Episode 25
How Brewers Develop the Right Tasting Palate
Gary Arndt, and Allison McCoy-Fleshman grill Bobby Fleshman about his beer recipe creation process and developing his palate. From sensory experiences of ingredients to the art of flavor creation, they get a little nerdy.
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TIMELINE
00:00 Introduction and Hosts
00:14 What Inspires Bobby's Brewing Palate?
01:11 Bobby's Brewing Journey
03:22 What are base malts?
05:45 Understanding Flavors in Brewing (esters, phenolic, skunks)
10:48 Developing a Beer Palate (eat some grain!)
18:27 The Art and Business of Fruited Beers
25:34 Could you fat wash a beer?
26:55 Conclusion and Farewell
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CREDITS
Hosts:
Music by Sarah Lynn Huss
Recorded & Produced by David Kalsow
Brought to you by McFleshman's Brewing Co
Transcript
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.
Gary Arndt:My name is Gary Arndt and with me as usual are Allison McCoy and Bobby Fleshman, PhDs, plural.
Gary Arndt:And today we're going to talk about something that Allison brought up, and it has to do with inspiration and beer and brewing and recipes.
Gary Arndt:When you started brewing, I'm guessing, like most people do if they're a home brewer, you have a book and you have some recipes and you follow those recipes, follow the algorithm, and hopefully the end product is a beer.
Gary Arndt:And it's kind of like learning music.
Gary Arndt:You get sheet music and you learn at the notes.
Gary Arndt:And then, but eventually after a while, you get good at your craft, you master it, and you start freestyling and you start thinking up new things and new beers.
Gary Arndt:So let's start with Alison again.
Gary Arndt:What was the, the impetus behind talking about this subject?
Gary Arndt:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Oh, this is such a, yes.
Gary Arndt:Well, Bobby's a fascinating person.
Gary Arndt:Hence the reason I married him.
Gary Arndt:Cause he just keeps me very entertained.
Gary Arndt:Although not with your jokes, those aren't that great.
Gary Arndt:But he is
Bobby Fleshman:You even have better dad jokes than I do.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: I do!
Bobby Fleshman:But I i've always been inspired watching him be inspired because, like, we would be at, this was back, oh good God, 2006, 2007, in Oklahoma.
Bobby Fleshman:We were at Learn to Brew, it was a homebrew store, that's no longer there.
Bobby Fleshman:They're still there and now they're a sponsor.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Oh my god
Bobby Fleshman:them
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Anyway, it was just a homebrew shop, they had the grain open, and Bobby would walk around and he'd just scoop up grain and he'd mix it in his hand.
Bobby Fleshman:so he'd scoop up different types of grain, mix it in his hand and just start chomping down on them and like just cracking the grain and tasting the flavors and then he'd spit that out and then he'd grab another one.
Bobby Fleshman:Although you never spit it out did you?
Bobby Fleshman:You just always ate it.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway, that's fine.
Bobby Fleshman:But he was just walking around and I was like, what the hell are you doing?
Bobby Fleshman:And I was kind of like the annoyed girlfriend at the time who was just having to wait for an hour and a half at the home brew store.
Bobby Fleshman:But what he was doing is he was thinking,
Bobby Fleshman:Let me ask you: what were you doing when you were doing that?
Bobby Fleshman:I was learning.
Bobby Fleshman:I mean, I was new and I was a sponge.
Bobby Fleshman:And I think most people that get into beer are connecting with other people that make beer in various ways and and building a vocabulary involves building a sensory experience first in the case of beer.
Bobby Fleshman:So you have to taste your ingredients.
Bobby Fleshman:You gotta taste them so you can even articulate to the brew shop owner to a fellow brewer or to just someone that's wanting to drink your beer.
Bobby Fleshman:And I was just a few years removed from realizing that you could make beer.
Bobby Fleshman:It felt like it was this this commodity that came down a pipe some magical pipe that, it was impossible for someone to do at home.
Bobby Fleshman:Never mind open their own brewery that these were things that weren't on my mind.
