From Maine, With Love - An Allagash Brewing Podcast

S1 Episode 1: One Million Pounds of Maine-Grown Grain

April 06, 2022 Season 1 Episode 1
From Maine, With Love - An Allagash Brewing Podcast
S1 Episode 1: One Million Pounds of Maine-Grown Grain
Show Notes Transcript

We talk with our Brewmaster, Jason Perkins, and Senior Brewer, Branch Rothschild (until his wifi cuts out halfway through), about our pledge to brew with one million pounds of Maine-grown grain, per year, by 2021. Fun times were had talking about local grain, building beer recipes, and heading up to “the county” (Aroostook County, Maine).


Brett Willis:

This is From Maine, With Love, an Allagash Brewing podcast, where we talk about beer, our community here in Maine and things that generally make us happy. I am lucky enough to be joined here by Liz Wilson, our marketing manager.

Liz Wilson:

Hello. Hello, great to be here.

Brett Willis:

Jason Perkins, our brewmaster.

Jason Perkins:

hello.

Brett Willis:

And branch Rothschild, our senior brewer who unfortunately halfway through had technical difficulties. So when he disappears, you'll know why. And I'm Brett. I work on the marketing team here at Allagash. Good to have everyone. Thank you for the taking the time. So, uh, we are technically here to talk about, uh, the fact that in 2016, we made a pledge that by 2021, we'd be brewing with 1 million pounds of Maine-grown and processed grain per year. But before we get into that, uh, I just wanna chat a little bit and a question I will start with Jason. What outside of brewing have, uh, you been doing or has been exciting You recently?

Jason Perkins:

Good question. Good question, Brett. You just started me off with a, with a unexpected question.

Brett Willis:

Um, let's throw it out there,

Jason Perkins:

You know, um, I just, I I've got two teenage kids and, and that keeps me pretty darn busy. Um, my, oldest just got their driver's license, so that, that actually is gonna make my life a little more stressed, but also less busy cuz it's less taxi driving around. But, um, yeah, I've just enjoying, uh, I got a backyard rink that I have spends a fair bit of, uh, of my time to maintain fair bit of, for not a ton of use, but you know,<laugh>, it's a, it's a labor of love,

Brett Willis:

The most important question Branch. Have you, uh, cooked anything interesting in the break room recently?

Branch Rothschild:

Uh, I haven't done anything too interesting. I think the closest I came to interesting was making some nachos in the, uh, toaster oven, the leftover taco.

Brett Willis:

That's pretty good. Was the most extravagant one when you like spit roasted a chicken for like the entire day?

Branch Rothschild:

Uh, I think it was either the Cornish game hens or one of those days my cousin came by with a fish. He just caught, which I cooked in the toaster

Liz Wilson:

<laugh> in the toaster.

Branch Rothschild:

Yeah. Like with almonds and it was pretty good

Jason Perkins:

Just to be clear, toaster oven, toaster oven, not like not like bread slice toaster. That would be something

Liz Wilson:

I was like, okay. That is inventive. Toaster oven checks out.

Brett Willis:

All right. So I think to get into our Maine-grown grain pledge, um, I think just kind of setting the, a basis of just kind of like, I don't think we have to get too in depth on this, but I feel like maybe a question for you, Jason, like how would you explain kind of, what is the importance of grain to brewing? Like how does that kind of factor in?

Jason Perkins:

Oh man. I mean, I mean grain is, uh, you know, by weight, the largest, uh, ingredient in beer, I suppose you could say water, but, uh, it is, um, you know, it's component huge component of, of what makes up a recipe, right? You know, it's also kind of the foundation, the backbone of beer, you know, it certainly carries plenty of flavor and, um, and plenty of nuance depending on what types of grains you select. But no matter what, even if you're using just a simple malted barley as your base, like it is still the foundation it is with without grain, without malted barley, without, you know, these small grains, there is no beer, so that's probably the simplest way to say it.

Brett Willis:

So I guess, yeah. So to get into it, then can you just kind of give us some background on, like, how did the pledge come about? Like, what was the process of that coming up through our brewery.

Jason Perkins:

Yeah. You know, it it's really was organic to, to use that term in that it just kind of slowly built over time. You know, we made the pledge in like, I guess 2016, and I guess you could say is when we kind of first made the announcement to the Allagash staff, but before that, um, you know, just having conversations around sourcing local ingredients, I mean, we have been sourcing local ingredients for a long time. It was predominantly fruit for a long time. Um, because it was either, we didn't know it existed or it was unable to be sourced at a, at a high rate. It was hard to get grain and hops the more common ingredients, uh, in beer. But over time we started to realize that there was a small grain community in the state that had been here for a very long time growing stuff like barley oats and wheat, um, not for beer, uh, but for other, either for feed, um, for, for cattle. You know, know a very common cover crop for potatoes in Northern Maine is barley, um, and then for the baking community on a small scale. Um, so there were small grains being grown in the state. They just weren't really being used for beer. And, you know, beer making is one of like, I just mentioned using grain, we need a lot of it. So we started to kind of recognize an opportunity to source more local ingredients, which, you know, so it's great for sustainability for, you know, shorter transit times, great for supporting our local community, et cetera. Um, and then just started having some conversations with people in the grain community, which isn't really not a lot of people, pretty small community of people and started meeting some farmers and it kind of built. Um, so in 2016 we were using about 60,000 pounds we used in that entire year. Um, so we, we were using a decent amount, just nowhere near what we ended up pledging, um, conversations with, with staff conversations with Rob, uh, you know, the owner here at Allagash. And, you know, luckily we're in a position where Rob really supports this kind of thing. And really in the end, the pledge commitment came from him. I mean, it kind of had to as, as the leader of this company and the owner of the company, but in the end through those conversations, it was a little bit like I wouldn't necessarily call it like a singular moment in time where it turned. But in, in a fairly short period of time, it went from this idea to this, let's do it, like screw it, let's go for it kind of thing.

