Last Saturday Rosemarie Certo of Dock Street brewing company hosted a very special reunion of former employees of the original 18th & Cherry Dock Street Brewery & Restaurant.  The event centered around the homecoming of one of Dock Streets favorite sons Victor Novak.  Victor left his assistant brewer job at Dock Street over a decade ago to be back with his family and loved ones in California.  Although this meant I was one step closer to getting a spot in the brewery, I was sad to see him go.  Fortunately Victor and I have stayed in touch and I see him about once a year at the GABF, Craft Brewer’s Conference or just when he decides to visit us in Philly.  Victor isn’t the only one I’ve stayed in touch with.  Even without the help of Facebook I’ve managed to remain close friends with many of the people I worked with on 18th street.  Some of them I only see once every couple of years.  But despite the time apart it only takes a few minutes and less than half a beer before it feels like we hadn’t been apart for more than a couple of days.  My experience at Dock Street was a special time and place in my life.  It’s where I learned to make beer under my boss and mentor Eric Savage, its where I made a lot of my best friends to this day, and to a large extent its where I developed into the person I am today.  At the reunion one of my good friends and former co-workers mentioned that she still tells  people “Dock Street is where I grew up”.  I have to say my experience was much the same.  Of course I developed during the four years I spent at college just before my Dock Street experience but I can’t say I was the Chris I know today.  College Chris was a good guy, but I probably wouldn’t go out of my way to have a beer with him today.  Dock Street Chris was pretty cool if I say so myself.  Anyone who works in the hospitality industry knows how tight-knit it is .  It’s not only your job but a huge part of your social network if not the majority of it.  Restaurant workers spend alot of time together outside of work.  The time I spent with the people I worked with then taught me a lot about what type of people I wanted to surround myself with and what type of person I wanted to be myself.  I have to thank Rosemarie for giving us all an excuse and opportunity to get back together for a night to look over our old photo albums (remember those?) share some old stories and create some new ones.  I also have to thank Rosemarie for the experience I had in her restaurant more than a decade ago.

I just finished the second week of school, and as we were wrapping up our section on wort production, our class took a field trip to the Briess specialty malt facility in Wisconsin.  Malting, the basic process barley undergoes before we receive it at the brewery, consists of steeping, germination, and kilning.  Just like breweries, malting facilities each have different setups to meet their production needs. 

 The barley enters the facility via railcar and is transferred to the grain elevator room.  This room was a favorite of a lot of our class. It is an over-manufactured room completely constructed from thick slabs of timber, hand cut when the facility first opened.  As the grain enters the elevator room it is cleaned as it is sent onto a conveyor belt into the steeping vessel.  The goal of the steep is to increase the moisture content of the grain for respiration (the grain using its starch reserves for energy) during germination.  After about 2 days of steeping, the barley is moved to the first germination bed where modification begins.  The barley is slowly and constantly mixed to keep temperature, humidity, and oxygen exposure consistent throughout the grain bed.  Modification is the preliminary process before a barley kernel begins to grow into a plant, where enzymes are produced, cell walls are degraded, and certain proteins and starches begin to break down.  These factors help us brewers get as many sugars and yeast nutrients as possible for fermentation.  To make sure that we have the greatest extract, maltsters halt modification before the barley kernel begins to use these sugars and nutrients to grow into a plant.  Modification is halted through kilning or roasting.   The maltsters heat the barley kernels at different temperatures according to the flavors and colors they want the malt to produce in the beer.  This process takes a day or so after which it is cooled and packaged. 

Briess uses cylindrical drum roasters that tumble the barley at a slow rate so that the barley gets evenly roasted against the heated walls.  The end of roasting is determined through visual inspection of samples taken out (pictured).

Before they send out palates of malt, a sample is taken to the lab where different tests are performed to check the plumpness of the kernels, potential extract of the malt, color, and other information that is important for the brewer to know before brewing.  This information is available to brewers in a certificate of analysis. 

After the tour, our class had lunch and beers with a few of the maltsters during a power point presentation and Q&A session.  The staff was quite helpful with questions and it was enjoyable to see that these maltsters are as passionate about their product as craft brewers are about their beer.  Seasonal specialty malts are where these artists get to use their creativity to make new malt that really excites them.   And if the Briess staff hadn’t shown enough hospitality already by paying for our trip and lunch, on the way out they gave us pouches of malt balls made at there facility as well as two coolers of beer to add to the three already on our party bus.  Thanks Briess!

That’s industry talk for “we just filtered The Situation“.  Bright is a term we use for beer that’s been filtered, centrifuged or otherwise made nice and crystal clear.  The beer in the top sightglass pictured is right out of the fermenter, the beer in the lower sightglass is on its way to the serving tank.  It’s all filtered now and its nice.  Tons and tons of American hop nose and a nice firm bitterness.  I can’t wait for my first glass.  We’ll be tapping this Saturday at 1 pm along with “A Dark Situation” (Russian Stout and The Situation blended in a firken and cask conditioned).  And Past Situations (vintage golden barleywine).  See you there!

