Jamil Zainasheff of Heretic Brewing - Part 1

Speaker: 00:00:05

McFleshman's: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.

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My name is Gary Arndt With me as usual, is the man who is currently working on a way to put a fruit roll up in an IPA Mr. Bobby Fleshman.

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Welcome back to the show.

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Rock and Roll.

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I'll put that down and back on the show.

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The man who was extremely disappointed when he went into ihop, Mr.

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Joel Hermansen.

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Why was that?

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Why?

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Because you were expecting hops.

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True.

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Right?

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Fair enough.

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And I don't like pancakes, so that totally works.

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We got a great guest this week.

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He is one of the biggest names in the home brewing movement.

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He's an award-winning home brewer.

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He's an author.

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He's a professional brewer.

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He's the founder of the Heretic Brewing Company in Fairfield, California.

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But most importantly, he is a podcaster just like us, and you can hear him on The Brew Strong Podcast.

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Mr. Jammal Za.

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Jamel Zaa.

Speaker: 00:00:59

Chef, welcome to the show.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:02

Uh, thanks for having me.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:04

McFleshman's: Why don't we get started with, we, we've talked to a lot of brewers on the show, people with who, who got their start doing, uh, craft brewing, and they all kind of have a similar story in that they started doing home brewing.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:18

How did you get started in it and, and, and what, what was the impetus behind brewing your own beer?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:25

Uh, my neighbor, Steve, he reached over the fence one day and handed me a beer and said, oh, you gotta try this.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:32

And it was the best beer I, I had ever tasted to that point.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:37

And, uh, I'm like, Steve, this is fantastic.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:40

Where do I, where do I buy this?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:41

What, you know, what's it called?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:43

He goes, you can't buy it.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:45

'cause I made it myself.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:47

And I was pretty blown away.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:49

Told my wife about it and I said, well, Steve just handed me this great beer that he brewed himself.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:01:54

And so for, for Christmas, she got me a Mr. Beer kit, and I started with that and, uh, turned out terrible.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:01

Not you, not necessarily the fault of the Mr. Beer people, but, uh, just my lack of knowledge and that's something I can't stand.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:10

So I began to research and learn and practice and all that.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:14

And that's, that's how I got started.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:17

McFleshman's: Jamil, do you have a science background at all, or is, was this just purely a passion play?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:26

Uh, I did study some, uh, biochem at uc Davis.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:32

But I didn't, uh, I didn't study fermentation science at uc Davis.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:38

McFleshman's: You know, I'm, uh, I'm actually sitting with a uc Davis grad right now.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:44

Well, yeah, I, I did the Master Brewers program there with Charlie and, and Michael Lewis, uh, 2013.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:52

And I dunno if you, you can hear, you can hear me there yet, you took your headphones off.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:56

Still good?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:56

Yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:57

Uh, yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:02:59

So before that though, before I got into brewing school, I got into home brewing and there was this network called the Brewing Network that I discovered in 2007.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:03:10

I was living in Boulder, Colorado, and if I'm not mistaken, that was like the second year of the brewing network.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:03:16

And I'm not sure when you joined that group of people, but, uh, you produced a shit ton of audio for me and a lot of other brewers.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:03:29

And then you wrote.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:03:30

A few books on it.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:03:31

Yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:03:32

Yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:03:33

Yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:03:33

We, we started the whole thing started in like, yeah, 2005 or 2006.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:03:38

And, uh, I remember my, my, my good friend John ese, he and, uh, and Justin were, you know, starting it together in Justin's garage and.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:03:52

John Just, he, he kept begging me.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:03:54

He's like, just come down and, and do a show with us.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:03:57

Come down and do a show, you know, you'll enjoy it.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:04:00

And I'm like, all alright, you know, for you, I'll do it.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:04:04

Went down and, uh, really enjoyed the experience.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:04:08

And then after a couple of times of doing it, uh, Justin was asking about, you know, other shows and things like that and, uh, Jonathan and I came up with the idea of doing, uh, uh, this what we called Brewing with Style, but Justin refused that name, called it Jamele Show.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:04:31

So we did that and then, uh, yeah, ever since then I've been doing a show or two shows.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:04:38

Sometimes I, I think we even did a weekly show for a while there since then.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:04:44

So that's almost two decades.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:04:48

McFleshman's: And you were doing that as you were writing classic styles during classic styles, or was that, uh, after,

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:04:54

Uh, yeah, I think, uh, I wrote bring classic styles.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:00

Just about, uh, just about that time.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:04

I think, I

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:05

McFleshman's: because I know you're going through all of those styles as you went, so

