to the beer during fermentation. The resulting beer has a bright and watermelon-like character, with a minimal dankness. The other approach involves using frozen fresh hop powder instead of pellets, which adds a unique flavor to the West Coast style pilsner. Both methods highlight the experimental nature of brewing and the different techniques that can be employed to create innovative and flavorful beers.
Messing with Lager Beer and American Hops
The podcast episode also explores the experimentation with lager beer and American hops. The speaker discusses the creation of a West Coast style pilsner that incorporates American hops in the dry-hopping process. Different hop varieties, such as Mosaic and Strata, are used to achieve specific flavors like dankness and pink fruitiness. The speaker emphasizes the importance of finding the right balance between hop and malt sweetness, as well as the consideration of fermentation artifacts like glycerol and mouthfeel. These innovative approaches showcase the brewer's commitment to pushing the boundaries of traditional beer styles and creating unique flavor profiles.
Over the past number of years, Portland, Oregon’s Wayfinder has built a reputation for assertive Pacific Northwest Coast IPAs, balanced and bitter Cold IPAs, and classic renditions of European lagers. Last year, Natalie Rose Baldwin stepped into the Brewmaster position and quickly found herself getting up to speed on their hop-centric beers, but her years of experience at Breakside more than prepared her for the technical and creative challenge.
In this episode, Baldwin focuses on IPA and West Coast pils, with a closing contemplation on one of her favorite styles—gose. Along the way, she covers:
the weight of expectation on Wayfinder cold IPA
developing production yeast strategies around IPA and cold IPA
building a fresh hop West Coast keller pils
thinking about flavor as color
using the Breakside nitrogen-shatter-and-cold-steep fresh hop method
tweaking picking windows to maximize fresh hop expression
using domestic pils base malt for hop-forward West Coast pils
brewing French pils with spelt and Strisselspalt hops
managing healthy fermentations in gose
And more.
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