West Coast pilsner is the subject of this month’s roundtable, and we’ve assembled a talented cast of brewers to further the discussion. From the Firestone Walker Propagator brewhouse in Venice, California, Sam Tierney returns to the podcast. Highland Park Brewery founder Bob Kunz joins from their location in Los Angeles. And from Santa Cruz, California’s Humble Sea Brewery, cofounder Nick Pavlina rounds out the panel. The topic is West Coast pilsner, and each make excellent examples the style, from Highland Park’s award-winning Timbo Pils to Firestone Walker’s Welcome to LA and Humble Sea’s Santa Cruz Pils. Here, the brewers discuss: the challenge in building body and structure to balance hop loads in the lean beer simplifying malt bills and using domestic pilsner malt for higher attenuation finding better hop expression through restraint in the dry hop avoiding excessive malt complexity to allow the hops to shine layering in lower-alpha hops to build texture and support the fruitier modern hop notes selecting aroma hops for cohesion managing hop creep distinguishing West Coast pilsner from cold IPA and Italian-style pilsner And more. This episode is brought to you by: Accubrew (https://accubrew.io): AccuBrew is an analytical tool designed to collect and compare the information brewers need to produce consistent results and continuously improve the process of fermentation. AccuBrew is more than a progress bar and early warning system. It is an ever evolving piece of technology tailored to you and your process. Save time and turn tanks faster. Monitor and compare batch progress in real-time. Enter notes, set custom reminders and temperature alerts. And detect process issues before a batch is ruined. Quality, consistency, and confidence. That is what AccuBrew delivers! Visit accubrew.io today, for a no obligation 90 day trial! BSG (https://bsgcraftbrewing.com) Brought to you by CanCraft and BSG. Whether you need a full-service packaging experience, from design to delivery, or you just need some aluminum cans, CanCraft can do. CanCraft’s design & aluminum specialists are here to support your business every step of the way. Visit bsgcraftbrewing.com/CanCraft to learn how CanCraft can help realize your brand potential. G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): What if you could chill your beer with a more efficient chiller? The Answer? G&D Chillers new Micro Channel Condensers! G&D’s Micro Channel Condensers are highly efficient in hotter regions, use a fraction of the refrigerant over traditional chillers which provides less opportunity for leaks along with lower global warming potential. G&D Chillers’ Engineers are committed to green technology design, while developing a more energy efficient chiller for the brewing industry. Contact G&D Chillers today at gdchillers.com Support Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

Anchor Brewmaster Tom Riley has been working on steam beer for a long time—38 years, in fact. He started at Anchor in 1984, decades before craft beer was considered a viable career choice, and has watched the entire industry grow up alongside Anchor. He’s a company man, and in 38 years of brewing, this is the only place he’s brewed. Assistant Brewmaster Dane Volek started at Anchor 14 years ago and, like Riley, has only worked at Anchor. He leads the R&D side of the brewery now, making beers on the smaller brewhouse across the street from the production brewery at Anchor Public Taps, but he shares a similar love of the company and their unique brewing culture. There’s a pride in craft, in the workmanship, and a genuine love of the brewery’s history and sense of place. The beer they focus on, of course, is the ubiquitous Anchor Steam—brewed with pitched lager yeast, but fermented relatively warm in shallow open top fermenters in a temperature-controlled room but without temperature control in the vessels. It echoes the 1800’s approach to steam beer, but with a focus on sanitation and consistency that those earlier brewers could only dream of. Today, the brewery on the corner of De Haro and Mariposa Streets in the Potrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco looks much like it did when Fritz Maytag was actively running the business, strategic production upgrades notwithstanding. And while the neighborhood around it has changed measurably over the past 50 years, the brewery’s flagship beers have not. Some things ought to change, and some things should not. In this episode, Riley and Volek talk about style, history, and process for the flagship beers that Anchor focuses on—Steam, Porter, and Liberty Ale. Along the way, they discuss: the historical significance of Steam mechanics of open fermentation employing house yeast across a range of styles and ABVs fermenting with the same yeast under head pressure brewing blended batches with open and closed fermentation the value and importance of the story behind the beer And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): G&D Chillers’ Engineers are committed to green technology design, while developing a more energy efficient chiller for the brewing industry. Contact G&D Chillers today at gdchillers.com Probrew (https://www.probrew.com) Check out www.probrew.com for info on patented ProCarb inline carbonation technology, ProFill rotary filling & seaming can fillers, the Alchemator inline alcohol separation system, 7–50bbl Brewhouses and more! Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Looking for innovation in your next beverage break-through? Think outside the purée box and let your brand stand out with Old Orchard's craft concentrate blends. To join the core of Old Orchard's brewing community, learn more at oldorchard.com/brewer Fermentis (https://fermentis.com): Fermentis, the obvious choice for beverage fermentation, provides brewers large and small with the most complete portfolio of dry lager yeast available anywhere. To learn more, visit Fermentis.com. Brewmation (https://brewmation.com/cbbpod): Brewmation specializes in electric, steam, and direct fire brew houses, complete cellar solutions, and automated controls for the craft brewing industry. Visit them at brewmation.com/cbbpod to get started. Arryved (https://www.arryved.com): Arryved mobile point of sale powers places with personality. No contracts and no monthly fees make Arryved a no brainer for your craft business. Go to Arryved.com/cbb to set up a free, customized demo.Support Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

John Harris has been around. From his start at the McMenamins Hillsdale brewpub in 1986 (where they brewed with extract and fermented without temperature control in open-top fermenters), through stints launching Deschutes, the Full Sail pub in Portland, Oregon, and now the past nine years at his own brewery Ecliptic, he’s been eyewitness to a myriad of change in the craft beer world. In this episode, Harris recounts the early days and the challenges they faced in trying to create what we now know as the craft beer industry. These stories from the early days of craft illustrate just how far the brewing world in the United States has come over the past few decades. Along the way, Harris discusses: brewing commercial batches in the mid-80’s while scavenging yeast from Sierra Nevada Pale Ale bottle dregs launching the original Deschutes brewpub in Bend with founder Gary Fish heading the Full Sail Portland brewpub for two decades the development of the PNW strain of West Coast IPA using color to tell a story in beer working with Strata hops embracing fruit in brewing and making quick-sour fruit beers beers that made sense in his head but never connected with an audience And more. This episode is brought to you by: G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): G&D Chillers’ Engineers are committed to green technology design, while developing a more energy efficient chiller for the brewing industry. Contact G&D Chillers today at gdchillers.com Probrew (https://www.probrew.com) Check out www.probrew.com for info on patented ProCarb inline carbonation technology, ProFill rotary filling & seaming can fillers, the Alchemator inline alcohol separation system, 7–50bbl Brewhouses and more! Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Looking for innovation in your next beverage break-through? Think outside the purée box and let your brand stand out with Old Orchard's craft concentrate blends. To join the core of Old Orchard's brewing community, learn more at oldorchard.com/brewer Fermentis (https://fermentis.com): Fermentis, the obvious choice for beverage fermentation, provides brewers large and small with the most complete portfolio of dry lager yeast available anywhere. To learn more, visit Fermentis.com. Brewmation (https://brewmation.com/cbbpod): Brewmation specializes in electric, steam, and direct fire brew houses, complete cellar solutions, and automated controls for the craft brewing industry. Visit them at brewmation.com/cbbpod to get started. Arryved (https://www.arryved.com): Arryved mobile point of sale powers places with personality. No contracts and no monthly fees make Arryved a no brainer for your craft business. Go to Arryved.com/cbb to set up a free, customized demo.Support Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