Liz Wilson:

It's super interesting to hear and you know, I wasn't at Allagash when you, um, made the pledge, but I've been really excited to see it come to fruition this past year and celebrate it, I guess, when you made the pledge, how daunting was it at the time and what sort of like, how did those first conversations go with Rob and employees and what did we have in place to be able to make those commitments and like, what did we know we needed to do, uh, to achieve our goals?

Jason Perkins:

Well, I mean, the funny thing about a commitment like that is it forces you to figure it out, right? Like I wouldn't say we had a plan. It was like, can we do this? I don't know.<laugh>, um, it's a kind of a, it was a pretty, you know, bold thing to say because we didn't, we didn't have it built into our kind of financial model to spend more money on local grain. The farmers themselves didn't exactly have, you know, um, you know, the seed purchased to grow that much. The field houses designated the storage, um, to store the grain, once it's harvested, the capacity to malt the grain, et cetera. So it was a little bit like let's just make this commitment and then we'll figure out how to get there. Right? Like you, you figure out where you're going and then you figure out how to get, get there. Um, yeah. And that was the, that was the beauty of the five-year pledge. So it was a, it wasn't a, let's use a million pounds next year, or even let's use half a million pounds next year. It was, let's do it by 2021 and we'll grow the use over those five years, giving us to, to build it, to figure out how to do it financially, to figure out how to incorporate it into our recipes and to give the farmers and maltsters time to plan for as well.

Liz Wilson:

Yeah. I think that's a great, um, sort of segue into like, how did those first conversations with the farmers go? Because I, you know, I think as you kind of mentioned before there wasn't a ton of, um, you know, that for beer purposes happening in the state at the time. So what were those like initial conversations,

Jason Perkins:

Just a ton of excitement, um, from, from them honestly. Um, and you know, more questions of course, like I know 20, 21, but that's five years from now, how much next year, uh, you know, more immediate kind of the questions like that, which is certainly valid, but tons of excitement for sure. Um, you know, we, we, with, um, a variety of, we, we deal with a couple like farmer processors, so people who farm it and malt it or clean it. And then we also deal with people who buy the grain and pull it from the fields and malt it themselves. And then another, another supplier in Maine Grains who gets it from who buys a whole bunch of different grains. So a bunch of different scenarios. And so each of their questions and, um, details were a little different, of course.

Brett Willis:

In talking to the farmers, I guess, can you explain the reasoning why we chose to say, Hey, we're gonna choose a specific number 1 million pounds by 2021. Like how, what was the purpose of, uh, making it a specific sum,

Jason Perkins:

Yeah, for sure. That was a very conscious decision to pick a hard number. It wasn't what we originally thought originally. We were like, let's go with a percent let's target. A percent of our total grain use is gonna be grown here in the state of Maine. But once we started thinking about that, there was a couple things came to mind. One, it didn't strike us as a, as a particularly bold prediction. It wasn't as exciting to have a percent. Um, so that was a piece. But honestly, the bigger piece was the farmers don't care about a percent. The maltsters don't care about a percent. They want numbers, right. They need to know how much seed to buy. They need to know how much, you know, acreage to potentially lease, to grow the grain or how much grain to buy, et cetera. Um, and so even if we had gone with a percent in the end, the conversations with the farmers, would've been like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Percent. How many pounds tell me how many pounds? So it kind of led us to those two factors kind of led us to, let's go with a, a big, a big number and boy, a million pounds sounds awful cool, so we'll go with a million pounds.

Brett Willis:

<laugh> the fanciest number. Mm-hmm<affirmative><laugh>

Jason Perkins:

And this is a podcast. So you can't see me doing my Dr. Evil face.<laugh>

Brett Willis:

I have a question for Branch. When you heard that this, uh, sort of our pledge and you're involved in a lot of the, um, formulations behind the beer, the recipes and everything like that, I guess, what were, what were you thinking? Um, how<laugh>, how were you thinking about that?