Bobby Fleshman:So anyway, I was just trying to connect, connect myself with the basic ingredients and back then it really was basic.
Bobby Fleshman:It was a couple of different hops are available, a couple of different yeast maybe six different what we call specialty malts.
Bobby Fleshman:Specialty malts are like spice cabinet or what you have in your spice cabinet.
Bobby Fleshman:Whereas your, your primary malt is called your base malt.
Bobby Fleshman:And that would be maybe better described as the bread itself.
Bobby Fleshman:I don't know a better analogy.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: That's fair.
Bobby Fleshman:Well, we're going to zoom forward because I was talking to David and Gary before we started and I told them, Hey, guess what?
Bobby Fleshman:I found the book.
Bobby Fleshman:That says the Secrets of Master Brewers by Jeff Alworth.
Bobby Fleshman:And there's a couple of quotes in here.
Bobby Fleshman:I wanted to read to Bobby on the spot.
Bobby Fleshman:He has no idea this is coming, and I wanted to challenge him in response to it.
Bobby Fleshman:And the only reason I jumped to it now is just because of what you said.
Bobby Fleshman:So it says quote, "As a brewer, you have maybe 25 percent chance to influence the profile of your beer in the home and in the brew house.
Bobby Fleshman:75 percent of the character is set at the malt house, and of that, more than half is from the field.
Bobby Fleshman:And actually what I really understood were base malts.
Bobby Fleshman:Americans basically ignore base malt as a flavor element."
Bobby Fleshman:Go!
Bobby Fleshman:I love this.
Bobby Fleshman:Basemalt as a flavor element.
Bobby Fleshman:When things are fantastic.
Bobby Fleshman:There's a joke in, in the beer world that we are just supposed to blame the maltster if anything goes wrong, we all know deep down that it's not their fault.
Bobby Fleshman:It nine times out of 10, it's us who have screwed up the prior, the product.
Bobby Fleshman:The farmer is contending with climate change and pest control and all kinds of stuff.
Bobby Fleshman:That the end consumer is unaware of.
Bobby Fleshman:And I take my hat off to them.
Bobby Fleshman:Maltsters are supposed to take this variable ingredient.
Bobby Fleshman:We always talk about how we got to take, we have to take this variable ingredient, make the same product every year,
Bobby Fleshman:But man, those maltsters are really dealing with it, having to make the same thing every time from an extremely variable product coming outta the field each year.
Bobby Fleshman:I won't go into all those details, but then the brewer gets that and from when the brewer gets ahold of it, we tend to, a lot of brewers think of the base malt as a commodity.
Bobby Fleshman:Any old Pilsner or what we call two row malt will, will do, but we're learning that's not true.
Bobby Fleshman:And I've had this theory for a long time that there are 21 amino remember right,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Don't look at me.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm the scientist here.
Bobby Fleshman:and, and, depending on the relative composition of amino acids in malt, in the past we've looked at the free amino nitrogen, we've looked at nitrogen coming out of malt, and we're like, oh, that seems like a reasonable amount of nitrogen, so on and so on, just blending everything, all these amino acids together in that calculation.
Bobby Fleshman:I always had this idea after learning how esters were produced to get to a question that I'm sure Allison has On the paper next to me ester production involves the combination of these amino acids
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Stop.
Bobby Fleshman:What are esters?
Bobby Fleshman:What are esters?
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:So it esters are produced.
Bobby Fleshman:You can, you
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Fruit, fruity flavors.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Fruity flavors you get.
Bobby Fleshman:Bananas are esters.
Bobby Fleshman:Clove, Um.
Bobby Fleshman:Cloves are generally phenolic.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: trying to think of a, dark fruit.
Bobby Fleshman:yeah, a whole fruity spectrum, multi spectrum actually.
Bobby Fleshman:But,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Isn't bacon amazing because of esters?
Bobby Fleshman:bacon?
Bobby Fleshman:Bacon's amazing because of myard Yeah, you're getting off in the weeds.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: now our listeners are thinking about
Bobby Fleshman:yes, bacon.