In this first-ever “Direct Fire” episode of the podcast, listeners from around the globe heat things up with spicy brewing questions for Weldwerks founder Neil Fisher. From IPA to hefeweizen, pastry sour, and stout, every style is fair game as you ask and Neil answers questions around: ideal pH in hoppy beers for aroma and flavor expression achieving pie-crust flavor in kettle sours using vanilla in bean and extract form building mouthfeel in stout with oats, wheat, and even flaked corn yeast choice and fermentation concerns with hefeweizen controlling ester production in hefeweizen through temperature and pitch rate optimizing chocolate flavors in barrel-aged stout orienting the brewery around community service employing hazy IPA techniques in West Coast-style IPA And more. This episode is brought to you by: Accubrew (https://accubrew.io): AccuBrew is an analytical tool designed to collect and compare the information brewers need to produce consistent results and continuously improve the process of fermentation. AccuBrew is more than a progress bar and early warning system. It is an ever evolving piece of technology tailored to you and your process. Save time and turn tanks faster. Monitor and compare batch progress in real-time. Enter notes, set custom reminders and temperature alerts. And detect process issues before a batch is ruined. Quality, consistency, and confidence. That is what AccuBrew delivers! Visit accubrew.io today, for a no obligation 90 day trial! BSG (https://bsgcraftbrewing.com) Brought to you by CanCraft and BSG. Whether you need a full-service packaging experience, from design to delivery, or you just need some aluminum cans, CanCraft can do. CanCraft’s design & aluminum specialists are here to support your business every step of the way. Visit bsgcraftbrewing.com/CanCraft to learn how CanCraft can help realize your brand potential. G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): What if you could chill your beer with a more efficient chiller? The Answer? G&D Chillers new Micro Channel Condensers! G&D’s Micro Channel Condensers are highly efficient in hotter regions, use a fraction of the refrigerant over traditional chillers which provides less opportunity for leaks along with lower global warming potential. G&D Chillers’ Engineers are committed to green technology design, while developing a more energy efficient chiller for the brewing industry. Contact G&D Chillers today at gdchillers.com Support Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

Science teacher turns brewer. On paper, it makes sense. But Alesong’s Matt Van Wyk made the career transition long before many in the current generation of brewery owners made similar leaps. With two decades of professional brewing under his belt, Van Wyk has observed, and brewed through, many trends, but the love of barrel-aged beer led him and his partners (including Alesong production director Brian Coombs) to create Alesong with a deep focus on three threads—Farmhouse-style beers fermented with Brettanomyces, mixed-culture sour beers, and spirits-barrel-aged “clean” fermentations. The results have been impressive, with industry recognition through medals, and a club-based customer base that supports their boundary-pushing work. But this brewery that looks and feels like a winery (and is, in fact, located on a small parcel next to one of the area’s largest and most significant wineries) is less concerned with creating hype and more focused on the slow, iterative process of making compelling and flavorful beer. In this episode, Coombs and Van Wyk discuss: learning fruit fermentation techniques from wineries building complexity in stout malt bills with smaller amounts of a vast array of malts creating the perception of sweetness in stouts with relatively low (8-8.5° P) finishing gravity selecting barrels for flavor over marketing potential tank cleaning regimen for working with both sour and clean beer oxygenating Brett fermentations over three days blending strategy for sour fruited beer creating a perception of body in 0° P sour fruited beer And more. G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For nearly 30 years, G&D Chillers has set the mark for quality equipment you can rely on, with 30 years of real world, field labor experience in breweries, wineries and distilleries. Contact the total glycol system design experts today at gdchillers.com Probrew (https://www.probrew.com) Still emptying those overflowing wastebins full of low-fills, crushed and damaged cans, or under carbonated beer every canning day? It’s time to Fill Like a Pro. Email ContactUs@ProBrew.com for more information on ProFill Can fillers from ProBrew. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Looking for innovation in your next beverage break-through? Think outside the purée box and let your brand stand out with Old Orchard's craft concentrate blends. To join the core of Old Orchard's brewing community, learn more at oldorchard.com/brewer Fermentis (https://fermentis.com): Hey nano-brewers! Fermentis, the obvious choice for beverage fermentation, is soon offering our dry ale and lager yeasts in flexible 100g packaging. To learn more, visit Fermentis.com. Country Malt Group (https://countrymaltgroup.com/the-brewdeck-podcast/): The secret is out and Canada Malting Co.'s newest malt is here! Introducing Euro-Pils, made from the finest overseas low-protein barley available. Contact Country Malt Group to try Euro-Pils in your next brew. Arryved (https://www.arryved.com): Arryved mobile point of sale powers places with personality. No contracts and no monthly fees make Arryved a no brainer for your craft business. Go to Arryved.com/cbb to set up a free, customized demo.Support Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

Tonya Cornett marks her brewing experience in decades, but the head of R&D for 10 Barrel in Bend, Oregon, isn't resting on any laurels. She’s earned every right to cruise, with many GABF and World Beer Cup medals under her belt—including three at the World Beer Cup earlier this year—but she continues to challenge herself and her team to find new and better ways to express flavor in beer. One of her favorite styles, and one she’s earned wide acclaim for, is quick-soured fruit beer. Under their Crush brand, 10 Barrel now sells these beers across the country, and Cornett’s small brewery and R&D team are constantly working ahead, creating new iterations with different fruits and ingredients for 10 Barrel’s pubs in Bend. In this episode, she discusses how she’s made this “simple” style much more difficult to make, from varying grain bills based on the fruit, to using different yeasts, and including one fruit in multiple forms to capture all of its flavor. Along the way, she covers: the change over time in their Lacto culture brewing quick-soured beers in two stages as blender batches using wheat, oats, and dextrin malt to build mouthfeel and keep the beers from drying out varying pitch rate based on the current state of the culture and production calendar carefully measuring total acidity rather than just pH using hops that complement fruit and acidity managing sulfur production and controlling diacetyl layering purée, freeze-dried fruit, juice, concentrate, extracts, and more to build a whole fruit picture using adjacent fruits as well as spices to amplify the expression of a primary fruit And more. G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): G&D stands above the rest as the only chiller manufacturer that engineers your glycol piping for free. G&D also stands alone as the only chiller manufacturer with an in house team of installers and engineers, with 30 years of real world, field labor experience in breweries, wineries and distilleries. Contact G&D Chillers today at gdchillers.com Probrew (https://www.probrew.com) The Alchemator from ProBrew uses proprietary membrane technology to strip the alcohol from the beer without sacrificing all the elements – like flavor and color - that make the beer great! Are you ready to Brew Like A Pro? Check out www.probrew.com to learn more. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Looking for innovation in your next beverage break-through? Think outside the purée box and let your brand stand out with Old Orchard's craft concentrate blends. To join the core of Old Orchard's brewing community, learn more at oldorchard.com/brewer Fermentis (https://fermentis.com): Working on a new sour beer? Fermentis is now offering an expanding range of dry bacteria for the production of sour beers. To learn more about how Fermentis can improve the quality of your fermentation, visit Fermentis.com. Country Malt Group (https://countrymaltgroup.com/the-brewdeck-podcast/): Three new roasted malts from BestMalz: Chocolate, Black, and Black Malt eXtra! Roasted in a gentle fluidized bed process to create smooth de-bittered flavors. BestMalz products are available exclusively through Country Malt Group, contact CMG to try a free sample today! Arryved (https://www.arryved.com): Arryved mobile point of sale powers places with personality. No contracts and no monthly fees make Arryved a no brainer for your craft business. Go to Arryved.com/cbb to set up a free, customized demo.Support Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