Branch Rothschild:

Well, I was pretty fired up about being able to do it, but I didn't really know how, um, but I just knew basically like, uh, were gonna have to get it in Allagash White, cuz White is so much of what we make and like, how can we incorporate that? And how can we work that in, in a way that maintains the quality of White and still, uh, use it a lot of local grain. So part of that was getting like the Buck brothers to grow a bunch of white wheat, which wasn't something that they'd traditionally grown in, validating it and making sure it's gonna work. But, uh, also just making sure it was in every batch of White was another big part.

Brett Willis:

Totally. And what do you mean by validating that it was gonna work? I guess, like what was the process?

Branch Rothschild:

We, weren't just sort of assuming that it was gonna end up being a good batch of White. Like anytime we, not just for local grain, but anytime we're going to make a recipe change, we wanna compare it to our baseline. And, you know, we have a very extensive tasting program to make sure that any of our process or ingredients changes are gonna maintain consistency and good quality. So getting it through that process

Liz Wilson:

And what in 2016 refreshes us as to like, what, what was the volume that we were producing those that year and how did that, you know, how did we start to chip that off? And I guess when we talked about a million, did we get, do we make huge strides in those first couple years or did it really take years of building off of, you know, what we were planning to do to get to a million

Jason Perkins:

When we made the pledge? So pre pledge? So the first year of the pledge was 2017. In 2016, we did a, we did 60,000 pounds or so of grain grown in process in the state. I think the next year was 120,000 or something like that. So, you know, it was an increase, but not a huge one. And then, you know, I'm not gonna remember exact numbers, but maybe 250,000 from there 500 etcetera. So they were bigger jumps, but they were, you know, calculated jumps each year. Um, again for cuz we wanted to kind of build, build it into our plans, build it into our recipes, build it into, um, you know, the, the farmer's plans as well.

Brett Willis:

Totally. And I feel like just in a side, thinking about that, building of it, like we made, we made the plan in 2017 that we were gonna do this by 2021 and then 2020 came and was a, quite a different year from what we were expecting. So I just kind of personally felt really proud that we were able to continue the pledge and, you know, continue to build on the amount of grains we were using despite how, you know, tumultuous that year was.

Liz Wilson:

Yeah, I guess that brings up another, and probably one of the benefits I would get guess of working with a local community is that, you know, there's gonna be fluctuations either on our side with output or, you know, sometimes the, the, the growing season is just not what you anticipate it to be. And so talk to us a little bit about the benefits of, you know, working with your local farmers and maltsters on like when those challenges arise or, you know, the, that communication pro and like, how does that differ, um, with sort of our neighbors?

Jason Perkins:

Yeah. I guess maybe I'll start and then branch, you can fill in the details. Cause I think Brett brought up 2020 and I think that 2020 into 21 are great examples of real, real challenge. Like the tail end of our project is right when, you know, COVID hit and we saw pretty severe drop in beer sales volume in 2020. And that was a year we were targeting 750,000 pounds of grain. So there was that challenge and I am also incredibly proud as you, as you said, Brett, with our ability to actually still stay on goal that year and Branch deserves a ton of credit for figuring out how to incorporate that in. And frankly, Rob deserves a ton of credit for sticking with our commitments to these farmers, even when we were selling a lot less beer. So the percentage of local grain went up quite a bit because we, we were struggling more to, to sell as much beer. And then on top of that, the 2020 harvest was, um, uh, was really bad, um, because of drought conditions. Um, so that led us into 2021 where we were, uh, shooting for a million pounds of grain. Right. And the, the supply was really strained because, um, you know, it was one of the, one of the worst harvests. Um, they had seen up up in Northern Maine in 2020. So, you know, add insult it to injury in that year for sure. Um, but you know, that's where we had to work with Branch. I dunno if you wanna elaborate a little bit more on how we had to work with them to, to get through that supply year and, and still stay on goal

Branch Rothschild:

2020 was definitely a challenge. I think it helped a lot because a lot of if the farmers actually had a back stock of grain, um, so the big drought, they were still malting 2019 grain and weren't as dependent on that one bad harvest year. But, uh, So that was a big step, but they still, the wheat that year, they ended up their yield was one half for a third of what they anticipated.

Brett Willis:

Wow.

Branch Rothschild:

Um, yeah, it was a brutal year. Um, But I guess for me, one of the big advantages of working with the local grain is just like, when I forget to order something, I can, I can get it last minute. Um, so like there have been some beers where I drove up to Lisbon falls and picked up a couple bags of grain that I'd forgotten about, uh, and just the ability to do that and not have to, you know, change the beer schedule and re-prop yeast and all that is pretty huge. Um,

Brett Willis:

That's awesome. Yeah.

Jason Perkins:

<laugh> yeah. I'll, I'll also add that. Just, you know, just, just having that like real, we have close relationships with all our suppliers don't get me wrong, but, um, with, with the, these local folks, you know, they, they really have kind of become, you know, friends of ours at this point and, you know, the ability to have this back and forth about not, you know, not just, um, ordering, but also even the quality side of things. Um, you know, pretty much, um, both of the two malt houses here in the state Blue Ox and Maine Malt House are they're malting batches for us. Like they're, you know, we're not pulling from their stock of grain, you know, we're pulling from stuff that they've malted kind of to the specifications and the quality that we're looking for. And, um, that's just, and they've been great to work with and, you know, know they were figuring things out in the early years. And so we gave them feedback and then, you know, the feedback loop is just constant in terms of what we're looking for and, and so on. So it's just really open line of communication.