Bobby Fleshman:So let's talk about bacon.
Bobby Fleshman:So, no, esters are produced from the, anyway, the esters are produced Ultimately, they are formed from amino acids and it's true that yeast can convert amino acids from one to the other.
Bobby Fleshman:And so for a long time, it seemed as though it didn't make any difference what kind of amino acid went into the product.
Bobby Fleshman:The yeast would make what it makes every time.
Bobby Fleshman:But I think we're learning now that the ester profile of the end product is, does matter and that
Bobby Fleshman:The source of your base mall maybe makes a difference.
Bobby Fleshman:So we've kind of been learning this from the outside in we've been learning about how hops.
Bobby Fleshman:And how even water play into beer.
Bobby Fleshman:We've learned obviously how some of these roasted malts affect the end product.
Bobby Fleshman:That's not subtle, but now we're kind of getting back to the basic ingredient of the base malt.
Bobby Fleshman:And I think that we're learning a lot and it's affecting how we make IPAs.
Bobby Fleshman:Now I'm hearing they're swapping out.
Bobby Fleshman:Some different base malts.
Bobby Fleshman:They're mixing base malts.
Bobby Fleshman:Now there's base malt recipes, you know, where you're now you're thinking of that as its own recipe onto which you layer these different spices.
Bobby Fleshman:So beer is fun that way.
Bobby Fleshman:I think that brewers get bored during the same thing, but they also to compete against the 10, 000 brewers out there, they got to find something that singles them out.
Bobby Fleshman:And I think playing with base malt is a good spot.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: So how does that link back to your inspiration?
Bobby Fleshman:Like, how are you inspired?
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, well, how am I inspired to make a beer, a recipe?
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: All of the above.
Bobby Fleshman:Okay it's a, it's true.
Bobby Fleshman:I, probably when I'm making a recipe, I always make these music analogies.
Bobby Fleshman:This is definitely songwriting.
Bobby Fleshman:When you, I, I think I'm looking for maybe a key.
Bobby Fleshman:I, I don't want to get too far here, but I don't care yet what instruments played on.
Bobby Fleshman:I don't care.
Bobby Fleshman:The details.
Bobby Fleshman:I know I'm going to use a pilsner malt and I know I'm going to use it at this percentage.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm not gonna ask myself where it's grown yet, right?
Bobby Fleshman:I'm gonna ask myself, what does the impact of that much Pilsner have on the end product?
Bobby Fleshman:won't make a good IPA from 1999 or right, because in 1999 those were a lot bolder maltier, but they might make a good one today.
Bobby Fleshman:So Pilsner might be a good choice for a pilsner for even an so, so yeah, I think that's an important first selection or first decision you got to make when building a recipe is what's my base malt and how much of it do I need?
Bobby Fleshman:And then the next thing that you ask yourself is what are the prominent malt flavors to put on top of that?
Bobby Fleshman:Do I want it to be nutty?
Bobby Fleshman:Do I want it to be roasty?
Bobby Fleshman:Do I want it to taste like caramel?
Bobby Fleshman:Do I want it?
Bobby Fleshman:These are the questions you ask yourself from the spice cabinet, and you pull those out of the shelf, add those in at a certain percentage, all in concept, all on paper, and then you ask yourself, okay, how do I best play those up?
Bobby Fleshman:And you can vary the ion levels of your water, and you can do, you want to look at ratios of ions, not just absolute.
Bobby Fleshman:you can then talk about pH, then you can move on and say, okay, now Time to add my hops and the hop industry is a whole other beast.
Bobby Fleshman:And there's so much to choose from now versus 20 years ago, a lot more attention has been paid to hops than has been paid to malt.
Bobby Fleshman:It's dizzying how much stuff is happening with that.
Bobby Fleshman:So then you, so then you combine all of these three basic ingredients.
Bobby Fleshman:And then the last one is yeast.
Bobby Fleshman:And you have to ask yourself, am I a home brewer?
Bobby Fleshman:Am I a professional brewer?