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:08

yeah, I, I think I must have, uh, I don't, I don't, I, I'm not sure of the timing, which, but, uh, bring classic styles I think came out shortly thereafter.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:19

Maybe 2006, 2007.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:21

I'm not sure

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:23

McFleshman's: And for all the home brewers out there, they'll, they'll know that that's the cheat code.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:28

The brewing classic styles book is how you meddle.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:31

I mean, if you do all the, if you don't make any, if you don't fuck it up, that's how you metal Jamel was, uh, you were, you were very analytical and you're very artistic and you're very influential.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:43

You, you never said no all those years and, and offering up what you knew.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:49

And a lot of people owe the, their home brew metals and their breweries to what you did.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:53

I think in, in large part.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:56

well that's,

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:05:57

McFleshman's: We'll get to that Mount Rushmore question later, I promise you.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:06:00

So, Jamel, I, I have to ask you this 'cause I home brewed for quite a long time and.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:06:08

I felt like I got to the point where I would've been happy to hand my beer over the fence like your neighbor did.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:06:15

Mm-hmm.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:06:16

McFleshman's: But you have a home brew legacy that is, it's, it's unprecedented.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:06:24

I mean, I I've reading kind of your your background.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:06:28

It's, it's stunning.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:06:30

You've taken medals in the finals of the National Home Brew Competition every year since 2002.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:06:38

You've brewed beers in every style.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:06:42

How, how did you develop such a fluency, such a proficiency?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:06:47

Because for home brewers like myself who struggled to be able to produce kind of a, you know, and I, I very not surprising to our listeners, but when I brewed.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:00

I stayed in one to one to two styles.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:03

I reading That is almost intimidating.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:06

Can you, can you speak to that a little bit?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:08

And, and before you start, uh, make sure everyone understands that's the premise to brewing.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:12

Classic, classic styles.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:14

Uh, it was like the subtitle, right?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:16

It was that they had won medals.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:18

You had won medals in every one of those categories, if I'm not mistaken.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:22

Yeah, it was, uh, I got, I got a first place in every, every style every individual style.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:32

And, uh, and my, I was like, all right, I need a first place in every first.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:37

I was like, well, I get a medal in every style.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:39

And then I was like, well, let's make it a first place in every style, and it has to be a, it has to be competition, minimum, a hundred entries, none of these really small competitions.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:51

McFleshman's: Yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:51

And then, uh, and I did that.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:54

I'm like, okay, best of show in every style.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:58

McFleshman's: Oh

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:07:58

started on that.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:00

McFleshman's: So, but how does one develop that level of fluency?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:04

Because you don't just will it, it's, yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:07

Right.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:07

I, I mean, you can say you wanna do that, but there's, there's something, there's a genius behind that.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:14

Also take, I wanna see your metal closet.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:17

uh,

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:18

McFleshman's: Yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:19

thing.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:20

Yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:22

P yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:22

Somebody's asking me the other day, they're like, you know, how many awards did you win?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:26

Are we talking like over a hundred?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:29

I'm like, I know it's more like over a thousand.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:32

McFleshman's: Jesus.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:33

and they're all, I did not throw them away, but they're in boxes.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:40

McFleshman's: there a, like a heavy box of those somewhere in, in the room that you're sitting?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:44

like, there's like a bunch of boxes in the garage.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:47

Some of them I really appreciate the, the awards, you know,

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:51

McFleshman's: How does one achieve that level of fluency and

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:08:55

I, I, I'm, I'm not sure, I, I think part of it's kind of like an OCD thing where it's like, you know, I have to complete this thing.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:05

And

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:06

McFleshman's: But, uh, if I could interrupt for a second, like if I said, and Bobby, you know, my brewing better than anybody.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:13

If I said, Bobby, I'm gonna brew a stout.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:18

That stout would've been terrible.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:19

And, you know, it would've been terrible.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:21

And, and I'm, I was fine at brewing.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:25

But how, how do you develop that kaleidoscope of styles where you can nail an IMPA?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:33

You can, you know, nail A, a, a, uh, doppel, B you can nail whatever, whatever it is you wanted to do, you were doing.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:41

It's, it's amazing.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:42

well, it, it was a lot of hard work.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:45

I mean, it, it took me quite a while to.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:49

To amass all of those.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:09:50

And so when I first started out, I, uh, you know, I was like, okay, you know, I should, if I wanna learn more about beer and beer styles, I got, uh, a copy of the BJCP style guide, uh, back then.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:10:11