Brett Willis:

That's awesome. Yeah. I think how have those relationships developed since like 2016?

Jason Perkins:

Yeah, I mean, we, we didn't really know'em that well in 2016, um, you know, we'd met a couple of the farmers at that point, um, and made some connections, but you know, one of the things that really has developed those relationships is we, we visit them. We go, go and see these farms and processors at least once a year. Um, usually we time that around harvest time, um, but will make a trip up there and, and spend time in the fields with them. You know, it's just a beautiful site to see, uh, first and foremost, um, and they're just wonderful people to hang out with, but you also, you know, you get to know each other's kind of challenges and, and become better working partners as well. So those connections have built more and more each year, but a big part of that is just not just email and phone calls, but actually being there and, and, and seeing the fields and seeing where they work, enjoying beers with them at the end of the day and so on.

Branch Rothschild:

And they let you drive the combine.

Jason Perkins:

<laugh> They let you drive the combine. That's true.

Liz Wilson:

And can you give a little bit more context of the, the sense of place or give a little sense of place to the county? Um, cause I think, you know, I don't know how many listeners are familiar with Maine, but my guess is many maybe have not gone beyond, you know, Portland, uh, or their surrounding towns, but can you just paint a little bit of a picture of what, of what the county is like?

Jason Perkins:

Sure. And, and just to be, to broaden that even more the county, as we're calling it refer is refers to Aroostook county, which is the largest county in Maine, uh, and takes up the, I don't know what looks like the top half of the state. It's not quite the top half, but it's a good chunk of the state I way up north. Yeah. Um, I always get this wrong biggest county east of the Mississippi. Is that what it is?

Brett Willis:

Something like that. That's right.

Liz Wilson:

Don't don't, we'll get in trouble if we get it wrong.

Jason Perkins:

It's a really big, it's a really, Let's just put it that way. It's definitely the biggest county in the state of Maine. So we'll stick with that. Um, and it's a good, it's a good drive from here. It is definitely a part of the state that a lot of people don't know about. Um, but it is an absolutely gorgeous part of the state. Um, you know, beautiful farmland, k ind o f rolling hills, u m, you know, certainly rural to say the least, u m, and just really wonderful people. I mean, people have lived up there for generations and, you know, t he cliche, but salt of the earth type of people, u m, really have welcomed us w hen we've been up there. U m, so I don't, t he that's not even gonna capture it, but it's just a really beautiful part of the state that I don't think gets, gets the, u h, t he credit i t deserves.

Brett Willis:

I actually wanna, I wanna dig into that a little bit because I kind, I wanna talk about each of the farms who are getting, uh, uh, grains from, but I feel like just a, a great place to start kind of to draft off what you're talking about. Jason is the Buck family and kind of, I think everyone here has been into the buck family's house and eaten a dinner at their house and, uh, gotten to just kind of meet the whole family, including, uh, grandma who tells great jokes. Excellent, excellent jokester. Um, but yeah, I guess like, I don't know, there's, there's a part, I don't know if this is true and Jason, you can tell me if this is true, but I feel like everyone of us who has visited has kind of like gotten a certain thing that we're remembered for, for the Buck family, like Branch, for example, is like remembered as a Herculean eater. Like he, he was just able to eat...

Jason Perkins:

Accurate statement, accurate statement. Um, yeah, so the, the buck family, um, who, uh, is multi-generation farm, uh, in Mapleton, Maine, which is, you know, right near Presque Isle. Um, they are, they, they own and run Maine Malt House. So they have fields of that. They grow, um, they've been potato growers for a very long time they've but they also grow, uh, barley oats and white wheat specifically for us. Um, they, like I said, our, our multi-generation the current kind of youngest, well, not youngest generation, but youngest adult generation, um, is, uh, basically four brothers who run kind of run the malting side of the business. Um, and their father Bruce is still very much involved in the farming and the Malthouse side of things. Um, they, and they, yeah, they just super nice people. Um, and they discovered they kind of recognized an opportunity when potato, uh, potatoes just weren't as profitable a crop, I think is probably the best way to say that. They just weren't doing the business they used to do. They were getting squeezed in a lot of directions on the cost side of things, and they were growing barley as a, um, rotational crop already kind of to, as, you know, potatoes, you can't grow potatoes in the same plot of land again and again. Um, so they would be, uh, rotating through barley, uh, every, you know, third year or something like that. And they recognized an opportunity to, instead of kind of keep chasing the potato game. Let's see if we can grow more barley and see if we can start developing relationships with, with brewers. Um, and that led them down this path of building their own malt house. And they've really, they've really grown that business, uh, substantially in, in the, you know, five or six years that we've been buying from them.