Bobby Fleshman:Because in that, the reason I say that is because a home brewer can pick a different yeast for every beer But a professional brewer can't spend a thousand dollars every single time they brew a batch of beer for a gigantic amount of yeast.
Bobby Fleshman:So you re use your yeast that you use for other beers in a professional setting, whereas you might spend 15 bucks on the home brew scale and it's not that big of a deal.
Bobby Fleshman:So then you have to ask yourself, is my house strain good enough or do I have to invest in that new strain this out, knock this out of the park?
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:I mean, that's really, really high level songwriting,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: I'm just going to let you talk.
Bobby Fleshman:That's cool.
Bobby Fleshman:want more detail or less?
Gary Arndt:I had a, I had a question.
Gary Arndt:Allison talked about you eating grain,
Bobby Fleshman:All right.
Bobby Fleshman:Back to my feral era.
Gary Arndt:In world of wine, there's all these documentaries I've seen about preparing for the sommelier test and they have to have this really well developed palate where they taste, you know,
Gary Arndt:Oh, it's nutty, fruity, it's chocolate bubble.
Gary Arndt:and they can, you know, give this profile of the wine.
Gary Arndt:You don't see that as much in the world of beer.
Gary Arndt:But clearly, there has to be some sort of
Gary Arndt:developed palate.
Gary Arndt:Did you develop your palate?
Gary Arndt:Was it a something that you purposefully
Gary Arndt:did that, you know, or was it something you've always had?
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, definitely had to work on it.
Bobby Fleshman:Still have to work on it.
Bobby Fleshman:It's exercising.
Bobby Fleshman:If you don't, if you don't exercise, all that you did before kind of goes by the wayside.
Bobby Fleshman:So.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, sensory panels and what we, we have this new method that was invented by Brees Malting Company.
Bobby Fleshman:It's called the hot steep method.
Bobby Fleshman:It's really simple.
Bobby Fleshman:You grind some grain up in a little coffee grinder, blend it with some hot water, separate that out, and taste that liquid.
Bobby Fleshman:There's a lot of steps there in the middle, but basically you're getting to taste, you're simulating, What might happen if it goes through the process of brewing and what might come out the other side?
Bobby Fleshman:There's just too many chemical reactions and I call bullshit a little bit on the wine world
Bobby Fleshman:Where they like taste this grape and they know exactly how it's going to turn out
Bobby Fleshman:There's too much.
Bobby Fleshman:There's too much chemistry from a to b You have to let the chemistry play out before you can know what the end result will be from a from an
Gary Arndt:I don't think they know what it's going to be.
Gary Arndt:I think these are more people tasting it
Bobby Fleshman:Oh end product.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Yeah, well, and then that it's we've had, So we have this little kit from the Siebel Institute, which is a professional.
Bobby Fleshman:brewer, institute.
Bobby Fleshman:running
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:If you want to go to beer school, there's only a few places that you'd go.
Bobby Fleshman:and Siebel is one of them.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway, you can get these sensory kits when you crack open a little vial, you mix it into a very clean beer.
Bobby Fleshman:We typically try and do either a state street light lager or, we do PBR all the time with it.
Bobby Fleshman:Generally
Bobby Fleshman:Doing off flavors in this context.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: We're doing off flavors but it's so you can learn what that tastes like.
Bobby Fleshman:Because if you say, oh, this is oxidized, it was like, well, what does oxidized actually taste like?
Bobby Fleshman:And then there's this, oh god, what's the phenolic?
Bobby Fleshman:Band Aid.
Bobby Fleshman:So there's these off flavors that will happen with certain instances.
Bobby Fleshman:So you'd get the skunk flavor if you let your beer be sunstruck, in particular the light beers.
Bobby Fleshman:And the, the skunk is, two trans,
Bobby Fleshman:3 methyl 2 butene 1
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: That one.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, MBT.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Anyway, and so, so you douse your beer
Bobby Fleshman:it is the skunk, skunk compound.
Bobby Fleshman:It's not one that's like it, it is it.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Yep.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway, so you taste that, and then you see whether, you can, when you taste it to get to know what that flavor, or that off flavor is, but then second, you taste it in varying concentration.