Chris

Those of you who peek in the brewery now and then may have noticed Jeff manning the tanks.  He’s the quieter guy who actually makes a lot of the beer while I’m doing things like writing blog posts.  If you’ve been to the pub in the last couple of weeks you’ve probably noticed a couple of other guys running around in there instead of Jeff.  That’s because we’ve given Jeff a one month leave of absense to attend the Siebel Institute in Chicago.  It won’t be easy for me to work without him for a month, but Iron Hill is dedicated to the education of its brewers and we do everything we can to encourage development.  All of our head brewers have been to either Siebel or the American Brewer’s Guild.  Iron Hill also sends many of its head brewers to the Craft Brewer’s Conference every year and shares the cost for assistant brewers who want to attend.  So when Jeff enrolled himself and asked for the time off to attend, I certainly couldn’t say no.  We’ll be getting updates here and there from Jeff about his experience in Chicago.  His first is below.

Cheers,

Chris

I arrived in Chicago this past Sunday to begin the first two modules of the 12 week International Brewers Diploma Program at Siebel Institute.  Before I left Chris gave me another academic assignment, to write a little bit regarding my experience here in Chicago.  So just to let anyone who is interested in entering the program know, so far it has been fantastic!  There is nothing like going to school and learning about a specific discipline that one is making his/her career.  I graduated from Kenyon College with a B.A. in anthropology.  Anthropology was enjoyable to learn about, but during the end of my junior year I figured out that I wanted to pursue a career in the beer industry (making it a little hard to be fully engaged in my major).  Going back to school for brewing has not been a big party like freshman year of college.  These first few days have been relatively vigorous.  The class time is 9-5, and we are learning about the harvest/malting process barley undergoes before it gets to the brewery and how brewers can use this information towards malt selection and recipe formulation.  Although the school material is intensive and fairly technical, the school takes measures to make our time at Siebel quite enjoyable.  We do have a “bier stube” above our classroom where we eat our lunch and are allowed to have beer from two rotating draft lines during our lunch break and after we are done for the day. Also, the Goose Island Brewpub (conveniently across the street from the school) gives students a 20% discount during our time in Chicago, leading many students to use the downstairs dining area as a study room during the week.  However, students are not pounding beers during lunch or after class, but rather having a couple beers and speaking with each other about experiences and knowledge acquired while in the beer industry, pursuing a career in the industry, or what we have learned in class.  It is a non-competitive environment between students and from what I can tell the individuals and instructors are very motivated and passionate.  I am very appreciative for Iron Hill allowing me to complete this program over the next year and a half, and hope that I come back a better brewer.  I will keep you updated with the course material and Chicago experience while I am here.  Hope all is well in Jersey.

 - Jeff

In case you were wondering, we’ve shut down the restaurant so our staff could get home and off the road as early as possible.  I didn’t even try to come in today.  I’m sure the Subaru would have gotten me there (nothing it couldn’t handle yet), but this is my street in the picture.  There’s no way I would have found parking when I got back home.  It’s a dog fight here once they start plowing!  Fortunately I made sure we had plenty of beer in the tanks yesterday. Hopefully you have the day off today and you had the foresight to bring a growler or two home with you last night.  If you’re not please take it slow and be careful out there.  Now I’m off to my corner bar for a glass of La Rulles Biere De Gamme and a warm lunch.  See you tomorrow?

Next time you come in and gander at the list of seasonal beers on tap, you can expect not to have your eyes assaulted by my horrible excuse for handwriting.   Nia, one of our more artistic employees took pity on me and agreed to do my beer board.  Either that or she took pity on herself, her post at the host stand has a clear view of the seasonals board.  Either way I’m glad we’ve got something a touch more aesthetically pleasing up there now. 

Speaking of seasonals on tap, Caprice has made an encore appearance in Maple Shade.  I was really happy with how this beer turned out this past summer as were a lot of our guests.  I decided then that I wanted to send it to the World Beer Cup in April.  It’s sessionable and hoppy, and both of those factors mean this beer really benefits from being enjoyed fresh.  We re-brewed this beer so the judges would be tasting it at its peak.  Wish us luck!  It’s on tap now, I hope you enjoy it.