Brett Willis:

That's awesome. Yeah. Seeing their operation grow, like I think I've, I visited maybe twice and just seeing like where it was to where like a couple years later, how many more silos they built and, and they're just super impressive on what they're able to do by themselves. Like the things they've learned, like the malting machine that they built and it's, it's so cool.

Jason Perkins:

Yeah. They're, go-geters for sure. I mean, you know, a, of, a lot of that work that you referred to the storage for grain and the building in the malt house was really, a lot of that was done by them. I mean, certainly some contractors involved, but a lot of it was done solely by them that grow that side of the business. That's

Brett Willis:

Awesome. I have an anecdote that I don't even know if it's gonna make it into the podcast, but I still like this. And I just, it just with me, because I, my thing is just me being an annoying, terrible city slicker, uh, to them because, uh, I was in Camden like the weekend before we visited them in Mapleton. I was, uh, I forget exactly what I was there for, but my, my phone had like zero service in Camden. And so Camden's like mid-coast Maine. It's not even that far up, but I had zero service. And so then thinking of Aroostook county, which is like four hours north of that, I was like, there's no way my phone's gonna have service. Like, you know, it's just, it's just probably not gonna have it. And so I was there at their house and I look at my phone and I have like five bars. Like, it was like an insane connection. And I was like, whoa, I get great service here. And, uh, Bruce, the, the father goes, yeah, we have electricity too.<laugh> it was just like,

Jason Perkins:

Oh yeah, you walked right into that.

Brett Willis:

I walked right into it. I was like apologizing for like the next two days, but I just,

Jason Perkins:

Yeah,

Brett Willis:

They got me. Yeah. I mean, one of my, uh, favorite parts of the trip to, uh, the buck buck, family farms is just like, we got to actually drive in there, their side by side out onto the, all the fields and see the different grains they were growing. And they just took us out to like a huge field and it was all white wheat and they were like, this entire field is for Allagash. And so being able to kind of stand there and look, look out at, in entire, basically as far as the eye can see, you're looking at white wheat and be like, okay, this is awesome. Like, this is, this is we're helping to make this happen and they're able to provide it for us. And, you know, obviously the, he is there it's, uh, it's exciting Branch's internet connection was not the best, so he dropped off, but we've still got some great stuff, uh, a lot more to talk about with Jason. So I guess let's, could we go into, uh, like, I guess Aurora mills feels like a great, uh, next sort of farm to, to chat about.

Jason Perkins:

Yeah. So Aurora Mills is a farm, um, based in linneus, Maine. It's k ind o f near Houlton. U m, it's actually, u h, good solid hour south of, of, of the Buck farms. So, but still quite up, up north kind of on the, on the edge of where the county starts.

Liz Wilson:

Yeah. Right next door by the, the standards up there. Yes.

Jason Perkins:

<laugh>.

Brett Willis:

Yes.<laugh>.

Jason Perkins:

Um, and, uh, so that farm was started, um, by Matt Williams, um, and is now, currently he he's still involved, but now Sara has, his daughter has been running the farm now for several years. Um, and alongside with her husband, Marcus and Matt was, um, you know, has been in the grain community for a very long time. He was a professor, uh, at university of Maine for a period of time. And, you know, I don't know his full backstory, but I do know that he kind of again, saw opportunity for the potential for more small grain growth, uh, in the state and especially organic. So they're an organic farm. Um, and he's, uh, just an, an avid, um, ad an advocate of, of organic farming and saw an opportunity there. And it started working, um, with some bakers in the state and, and some other outlets took grow oats and wheat, uh, Borealis breads, uh, which is a great bakery. Uh, here in the, state's been around a long time, kind of almost was on the beginning of kind of the, the craft baking revolution, if you will, which we have so many amazing bakeries in the state now, but Borealis, is one who is kind of ahead of the game, Sierra Nevada of, uh, of, of baker.

Brett Willis:

We should give them that tagline.

Jason Perkins:

Um,<laugh> and they, they were buying a lot of their, we, I don't know, I don't think it was all of their wheat flour, but a lot of it from, from Matt at the farm and then from Sarah and so on. And so that was building their business up. They also grow a lot of oats, some really amazing organic oats. So a lot of their oats go to food for, for, for food consumption for just eating oatmeal, right. Or for granola and stuff like that. Um, and you know, we use a lot of oats in Allagash white and in several of our other beers. And so we wanted on an opportunity to buy some oats from the state and really was super happy with the quality of their oats, uh, and started, started working with them again, they're really small, uh, uh, setup, but they do have their own mill. So they own their own land, uh, and farm their own land harvest on their own land. And then they also process which in that case, it's not malting involved, but it still requires, um, you know, cleaning, cleaning the oats, rolling it in the case of what, the way we use it, the way most people don't know what an oat actually looks like. They just assume it's that flat looking flaky thing, but it's actually a grain, of course, before it gets rolled and flattened. Um, but also super amazing people. Um, we always visit them every year and Sarah always bakes for us, which is also, she's pretty awesome.