Smooj, the heavily-fruited smoothie-like hard seltzer produced by the brewing team at HOMES brewery in Ann Arbor, Michigan, may draw the ire of certain brewing purists, but its approach is captivating consumers across its growing footprint. It flies in the face of conventional logic around hard seltzer, embracing more rather than less—more calories, more flavor, more body. And the novel approach has inspired a growing subcategory of the hard seltzer market as more craft brewers try their hand at similar beverages. But one thing sets Smooj apart—Panchamé and the brewing team are just as passionate about making fruited sour beer (from coolshipped spontaneous brews to pitched mixed culture beers and quick-sour iterations) and that broad-based love of fruit and flavor finds its way into many of their different product expressions. In this episode, HOMES and Smooj head brewer Nick Panchamé shares the brewery's approach to hard seltzer, from fermenting seltzer base to acidity, sweetness, flavor development, and maintaining product integrity in the can. Along the way, Panchamé discusses: taking a culinary approach to flavor development in sour beer and hard seltzer fermenting clean high-gravity seltzer base paying attention to water chemistry in hard seltzer building complex flavors with all real and natural ingredients targeting natural levels of residual sugar and acidity to complement fruit flavor balancing intensity with drinkability in hard seltzer exploring thiol-optimized yeast in hoppy beers brewing with Michigan Chinook and Michigan Copper hops taking a creative approach to lagers with New Zealand hops And more. G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): G&D stands above the rest as the only chiller manufacturer that engineers your glycol piping for free. G&D also stands alone as the only chiller manufacturer with an in house team of installers and engineers, with 30 years of real world, field labor experience in breweries, wineries and distilleries. Contact G&D Chillers today at gdchillers.com Probrew (https://www.probrew.com) ProBrew has the equipment, systems and technology to take your brewery to the next level. Check out www.probrew.com for info on patented ProCarb inline carbonation technology, ProFill rotary filling and seaming can fillers, the Alchemator inline alcohol separation system, 7–50bbl Brewhouses, and more! Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Looking for innovation in your next beverage break-through? Think outside the purée box and let your brand stand out with Old Orchard's craft concentrate blends. To join the core of Old Orchard's brewing community, learn more at oldorchard.com/brewer Fermentis (https://fermentis.com): Looking for a good lager yeast? Fermentis, the obvious choice for beverage fermentation, providing brewers large and small with the most complete portfolio of dry lager yeast available anywhere. To learn more about how Fermentis can improve the quality of your fermentation, and for the latest on their exciting new product releases, visit Fermentis.com. Country Malt Group (https://countrymaltgroup.com/the-brewdeck-podcast/): The BrewDeck Podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you listen to podcasts. Subscribe today! Arryved (https://www.arryved.com): Arryved mobile point of sale powers places with personality. No contracts and no monthly fees make Arryved a no brainer for your craft business. Go to Arryved.com/cbb to set up a free, customized demo.Support Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

How do you as a brewer identify trends, evaluate their potential resonance with your customers, then develop and deploy your own beers in response? This panel discussion with leading Portland brewers Ben Edmunds of Breakside, James Dugan of Great Notion, and Sam Pecoraro of Von Ebert—recorded at Great Notion as part of our most recent New Brewery Accelerator workshop—explores that very question. Along the way, they discuss: separating the signal from the noise in feedback data maintaining a brewery identity despite changing trends considering the consumer and leading with enthusiasm technical processes around developing and testing new ideas developing a palate and means of understanding and deconstructing other beers the arc of imitation and adaptation TTB challenges in using atypical ingredients staff and consumer feedback processes the importance of great front of house staff to explain and promote trendy beers And more. This episode is brought to you by: Accubrew (https://accubrew.io): Step into the modern era of brewing. AccuBrew presents a game changing fermentation monitoring system giving brewers unprecedented, real-time insight into yeast health and activity. By simply mounting a sensor to a port, brewers get real-time information through the AccuBrew app, tracking sugar conversion, temperature, and clarity. And just one AccuBrew sensor protects every tank in the event of a glycol system failure. Get your hands on a tool that will help you deliver your best brew every batch! AccuBrew has your back because it was designed for you, the brewer, by brewers. Visit accubrew.io today, for