And I read through it and it, it listed, you know, beers that, you know, were representative of the style.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:10:18

So I went out and found those.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:10:19

And, uh, at first it just started out, you know, what am I gonna brew?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:10:25

And once I, you know, brewed one, I was like, okay, I wanna brew something else.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:10:29

I wanna try a few different things.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:10:30

And so eventually I just went through the entire style guide and I just, I bought commercial examples.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:10:39

I, I, I sought out home brewed examples.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:10:43

I, uh, you know, read everything I could on, you know, those styles, you know, when and where I could find it back then, and then, uh, just brewed many times to, you know, uh, just to, to figure out what, and one of the things that I mentioned in the, in that Book Brewing Classic Styles, is that the process of, you know, learning about all these styles, perfecting all these styles, brewing all these beers, really gives you a great insight into what the ingredients will do.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:11:26

And, uh, the process became easier and easier for me as I went along because I had learned a lot of the things.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:11:32

I mean, you know, the true difference between, let's say, a dry stout and, you know, a West coast IPA, a lot of it's just the ingredients.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:11:44

There's not a whole lot of complexity in there, you know, or, you know, it's, it's, uh, you know, different ingredients in a, you know, slightly different process.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:11:56

But overall you know, it's, it's more about.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:12:02

You know, your brewing skills, I think at that point, and, you know, the more I did it, the better I got, and then it just became easier and easier for me to, you know, come up with new ones based off of, you know, the, just the description and you know, the BJCB style guide now was, was it perfect?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:12:23

Here's, here's, here's a good story and it, it gets to me all the time.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:12:29

So there's at the time I had not tasted any Schwartz beers and I couldn't find any available for sale anywhere.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:12:39

None of the craft beer places were making 'em, no.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:12:42

Home brewers were brewing 'em.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:12:44

You couldn't find it in the, in the, the store.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:12:48

And, uh, but you know, it was on my list of, you know, I was trying to knock them all out and I got to Schwartz beer and I'm like, so based on the description in the B-H-A-C-P style guide, I came up with a recipe and then entered it, got first place.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:06

I'm like, okay.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:07

So I guess that's close.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:10

When I finally had access to it, you know, commercial examples in, you know, Germany.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:17

I'm like, huh, this is different.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:20

And some, some people told me they go like, uh, like Dave SAPPs, I think he goes, it's, it's a little too roasty for, uh, Schwarz beer.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:29

And, uh, I have to grieve a hundred percent.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:33

It's kind of like an Americanized Schwarz beer, little more roasty, little bigger, a little fuller, all that stuff.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:40

Well.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:41

Uh, friend of mine, he, you know, won a, a medal at GABF for a Schwartz beer.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:47

And, uh, and I told him, he's like, you know, what do you think?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:51

I'm like, that's good beer.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:53

It's not a good Schwartz beer.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:13:56

I said, I have myself to blame for this because, you know, uh, regardless of, uh, I, I did a article for BYO on short or, you know, pretty much most every style.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:14:14

And I explained there where it went wrong.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:14:17

But by the, by today, like you were saying, everybody's brewing those recipes.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:14:23

And that became like a defacto, this is what a Schwartz beer tastes like.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:14:29

And it's too roasty, it's too full.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:14:32

You know, it's not a, a great Schwartz beer.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:14:36

It's a slightly different style.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:14:38

So I, I, I feel bad about that, but

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:14:43

McFleshman's: Well, it, what's funny is if, if you go type Jamil on a Google search, it will automatically fill that in with like English, bitter recipe, English border, you know, German, whatever.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:14:55

It, it just because everybody's looking for those recipes you made, they, they know that when they need to recenter, at the very least they go back to the source.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:04

And that's where that stuff came from in the United States.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:07

Yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:08

And

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:08

online, but people have, have tweaked them or changed 'em.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:11

They didn't have this ingredient or that ingredient, so they used something else and then it became.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:17

McFleshman's: yep.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:18

Somebody, it's, it's like that game of, uh, telephone where, you know, it goes through four or five people.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:25

And then I had somebody go say, is this your, your recipe for such and such?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:30

I'm like, no, not in a million years.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:32

I go, well, it's posted on the internet as such.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:35

McFleshman's: Oh God.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:36

Okay.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:36

McFleshman's: just a, a quick note for the audience.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:39

BJCP is beer Jud Certification program.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:45

Right.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:45

And, and they're just one group that makes the, the de the, the rules as to what it makes every style.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:51

I know the Bruise Association does that as well,

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:15:54

yeah, they have their own, they have their own in, in, uh, you know, the, the British version of the BJCP, every, you know, and the style guide, you know.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:16:06