Brett Willis:

Such a good baker It was like, she has like a crazy brick oven in their house. And like she made bagels that were just like world class bagels and yeah. And, uh, Marcus also is like, homebrewing beer, we got to taste his beer. It was, uh, so good.

Jason Perkins:

Yeah. Marcus does a bunch of home brew and he's always, so it's, that seems to be our routine is, uh, we'll go visit them, have, uh, a late, late bagel breakfast and try some in Marcus's home brew.

Brett Willis:

That's awesome. And he also had like a sick garden. They were just like, eat, eat the tomatoes, eat everything. And so we're just eating basil tomatoes and...

Liz Wilson:

And I was struck, they had beautiful wildflowers on their property to attract the pollinators, which is just like, it's such a complete circle when you go to their farm. And it's kind of, you know, your mind kind of melts when you listen to Sarah and Marcus to talk about it because you're like, oh, they're not just flowers for being pretty, uh, they're flowers to attract the pollinators to help the growing. And it's just, it's really amazing to see it and, and to go there and to get to visit.

Jason Perkins:

Yeah. I mean, farm farming is farming is really hard yeah. In general, uh, and requires a lot of, a lot of skill and thought and planning. And I think organic farming just takes it one step further in terms of the thought and, and, and planning and skill that needs to go into that kind of farming. Totally.

Brett Willis:

Didn't they get didn't they get flown out to Japan for like, was it spelt or was it some particular type of,

Jason Perkins:

Yeah, so they, they grow, uh, a specific type of buckwheat that's right. Um, that, um, we've actually used, we've brewed, brewed that we brewed a beer, uh, Crosspath, uh, organic beer that used used some buckwheat, uh, pretty fun, fun ingredient to brew with, but, um, a lot of it, they grow to make this specific type of noodle, this Japanese noodle. Um, and so the type buckwheat they grow is Japanese and origin. I don't know all the backstory, but, um, they do grow a lot of buckwheat specifically to make this specific type of, of noodle.

Brett Willis:

That's really cool. The next one that I had on my list, uh, just to talk about was, uh, Blue Ox malt house.

Jason Perkins:

Yeah. So Blue Ox is the, you know, the closest one to us, uh, and in Lisbon falls. So, you know, 45 or so minutes from us and they are, so I did, I talked earlier about, we deal with different types of, of partners in our local grain initiative. Um, you know, some are farms who grow and some are processors and some are both Blue Ox is a malt house, uh, only. So they don't, uh, they don't grow their grain, but they have deep relationships with a bunch of farms up north as well. And so they're able to pull, um, you know, they buy some grain from outta state, but they also, most of what they buy is, is from Maine, um, wheat oats, barley, again, those, those three things. Uh, and they were started by, by Joel,Alex, uh, who really was pretty, pretty, um, you know, pretty young guy and pretty with quite a vision for what could be, uh, in the state of Maine, um, in terms of great use. So he didn't start small. I mean, he still has a small Malthouse as compared to, you know, the big, huge commercial malt houses, but he, he went big from the get go, um, at least on the scale of craft malting and, you know, really believed in the future of, of malted barley process. He here in the state, you know, he really put himself out there and I give him a ton of credit for that because when he opened, which is about the time we started our initiative, I don't know exactly when Blue Ox started, but I would guess it was in the, in the 2015 ish timeframe.

Brett Willis:

I think that sounds right. Yeah.

Jason Perkins:

And he, um, you know, that's a bold thing to do at that point in time. And I, I think I can, I think that market, the market's not there now, but I think it will be. Um, and you know, he, he put himself out there and got some funding to build this, this malt house and develop these relationships with these farmers. And, um, and as really he's filled as capacity right up, they are, they are busy as can be. And, um, he's got a really good reputation, not only in Maine, but he's selling, um, selling multi barley to out of state as well to both breweries and distillers.

Brett Willis:

That's awesome. I guess, just to like, to, to quickly go back on that one a little bit, like, what could you just, do you think in a nutshell you could explain what malting is.

Jason Perkins:

Sure. Yeah. Um, um, super quick nutshell. So, um, some grains don't require malting for the process, but you can't make a beer with un-malted grains solely like the, you basically need some level, you know, 50% to a hundred percent of malted grains involved in the process for it to, to work the way you want it to in, in the way brew process works. So the malting process, and I'll talk about it in the way malted Barley's made, but more or less the same premise for malted wheat, because it also exists. Uh, it comes outta the field. Um, and you know, it can go into storage for a period of time, of course, but before it malted, what it, basically what it does, it goes through a steeping process which builds up the moisture and the grain kernel. It then goes through a germination process, which can be done in a number of different ways. But you basically let, um, the, the grain start to germinate. So a little like rootlet will kind of start to come out of the grain. This all takes several days for this to happen. Um, and then from there, the process is kind of halted through a kiln process or a, or warming up of the kernel to dry the moisture out a little bit and kind of stop that germination. What you're really trying to do in another put another way is to partially break down the starch that's in the grain and make it available for brewing. I guess that's the, the best way to say it. If we just took barley, threw it in our mash vessel and added a bunch of water to it, it would just be like barley soup, nothing else. Whereas when we, when, when we break down that starch partially and activate the enzymatic potential in the grain, what we get is what's called wort, which is the sugary liquid that then can be fermented into beer. Awesome. But I guess I'll say it another way. Malting, the process is in and of, in and of itself, much like brewing in that it's a combination of science and art. Like there's,<affirmative>, there's a lot of science involved in terms of the biochemistry of what's happening there, but there's also a certain level of art and skill to the way it's created. Just, just, and that's, you could say the same thing about, about beer making beer.