Bobby Fleshman:so you can understand your threshold.
Bobby Fleshman:So one of my absolute favorite compounds is called diacetyl, and it's the popcorn butter.
Bobby Fleshman:or movie popcorn butter.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, it's so good.
Bobby Fleshman:And English ales
Bobby Fleshman:don't, by the way, guys at home, don't, don't aim for this.
Bobby Fleshman:It's not
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Well, no, I can't taste it at all.
Bobby Fleshman:So if there's a lot of it.
Bobby Fleshman:I can finally taste it.
Bobby Fleshman:We, we talked a little bit on the last episode about Czech beers.
Bobby Fleshman:I should have mentioned that at somewhere and maybe it would have come up.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Diacetyl is amazing?
Bobby Fleshman:Diacetyl or it shows up in their beer on occasion.
Bobby Fleshman:It's just a regional preference.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Anyway but you are susceptible to the sulfur compounds.
Bobby Fleshman:Or no, you're susceptible to diacetyl, the butter component.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm susceptible to the sulfur I do not like sulfur at all.
Bobby Fleshman:I like a little
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: But I also have a very low tolerance for it.
Bobby Fleshman:So I can taste it very, very easily.
Bobby Fleshman:And you have trouble tasting But we've learned this from, back, Gary, back to your question.
Bobby Fleshman:We've learned this from doing systematic studies with these compounds to understand kind of what those flavors are.
Bobby Fleshman:And then there's also the American Brewers Association, is that right?
Bobby Fleshman:ABA has the, the flavor it's like a sheet
Bobby Fleshman:That explains kind of what flavors should be in different beers.
Bobby Fleshman:to kind of give you the vocabulary of matching what you're tasting to the words that you can use to describe it.
Bobby Fleshman:Because I find that that's something that a lot of folks have trouble with when they get into beer.
Bobby Fleshman:Or they're not a beer drinker and they want to try it.
Bobby Fleshman:But they're like, but I don't know what to say if I like it or not.
Bobby Fleshman:And I was like, okay, number one, taste is taste.
Bobby Fleshman:If you like it or you don't.
Bobby Fleshman:But in describing it, it's like, I don't know, does it taste like, band aid?
Bobby Fleshman:Does it taste like popsicle?
Bobby Fleshman:Who knows?
Bobby Fleshman:Not that those are flavors that you would want.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, and there's this in the Pacific Northwest every year.
Bobby Fleshman:There's a hop selection.
Bobby Fleshman:They harvest the hops and everybody that's anybody who's anybody gets to go there and hold the hops in their hands that will become the
Bobby Fleshman:inputs for their brew for the next year.
Bobby Fleshman:We're not anybody.
Bobby Fleshman:You have to be a big brewer for that to be something you get your hands on.
Bobby Fleshman:We could fly out and be part of that.
Bobby Fleshman:We get to hold our hands or hold this in our hands, but we don't get to.
Bobby Fleshman:Take those hops home with us.
Bobby Fleshman:Those get to go to the Sierra Nevadas and the Russian rivers and the big hoppy brewers out there.
Bobby Fleshman:but.
Bobby Fleshman:I'll take back a little bit about what I said, you not knowing how the raw ingredient ends up in the final product.
Bobby Fleshman:I think over time there probably is a mastery to understanding how things, it changed from here to there.
Bobby Fleshman:And those guys that get to do that enough and gals that get to do that every year and mess with these ingredients and see how they come out, they probably do have a sense of
Bobby Fleshman:One thing equals another that's not immediately obvious when you directly smell it and and taste it in the
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: So I have a question then.
Bobby Fleshman:You've woken me up a couple times in the middle of the night and you're like, oh my gosh, I have an idea.
Bobby Fleshman:Like, what, what sparks that?
Bobby Fleshman:I mean, obviously you know a crap ton more than you did.
Bobby Fleshman:I wrote
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: just eating grain.