People would say, well, I don't wanna be told, you know what to brew.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:16:10

It's like, well, you're not being told what to brew.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:16:13

It's just, you know, styles are more of a shorthand for discussing things.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:16:19

Like earlier when I said, you know, dry Stout or an IPA, I didn't have to explain to you that, you know, IPA has, you know, more hop character to it, and a dry stout is, you know, darker and, you know, roasty and things like that.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:16:35

We just automatically understood that based off of, you know, simple things.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:16:40

Now I can say, you know, it's, it's like a dry stout except, you know, much bigger and you know, slightly sweeter, you know.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:16:50

You'd understand, you know, we're, we're coming from a, a common point of reference, which is that's the great value of the style guides.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:16:58

I don't think we should be restricting anybody to bring anything, but if you want to, uh, you know, compare 'em in a competition or something like that, you need some sort of, you know, guide rails, I think.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:17:13

McFleshman's: And I think that as a, as a pro brewer, it is challenging to enter competitions, not because it's challenging to win medals, although it is, it's because you have to maintain your, your, your brand somewhere, and you, you don't want to become the same thing brew in another town.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:17:29

At least that's my philosophy.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:17:31

So you have to find your way around that.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:17:33

I think as a pro brewer, I think as a home brewer when I was doing that, uh, it was, it was maybe about the technicality of how we make these styles, the way that they're, that they're designed or way that they're described.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:17:48

But yeah, as we go along, I don't think everybody should be trying to brew the same beer as a pro brewer at the end of the day.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:17:53

Right.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:17:53

And you know what, you know where the, where the spirit takes you and what'll sell best.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:17:59

You know,

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:17:59

McFleshman's: Mm-hmm.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:00

Mm-hmm.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:01

you, you need, you need to brew things that, that sell really well.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:05

And then that allows you, you know, it's, it's like a lot of, you know, artists or, you know, actors or whatever.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:12

You have to do the thing, the commercial stuff in order to do your indie film.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:17

You know, you, you, that doesn't make any money at all, but you do it because you love it.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:23

And, uh, so, you know, that's, that's kind of how I addressed it or.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:28

McFleshman's: My wife's a university professor down the road here, and she says that she gets paid to grade.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:34

She doesn't get paid for any of the other hours, and, and she, she said it's something like $350 an hour now that she's getting paid to, to grade papers because all that other stuff is just, is what she wants to do.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:46

What, as a teacher, I totally agree with her.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:48

I've, I've borrowed that quote many times.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:51

Exactly.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:52

Of all the styles you've brewed, what has been the most challenging?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:18:56

Was there one that you just like, took a long time to really get right that, that you just couldn't nail in the first try?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:19:06

I, I think probably the most challenging is, is gotta be, you know, kind of the lambic or pseudo lambic, uh, you know, collection of styles.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:19:17

'cause you're, you're working with so many organisms and if you don't provide exactly the right substrate and conditions, that can be quite tricky.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:19:30

That takes in.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:19:33

If you are, you know, doing 1, 2, 3, you know, five year aged, you know, product, it takes a long time to, you know, get your final feedback on it, right?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:19:49

So you're in it at least a year.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:19:51

And then you can figure out, you know, did it really work out perfectly or not?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:19:57

And so, you know, every time you try, you've got another year to wait.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:20:02

McFleshman's: In your brewing catalog, what has been your what, like what's your favorite beer?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:20:11

When you point to your, your kind of an aha moment where you feel like, oh my gosh, I can really do this and I can do this At a high level, do you have a beer that maybe fit that category that was a beer that you just nailed and you knew you nailed it?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:20:29

I don't know.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:20:29

There was a couple of beers that really stood out to me as a home brewer when I, when I brewed them.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:20:36

You know, uh, there were, there were a couple of beers.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:20:40

You know, the BJCP works on a 50 point scale and there were a few beers that I got.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:20:46

They judges just don't give out fifties.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:20:50

I don't understand why, you know, if, if you have no way, no feedback, positive, uh, any sort of, you know, criticism that needs to be fixed, well then it was probably a perfect beer.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:03

You

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:04

McFleshman's: I've heard your rant on this a number of times.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:06

I, I tend to agree.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:07

yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:08

But I got fifties for uh, Flanders Red, which I, I thought it was, it was quite amazing and and tricky to make.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:17

And then also uh, doppel b

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:23

from, uh, some judges that I really ex really respect.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:28

maybe, maybe those, I mean, I was like, you know, once you get a 50, you're like, okay, it's, I was able to brew it so well that they could not refuse that it was brewed.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:41