Brett Willis:

Totally. And I guess just like, as an aside too, Jason, like, have you seen the, I guess variety of grain grown in Maine, uh, growing from like that 2016 point?

Jason Perkins:

Yeah. I mean, that has certainly increased. Um, there is a history, small history of growing stuff like spelt, I mean, spelt is kind of a heritage wheat in a way is what, what it is, um, that, that has increased. And I think brewing has something to do with it. But, um, so some of these other kind of unique grains are, are getting more interest, but they're also getting more interest on the baking side of things as well. Um, you know, there's a whole nother kind of parallel track, uh, going on there's the craft beer kind of continued growth and interest and what craft brewers are doing. And at the same time, not unrelated, there's continued growth of, of bakeries in this, in the state, but also across the country, um, doing some really fun stuff. And I think bakers and I, and I'm an average home baker, so don't take my word for it too much. But, uh, I do that, there's a lot of interest in really getting into the specific wheat varieties and these heritage wheat varieties that have kind of disappeared, um, because of a commercialized nature of growing wheat and how, you know, you could, you could talk to some of these bakers and, and, um, and really get deep in the weeds to how they think, you know, potentially even our problems with gluten are stemmed in the way that we really got away from these old heritage varieties in the proper way to make flour and so on and so forth. So that's a whole nother parallel, um, that has a lot of similarities, but, uh, it's super, super fascinating. So sorry, long-winded and answer. But I think interest interest from brewers has certainly, um, influenced the type of small grains that are grown, but the, the bakers, uh, and fans of, of, uh, you know, local Bread have certainly played a big role in that as well.

Liz Wilson:

How lucky we are to have endless bounty of beer and excellent restaurants and bakeries here in Maine, you should come visit if you have not.

Jason Perkins:

And, you know, there's also like a whole variety of type of grains that can be produced from the malting process. So there's, there's malted barley, which is kind of the base for, for all beer. Um, but then you get into various levels of caramel malt and roasted malt and all sorts of other, you know, I, I there's literally hundreds of different grain types, barley types, even that, that you can get, um, some that have a little bit more color and maybe a little bit more malty character. So something like a Munich malt, for example, might be a little darker in color. It would produce more of an Amber beer, but also produce like a maltiness to it. And then the other end of the extreme you get into, um, black malts and roasted malts and chocolate malts. And if you know anything about the way coffee's roasted and in some ways it's similar. I mean, it's not exactly the same, but it's a similar process where the grain is, um, is run through a roaster of some type and it creates color. Um, and in some cases it's actually literally black in color. So a stout that has that deep color also certainly, uh, aromas and flavors of chocolate and roast and, you know, cut, et cetera. Um, that's coming from, from these darker roasted grains,

Brett Willis:

The last partner, is it the last partner who we get grain from main, Maine Grains?

Jason Perkins:

Yeah. The last major partner we work with in the state is, is Maine Grains and they're based in Skowhegann. Um, and they, so they're, they're a, a, a mill, uh, uh, in that they, they, they bought buy, um, they contract and buy grain from farms all over the state and take it in to process and turn a lot of it to flour. They, they supply a lot of bakeries with baking flour. Um, but we also, we also buy, um, wheat predominantly from them, but we've bought some other interesting products from them as well, spelt, for example, some oats, et cetera. Um, and they're just doing some really fun stuff. It's a super cool, uh, project that was started by Amber Lambke, who is really one of the true visionaries of, of maine small grains. Um, so she started with a group of friends, uh, an organization called of the Maine Grain Alliance, which still exists today and does incredible, incredible work. And she was the executive director for, for quite some time. She, she isn't anymore, but she's still very actively involved in that, in that nonprofit. And that nonprofit has really done great work. Who's one we relied on, on them really heavily, especially in the early years to connect us with the right people. And, uh, and so on. And their whole kind of mission is to raise awareness of the possibilities of using main grain and, um, you know, supporting, um, farmers, brewers, Millers bakers, et cetera. Uh, and she really, she, she started that. And so, you know, she was really, uh, her and, and some other, um, you know, true visionaries in the beginning were the ones who kind of really got this whole thing kind of revitalized. Um, but Maine Grains is, is her, is her business that she owns as well. Uh, it's actually located in a, in an old jail in Skowhegan. So it's super cool, really interesting building that they've retrofitted to, uh, to, to be a mill, um, really impressive, really super clean, um, awesome facility. Um, and again, they, their, I believe their predominant business is more in the, uh, baker, um, world, um, food world. And they're, they're really well regarded. I know I've, I've met people who are, you know, chefs and bakers from places like New York city and further away who buy, buy their flour from Maine Grains because of the reputation cuz of the flavor that comes through for them.