Bobby Fleshman:I wrote three things here because building a recipe is about for me it's about connecting with history it's about the art, the expression and then it's about the technical aspects I can't answer which they're case by case, which one of those is driving a recipe is different and by what proportion is different, case by case.
Bobby Fleshman:So sometimes I'm like, ah, how do we do that?
Bobby Fleshman:It seems impossible.
Bobby Fleshman:There's so many technical hurdles and then I, then I grapple with that and I, and I invent a new tool and I go have to go weld it and I have to build it and try it, test, drive it, iterate on it, et cetera, until we get it right.
Next thing:I might just be interested in what an old world English IPA is and there isn't one.
Next thing:No, none of us have ever had one.
Next thing:You know, we, it's in books.
Next thing:We can maybe, but replicate, but remember, they there are 150 years removed from present day agriculture.
Next thing:So how do you reverse engineer and processes?
Next thing:How do you reverse engineer that?
Next thing:That would be my history I guess, blended with the art technical, but the history is driving my questions And then when you get to the arts side, that's, Something that's really hard to pin down where that comes from.
Next thing:But sometimes you just want to make something new and there's nothing or, or iterate on something that already exists.
Next thing:So I can't really answer that.
Next thing:I can only dance Yeah.
Next thing:It's like songwriting.
Next thing:I hope that that's, that that is what it is like.
Next thing:Cause I don't write songs, but it feels like that's what songwriting is.
Gary Arndt:You talked about history when you come up with ideas.
Gary Arndt:most of the beers you serve here, I would say are along the lines of traditional types of beers.
Gary Arndt:However, occasionally, you will see something with peach or raspberry or mango, or whatnot in it.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, that's my technical side coming out.
Gary Arndt:where
Bobby Fleshman:That's my
Gary Arndt:where, where, So what is the process of sticking a fruit in a beer?
Gary Arndt:me just, I'll just put it bluntly and let you go from there.
Bobby Fleshman:well, I don't want to oversimplify it because there are different kinds of fruited beers.
Bobby Fleshman:We make a Flanders.
Bobby Fleshman:Reds that are re fermented on black currants and we do peach lamb beaks that are re fermented on apricots and peach and so forth.
Bobby Fleshman:And so on.
Bobby Fleshman:These take years to make.
Bobby Fleshman:So that's a really, really complicated, not only production process, but blending process.
Bobby Fleshman:These are like wines.
Bobby Fleshman:They come out of oak barrels, and we got to pull from different ones and blend them to get the right acidity and flavor, blah, blah, blah.
Bobby Fleshman:And then we might touch them up at the very end with some fresh fruit, and that fresh fruit won't be re fermented.
Bobby Fleshman:It'll just be fresh fruit layered into a finished acidic beer.
Bobby Fleshman:Then, on the other side of that, you have what are known as, there are called, Quote, kettle sours that people make.
Bobby Fleshman:And we do a couple of those, you can immediately sour stuff, not in the course of six months, but in the course of a couple of days.
Bobby Fleshman:And then on top of that acidity, you layer fresh fruit and call it a day.
Bobby Fleshman:You won't even add, you won't even let any fermentation happen on the fruit itself.
Bobby Fleshman:You, you let it finish out, add fruit and then you package it.
Bobby Fleshman:The, the challenge with those, kinds of beers is, and I am just talking about sours.
Bobby Fleshman:You can also do it non sour beers, but the challenge with those kinds of beers is if you put fruit into a product, you are inviting re fermentation in the package.
Bobby Fleshman:And you see, you would have seen four or five years ago, cans exploding on the shelves at your grocery stores because they did just what I described and they didn't filter out the bacteria and the yeast that were metabolizing the sugars from the fruits and other, what they would do instead was just put a giant label on the can.
Bobby Fleshman:It says must keep refrigerated or will explode.
Bobby Fleshman:Well, no one's going to read that.
Bobby Fleshman:It's not going to happen.
Bobby Fleshman:Someone's gonna leave on their counter at home.
Bobby Fleshman:So we, we really had to grow up as an industry and we had to start thinking about how we do this
Bobby Fleshman:and, Our, our, approach is we almost never, there are very few exceptions.