They, they could not score it any higher.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:43

So it makes you, you know, kind of gives you that feeling.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:46

It was, the whole reason I, I entered competitions to start with was, I remember I had brewed this beer, uh, uh, chocolate hazelnut porter,

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:58

McFleshman's: I was gonna bring that one up.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:21:59

That was my next note.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:00

and that was, uh, that was, uh, you know, first beer.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:06

I, I thought, oh, this is good.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:09

This is, this is actually really good.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:11

And I took it down to the home brew shop and let people taste it.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:15

And, uh, home brew shop owner, or that was like, nah, you know, it's okay.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:24

You got a long way to go.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:26

I'm like, really?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:27

I, I thought this was pretty good.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:29

And other people are like, yeah, it's, it's good.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:31

And then I realized, well, all your friends will tell you something's good.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:35

You know, everybody else will, you know.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:40

Even a stranger, it's hard to get them to tell you honestly when you're excited about something, whether it was, you know, well brewed or not.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:49

And so, uh, they're like, well, if you think it's, you know, well brewed, you should enter it in a competition.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:22:55

Here's this competition, the Maltose Falcons competition.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:23:00

You know, you can send it in now and, you know, we'll, we'll see, you know, whether you, whether it's a good beer or not.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:23:07

And so I sent it in, I think I got third place and I was like, that was cool.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:23:15

But what I really found interesting was the uh, score sheets that I got back, because here's three people that anonymously, you know, you know, no knowledge of who sent the beer in.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:23:30

And, uh, they gave me nice detailed notes of what they tasted and, you know, what they expected and you know, where they thought I went wrong.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:23:42

And I was like, this is fantastic.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:23:45

This is like a cheat code.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:23:47

can brew things, I can get somebody anonymously, tell me what they think and then I can use that to improve with the beer.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:23:53

I said, I told myself, and I'm like, I'm gonna brew this again.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:23:57

I'm gonna brew this until, you know, I can, you know, get first place.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:24:02

And so, uh, I did, I think I think the next year I entered it and I got first place.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:24:11

I'm like, see, this works.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:24:13

This is, and same competition maltose falcons.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:24:16

So I'm like, this is, this is the way to improve and perfect your brewing.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:24:22

And so, and I think the.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:24:24

The very first best of show I got was for the Chocolate Hills Nut Porter, and I think it was, I think it was at the Maltose Falcons again.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:24:38

So, uh, I thought that was pretty cool.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:24:41

And I never really cared about any of the awards and stuff.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:24:46

I just wanted to improve my brewing.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:24:49

And so I, I found it very fascinating and valuable, just like doing the podcast, uh, especially the Brew Strong podcast because one of the things we do is answer a lot of questions, you know, q and a questions, we answer a ton of them, and people ask all sorts of questions.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:25:12

And so you gotta do some research.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:25:14

You've got to, you know.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:25:17

Do some experimentation.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:25:18

We've learned a lot over the decades of doing that, Joe, so I appreciate that too.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:25:24

McFleshman's: Jamil.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:25:25

I, I have wondered often when we have an opportunity, and we've had several to talk to home brewers who had the courage to make that jump in, you know, into the professional brewing realm.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:25:44

What, what led them to do that?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:25:47

What, what inspired them to have the confidence to do that?

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:25:50

Because I, I mean, I remember brewing in, in having people buy, and I mean, after the third beer, they would tell me that, you know, this was the greatest beer that they've ever had.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:26:02

And, you know, o obviously that's, that's

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:26:04

should open a brewery and, yeah.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:26:06

McFleshman's: Right.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:26:07

You should, you absolutely should open a brewery.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:26:10

What, and, and Bobby, I, I, I'm interested in your take on this too.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:26:14

What, what was the moment that both of you said, okay.

Jamil Zainasheff: 00:26:19

I'm, I'm ready to move from accomplished home brewer to owning my own

David Kalsow: 00:26:27

And that's gonna wrap up this episode of Respecting the Beer.

David Kalsow: 00:26:30

Come back next week as we continue our conversation with Jamil as we ask the question, how we went from home brewer to a commercial brewer.

David Kalsow: 00:26:38

Be sure to join the Facebook group to stay connected between episodes and you can support the show over on Patreon, where as little as $4 a month gets you uncut episodes,

David Kalsow: 00:26:47

access to exclusive beer and a full hour long video tour of the brewery.

David Kalsow: 00:26:52

But until next time, please remember to respect the beer.