Liz Wilson:

So Jason, if you know, other brewery, um, wanna start incorporating more local ingredients into their beer, what's our, what's our sort of advice for them. Um, you know, I don't know that everyone be able to make commitments, but even starting small and, you know, having conversations with some of these folks that we just talked about, um, in, is that a great place to start?

Jason Perkins:

Yeah, for sure. And, and let me first say that, you know, there are many breweries here in the state who are, are using high amounts of local grain and it's, you know, I always want to make sure to point that out because, you know, I I'm, you know, I like that we have the ability to kind of talk about this and, and, um, you know, raise awareness, but we're, there's so many breweries in the state who are doing amazing work and using lots of local grain.

Brett Willis:

I have one, uh, that absolutely uses a ton of local grain, uh, is Bissell brothers. They use, you know, brew, grape beers, have a, I know they're really passionate about using local grains. So I think, you know, they're, they're definitely more, but I know Bissell brothers is, is a big one

Jason Perkins:

And, you know, for those who are aren't or those who are only using a little, like, you know, I think there's a couple different, you know, there's, there's developing those relationships, but that's relatively easy. Um, it's also deciding on how you wanna incorporate it. Um, if you're concerned about flavor match or whatever, like just using small portions of local grain in every batch of beer you make, is there a great way to do it. Um, I don't think they should worry too much about that flavor match through experimentation. The quality of these grains are really, really good, but if that's a concern, they can do that, but also brewing a beer that's a kind of designed around those grains is also just such a great way to showcase the flavors. But also, you know, is awareness of, of the beer, you know, 16 counties is our beer that we do that with, you know, which is a hundred percent locally grown and processed grain. And it's just kind of another kind of way for us to showcase the unique flavors, but also to, to really talk about it and say, look at, look at what you can do, um, with local grains. So, and you know, I know some people are sometimes concerned with the cost because it is more expensive. I mean, they're smaller scale operations, the economies of scale are different. Like of course it's gonna be more money. Um, and, and you it's, it's not that hard to, to build that into your price, you know, a little bit more for every pint of beer that you're offering. Um, and we've found that consumers understand, uh, the people who are drinking craft beer recognize, um, you know, the importance of, of supporting local.

Brett Willis:

So I guess then, uh, to kind of, to roll us out here, uh, Jason, what would you say is, is next for us on the, the local, locally grown and processed grain front?

Jason Perkins:

We absolutely are planning to continue the growth. Um, so we will grow, uh, we will grow our usage probably at least another 10 or so percent this year versus last year. And you know, now we just need to decide how we, how we exactly plan it out, um, in terms of growth beyond this year, but it has absolutely our plan to continue to increase our usage of, of local grains and to continue these conversations with, with these farmers. Um, and I think there's almost no limit into what we can eventually get ourselves to with, with using these local grains. Um, you know, we had much of the country saw a big, uh, one of the worst, uh, barley harvests that we've seen in a hundred years. In terms of yield and quality, uh, in 2021 Maine farmers had one of their best years. Now there's always gonna be these cycles, right. Cuz they had bad year in 2020, but point being like, you know, having, having more reliance on, on our local grains is, has practical benefits to us in addition to, you know, just if feeling good and doing the right thing.

Brett Willis:

Well, I guess I'll say, I mean, Liz, did you have any other questions? Anything else you were wondering?

Liz Wilson:

No, it's been a pleasure.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. It has been awesome. Thanks so much, Jason, uh, for taking the time. Thank you, branch. Wherever you are.

Jason Perkins:

You guys don't have like a, uh, like some catchy sign off<laugh> that you do

Brett Willis:

Not, not yet.

Speaker 8:

Not yet.

Jason Perkins:

Yeah.

Liz Wilson:

Work shopping it.

Brett Willis:

Do you have one for us?

Jason Perkins:

Oh, I don't know.

Brett Willis:

We'll we'll come up with one. We'll get something awesome. Well, yeah, thanks again, Jason.

Jason Perkins:

My pleasure. It's

Brett Willis:

Been great.

Jason Perkins:

Cool later.

Brett Willis:

Uh, Liz, I just like, I don't know, talking with Jason, it's always such a, like I just always learned something it's just is really enjoyable to yeah. Get something new.

Liz Wilson:

Yeah. And you can tell, I mean, he's been doing this for so long that it's just like second nature to hear him talk about it. And it's, uh, you know, hearing about the different farmers and maltsters, you know, it brings back so many great memories from, you know, I was lucky enough to get a trip to go up there. So, um, gosh, uh, dreaming about the Buck brothers and the breakfast and the dinners that they give and, and just hanging out with their family just was a lot of great, uh, memories as he was talking about it. Yeah. And, uh, hopefully we'll get Branch back here for, for a next installment. We'll get, we'll get Branch back. If you have a topic you wanna hear us chat about here at Allagash, just shoot us an email at podcast@allagash.com.