Bobby Fleshman:We almost never put fruited beer, that kind of fruited beer into a small package.
Bobby Fleshman:It's never done that way.
Bobby Fleshman:And And we will put our beer into kegs and sell it out our front door because we can monitor that carbonation level.
Bobby Fleshman:But
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: This reminds me, didn't we have a peach beer explode in our
Bobby Fleshman:In our house 20 years ago, yeah, that was awesome.
Bobby Fleshman:So,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: I just walked back into the room.
Bobby Fleshman:I was like, I'm remembering that it was in the
Bobby Fleshman:Everyone who's ever home brewed has got a little adventurous, has, similar stories.
Bobby Fleshman:But to your, to your question, Gary, fruit goes in a number of different ways.
Bobby Fleshman:The most recent way though is you literally take a beer that's finished and they're, there are aseptic fruit providers, people that pasteurize fruit and it comes in very clean.
Bobby Fleshman:You can get it As an extract, you can get it as a concentrate
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Is this the stuff that comes in those bags that you unscrew and
Bobby Fleshman:can be.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, they come in all kinds of ways.
Gary Arndt:ways.
Gary Arndt:It's called a Capri-sun.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah,
Bobby Fleshman:yeah,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Poke a hole
Bobby Fleshman:yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Some of these concentrates are phenomenally expensive.
Bobby Fleshman:Like one later, one liter is
Bobby Fleshman:150.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Watermelon.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh
Bobby Fleshman:Yes, it's, it's, We made
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: a watermelon
Bobby Fleshman:have to do
Bobby Fleshman:Watermelon at that level because otherwise, you're making a beer that's literally half watermelon and that that's that's absurdity.
Bobby Fleshman:So you would let someone else remove the water.
Bobby Fleshman:It's funny to say, remove the water from the watermelon.
Bobby Fleshman:So we have just
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: But as a business owner, then you just, the fruit beers, you just see your margin disappear.
Bobby Fleshman:but then you, but then you have more beer to sell.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: there's,
Bobby Fleshman:There's a lot of conversations about how you manipulate and handle these fruits that have pulp.
Bobby Fleshman:When they're haven't been from concentrate.
Bobby Fleshman:There's nothing wrong with, with people get really weird about extract and concentrates and in modern times we're really, we, they are really good at removing what are called the essences of the fruits.
Bobby Fleshman:The 1st thing that volatilize off, they separate that off to the side and they recombine them with the concentrated product and they're, they're crazy good products these days.
Bobby Fleshman:And so I encourage people to rethink
Bobby Fleshman:what they thought 20 years ago about concentrates and extracts.
Gary Arndt:So, before you got here, asked Alison this question.
Gary Arndt:There's a lot of beers that you've had where you've had fruit flavors that you've added.
Gary Arndt:Are you familiar with the technique in the spirits industry called fat washing?
Bobby Fleshman:I don't think so.
Gary Arndt:So, this developed about, I want to say, within the last 20 to 30 years.
Gary Arndt:It started in New York where they basically infuse spirits with some sort of liquid fat.
Gary Arndt:Bacon grease, Sesame oil is a popular one.
Gary Arndt:Butter is another popular one.
Gary Arndt:You let it sit for several hours then you freeze it.
Gary Arndt:You take off all of the fat that accumulates at the top and what's left is infused with the flavor of that fat.
Gary Arndt:And it's become not common, but you'll, you will regularly see this at a lot of high end cocktail lounges.
Gary Arndt:where it's a way to add savory flavors to something as opposed to something fruity.
Gary Arndt:You're adding bacon.
Gary Arndt:or
Bobby Fleshman:yeah.
Gary Arndt:And I did a little bit of research on this, that there are some homebrewers that are doing it, but one, I don't know how you need to know more about this.
Gary Arndt:to me how you would do that with beer.
Gary Arndt:And it seems what they're doing is they're literally doing it with an alcohol, creating a low alcohol beer, and then adding it to it to bring the a BV
Bobby Fleshman:That sounds
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: My first thought was bacon gurdy.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Well,
Bobby Fleshman:I, would say you don't want fat near beer in any way, shape or form.