a no obligation 90 day trial! BSG (https://bsgcraftbrewing.com) This episode brought to you by Rahr Malting Co., celebrating 175 years of the “malt of reputation.” Since 1847, Rahr malt has been a benchmark of quality and consistency for brewers everywhere. Now offering dextrin malt to help you boost mouthfeel and haze in your IPA, or to show off a jiggly foam stand on a pils. Available exclusively through BSG at bsgcraftbrewing.com. G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): For nearly 30 years, G&D Chillers has set the mark for quality equipment you can rely on. G&D stands above the rest as the only chiller manufacturer that engineers your glycol piping for free. G&D also stands alone as the only chiller manufacturer with an in house team of installers and engineers, with 30 years of real world, field labor experience in breweries, wineries and distilleries. Contact the total glycol system design experts today at gdchillers.com Support Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

Light lager may not be the style most brewers are passionate about, but it’s one that many people drink. Long dominated by macro brewers and beers lightened by corn and rice adjuncts, it’s a competition category that fewer craft brewers have found success in. But for Andy Hooper, former brewmaster of Seismic Brewing in Santa Rosa, California, the beer style was ripe for craft reinvention. A very technically-minded brewer, Hooper had built out the brewhouse and cellar to allow for a fine degree of control, but the process of dialing in light lager using organic malt that was grown and malted in California by craft maltsters required quite a bit of fine tuning. In this episode, Hooper discusses: designing a brewery with wastewater reclamation and sustainability at its core connecting with craft maltsters and modifying stock malting processes for lightness and flavor committing to minimalist brewing with a focus on ingredients hot side process and constantly monitoring pH specific lautering parameters geared toward clean light lager gentle ingredient handling to minimize any distracting flavors controlled aeration developing a nitrogen-based process for breaking up hop cones for fresh-hopped lager And more. _Note- after this episode was recorded, Andy resigned from Seismic Brewing, hence the designation as "former" Seismic brewmaster. _ G&D Chillers (https://gdchillers.com): G&D Chillers new Micro Channel Condensers! G&D’s Micro Channel Condensers are highly efficient in hotter regions, use a fraction of the refrigerant over traditional chillers which provides less opportunity for leaks along with lower global warming potential. Contact G&D Chillers today at gdchillers.com Probrew (https://www.probrew.com) Still emptying those overflowing wastebins full of low-fills, crushed and damaged cans, or under carbonated beer every canning day? It’s time to Fill Like a Pro. Email ContactUs@ProBrew.com for more information on ProFill Can fillers from ProBrew. Probrew is a subsidiary of TechniBlend, now a ProMach brand. Old Orchard (https://www.oldorchard.com/brewer): Looking for innovation in your next beverage break-through? Think outside the purée box and let your brand stand out with Old Orchard's craft concentrate blends. To join the core of Old Orchard's brewing community, learn more at oldorchard.com/brewer Fermentis (https://fermentis.com): Hey nano-brewers! Fermentis will soon be offering our dry ale and lager yeasts in flexible 100g packaging. To learn more about how Fermentis can improve the quality of your fermentation, and for the latest on their exciting new product releases, visit Fermentis.com. Country Malt Group (https://countrymaltgroup.com/the-brewdeck-podcast/): The secret is out and Canada Malting Co.'s newest malt is here! Introducing Euro-Pils, made from the finest overseas low-protein barley available. Contact Country Malt Group to try Euro-Pils in your next brew. Arryved (https://www.arryved.com): Arryved mobile point of sale powers places with personality. No contracts and no monthly fees make Arryved a no brainer for your craft business. Go to Arryved.com/cbb to set up a free, customized demo.Support Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast

Bob Slack and Justin Teff, co-head brewers of Pulpit Rock, discuss their process of achieving great results with adjunct-forward and barrel-aged beers. Topics include removing roasted barley, triple mashing, driving 'plushness' through low attenuation, toasting nuts and coconut, matching tank size to adjunct volume, using offbeat ingredients, and more. They also explore the creative process, barrel aging techniques, and infusing beer with adjuncts. The importance of balance and quality ingredients is emphasized.