Chris

We brewed a Russian Imperial Stout (my first ever at Iron Hill!) within days of brewing The Situation.  I remember looking at the two fermenters making dueling messes all over my brewery’s floor and thinking, “I bet those will make a great black-and-tan!”  The Russian is chewy, rich and malty-sweet,  The Situation is much drier, much hoppier and has very little malt character.  So I thought we’d save the bartenders some work and combine them right in the firken.  It’s a Dark Situation.  We’ll toss this firken up on the bar and tap it at 1:00 along with The Situation itself.  I’d get a Dark Situation first if I were you, there’s only one firken of it.  Just 15 more days until the release party!  Got your costume ready?

Cheers,

Chris

Jeff just checked the gravity of the Situation and it looks like we’re done fermenting.  It fermented down nice and dry like we like it, topping out at a respectable 10.2% abv.  There’s time for the Situation to improve.  It’s got another three weeks to mature, clear up, and mellow out.  The Situation will come to a head on February 20th at 1 pm.  Make sure it’s on your calendar.  I want you to be here for the tapping, costume contest and some serious fist pumping!

I’ve got a pet peeve.  Actually I probably have many pet peeves.  One of the bigger ones though is going to a four star restaurant and paying a dear price for a great meal and not being able to order a decent beer to go along with it.  Last night the Beer Lass and I went to Vetri to  celebrate a wonderful three years together, and I’m glad to say that I had nothing to peeve about.  If you want specifics on what we ate and drank check out the Lass’ site.  That’s really more her thing than mine.  If she doesn’t have something up already I’m sure she will in the next few days.

(from the Osteria photo gallery)

Based on experiences I’ve had in other fine dining restaurants I went into Vetri wondering whether I’d be able to have beer with my dinner.  (Don’t get me wrong, I love wine now and then, just not with food).  We decided to go with Vetri’s grand tasting and my heart sank when I read that the “educated staff would assist me  in hand-crafting a tasting menu that suited my particular food and wine preferences.” Oh no!

Flashback to a very nice evening the Lass and I had while travelling in New England.  We stopped at a place in Centerbrook, CT and had a great meal. Great great food, tasteful music, comfortable and classy environment and impeccable service.  We’re talking white tablecloths, crumbing after every course and your napkin refolded everytime you get up from the table.  They boasted an extensive wine list, but completely fell down on the beer!  Bud, Heineken and Stella.  What???? 

Being in the restaurant industry I firmly believe that a complaint is a gift.  So on my way out I gifted the manager with my thoughts on their beer selection.  Unfortunately I got the two most common responses to this feedback, neither of which I can accept.  A. “We don’t have much room behind our bar.”  C’mon, do you really need to have Bud, Heineken and Stella?  Three versions of the same style of beer?  That would be like having 10 chicken dishes with no seafood or beef selections!  Get rid of one of those and bring in just one craft.  Even just keeping a few bottles of Saison DuPont or Ommegang Hennepin in the basement would at least satisfy 90% of all foodie/beer geeks.  B. “We’re not really a beer place.”  What?  Are you a coffee shop?  No.  Do you serve Folger’s with dessert?  Are you a bakery?  No.  Do you bring out a basket of Wonder bread with your soup?  So why would you serve world class food with average beer?  I want everything to match.  If there are white tablecloths on the table I want to hear Vivaldi or Coltrane, not open mic night.  If someone is folding my napkin every time I get up I don’t want to have to hold on to my silverware between courses.  And if I’m paying $60 for an entree I don’t want a beer that I can get for $4 at my corner bar.

Back to Vetri.  Fortunately I was able to flip forward a few pages into the menu to find one of the best selections of Italian craft beers I’ve ever seen, peppered in with a well chosen selection of local crafts.  (If you don’t know about the Italian craft beer  movement, please learn about it.) We were also lucky enough to have Mark Vetri’s beverage manager Steve (apologies for not knowing his last name) in the building. 

When ordering the tasting menu at Vetri the guest can be free from any decision making, which is kind of nice after a work day full of it.  Once you inform them of any dietary restrictions and your gastronomic preferences, they just surprise you with dish after wonderful dish. My one question however was “How do I know what beer to order if I don’t know what food I’m getting?”  It turns out that Vetri’s staff is just as adept at walking you through your beer and food pairings as they assure you they are with the wine and food.  Steve practically held our hands and led us through the entire experience.  We hadn’t intended for this to be a high-end beer dinner, but that’s almost what we got.  I’m glad for it too.  While some of the dishes might have worked with wine, other’s were clearly better with beer.  For instance, I can’t imagine a wine in the world that would have paired with the foie gras seasoned with peppery spices as well as did the Italian Saison we drank with it.

I know Marc Vetri isn’t the only chef owner with an appreciation for beer.  A couple of weeks ago I was fortunate enough to go to Chifa’s first beer dinner when they paired up with Flying Fish.  Congratulations gentlemen for bringing fine dining up to speed, and thank you!  Thanks to chefs like Garces and Vetri experiences like the one I had in CT present themselves less and less every day.