Gary Arndt:Not the fat, you're removing
Bobby Fleshman:You know, I understand.
Bobby Fleshman:So if you're, if you're, if you are removing all of the fat before the tincture that's being created as being added into the beer, then that's one
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: You'd kill your foam.
Bobby Fleshman:You would kill your foam.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:If you added any foam or any fat whatsoever, the lipids break down in
Gary Arndt:Yes, but bacon,
Bobby Fleshman:I
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: If you can get
Gary Arndt:anything you can come up with, my argument would be bacon.
Bobby Fleshman:But, the essence is
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: the essence is there, so the fats removed, so it's just the molecules that are not fat like that are
Bobby Fleshman:just light.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh,
Gary Arndt:Oh, and I, I, it's easy for me to throw this out.
Gary Arndt:I understand the chemistry involved in making something like this possible could be difficult or
Gary Arndt:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Oh, but it starts with conversations like these.
Gary Arndt:Oh, the butter beer is interesting.
Bobby Fleshman:No, I, I, I'm into the bacon idea and it's doable and we've done bacon beers before.
Bobby Fleshman:We, we've done it.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Well, that was a tincture.
Bobby Fleshman:We threw the bacon into vodka.
Bobby Fleshman:and then we poured
Bobby Fleshman:I didn't freeze it out though.
Bobby Fleshman:That's something that I haven't thought about.
Bobby Fleshman:How in the hell do you freeze vodka
Gary Arndt:Cold
Gary Arndt:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Very, carefully.
Gary Arndt:I think you may need to just bring it to a temperature where the
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, right.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: That makes sense.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Okay.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: You know, you can also probably centrifuge it too.
Bobby Fleshman:Well, there we go.
Bobby Fleshman:Now we're talking.
Bobby Fleshman:This is getting expensive.
Bobby Fleshman:I like it though.
Gary Arndt:it though.
Gary Arndt:Are there any other flavors that you can add to beers?
Gary Arndt:like is pine or nuts or things like that?
Bobby Fleshman:And I miss it every year.
Bobby Fleshman:The, the, the spruce tips.
Bobby Fleshman:year when they're right
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: the
Bobby Fleshman:soft, but
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Alex goes and finds him and smashes him in the back.
Bobby Fleshman:No the, Oh gosh, I'm losing the the grotzer.
Bobby Fleshman:Grazer is salty,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: It's like a grotzer
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, I'm sorry.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm thinking of, that's
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: there's, there's the, There's the goza that we make.
Bobby Fleshman:There's the, there's
Bobby Fleshman:the goza, the goose And the grotzer.
Bobby Fleshman:and the
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Which one's the ham and cheese
Bobby Fleshman:That's what I'm getting at.
Bobby Fleshman:The grazer, so what I think there's, Oats that are burned.
Bobby Fleshman:And The smoke from the oats, or rather they're smoked, the smoke from the oats are used to flavor the wheat that's used to make the
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: grass.
Bobby Fleshman:I
Bobby Fleshman:I think
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Cause this is a savory beer.
Bobby Fleshman:It basically tastes like a ham and cheese sandwich.
Bobby Fleshman:Taste because of that smoke and your mind automatically goes there
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: And it's salty.
Bobby Fleshman:And it's.
Bobby Fleshman:yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:it's, a it's very strange.
Bobby Fleshman:And it does have some sweetness because malt does have underlying sweetness.
Bobby Fleshman:So your mind takes it to the next level and it tastes ham and
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: haven't had a Grazer in years, but
Bobby Fleshman:Polish.
Bobby Fleshman:It's a very popular Polish beer.
Gary Arndt:Alright then that'll wrap up this episode.
Gary Arndt:Make sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player so you'll never miss an episode.
Gary Arndt:And feel free to join the Facebook group to get updates between the episodes and to support the show over on Patreon.
Gary Arndt:Links to both of these can be found in the show notes.
Gary Arndt:And until next time, please remember to respect the beer.
