From Maine, With Love - An Allagash Brewing Podcast

S1 Episode 2: Our Pilot Brewing System

April 06, 2022 Season 1 Episode 3
From Maine, With Love - An Allagash Brewing Podcast
S1 Episode 2: Our Pilot Brewing System
Show Notes Transcript

Patrick is obsessed with fermentation (his words). That would be Patrick Chavanelle, our Technical and R&D Brewer here at Allagash. In this episode, we got together to run through the process of how new beers are born, how everyone in the brewery is involved, and how (FUN FACT) you can harvest yeast off of a raspberry.

 


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. My name is Brett. I work on the marketing team over here at Allagash and with me, I have Liz Wilson.

Liz Wilson:

Hi,

Brett Willis:

Liz is our marketing manager and Patrick Chavanelle, an R& D technical brewer here at Allagash,

Patrick Chavanelle:

Howdy

Brett Willis:

Welcome. Thank you for joining us. So Patrick, we're gonna talk about our pilot beer program in specific and innovation, in general, but I wanted to start with talking with you about something that I know you're interested in, which is fermentation. Are you making anything interesting at this point in time?

Patrick Chavanelle:

You know, you said the word interested and it's not, I'm interested in fermentation. It's more, that fermentation is a complete and total obsession<laugh> so just to clarify,

Brett Willis:

Thank you.

Patrick Chavanelle:

Um, right now, you know, it's, I have two kids at home, two young kids, so it's kind of hard to do anything really. Um, but in terms of, of fermenting this, like when it starts to get cold out, it's kind of the start of bread season for me. So like I bake, uh, a loaf of bread every week and I always do it with like a natural sourdough starter. So if you can count that as a fermentation, that's kind of all, I have going.

Brett Willis:

Dude at the beginning of the pandemic, I tried to make a sourdough starter and it failed utterly miserably. And for some reason I just started making another one. So

Patrick Chavanelle:

You'll get it eventually.<laugh>

Brett Willis:

Very, eventually

Liz Wilson:

My husband has gone on many adventures of making sourdough starters, so, so that I've had to carry them on, uh, the subway in New York to make sure I was taking care of it. And it was not left unattended. So I have a like mild disdain for sourdough.

Brett Willis:

I'm a masochist because I'm not good at them, but I want to do them anyway. So to kind of set the stage for what we're gonna be talking about. Um, Patrick, could you just tell us what is a pilot beer program in general? I mean, you could say what is our pilot beer program, but I'm just kind of interested in your take on what a pilot beer program should be.

Patrick Chavanelle:

All right. Yeah. This is a pretty big question that it might be hard to generalize, but I'll do my best. Um, you know, a pilot beer program, I guess, is, uh, a program for new beer development for breweries in general. Uh, typically they're done on the smaller side and by smaller, I just mean like volume wise, it's kind of the first step to new beer innovation. So generally you'd start with, you know, a concept of some sort that you want to work on, uh, formulate a recipe around that concept, um, brew on your small system, analyze it either re-brew or then take the next step in terms of figuring out how best to scale it up for like a larger batch size. So I know that, um, you know, not all breweries have the capability of having a small system to do these sort the things on. So, uh, we're kind of lucky there, um, for a number of reasons, uh, that being one of'em. Um, but you know, in terms of how it's done here, I think it's, it's one of the coolest things that we do as a brewery, you know, for, there are plenty of breweries that have a system that's similar to the one that we use, but the fact that we're as big as we are, and we fully rely on the ideas that come in from every employee in order to generate like the new beer ideas for, for beers that we're eventually gonna sell on a larger scale. It's pretty special. The way we go about it here is, uh, to my knowledge on like anywhere else.

Liz Wilson:

Do you recall how long we've been running our pilot program? Has it BA basically been our entire or existence?

Patrick Chavanelle:

You know, that's a good question. Um, I, wanna just throw out a number and say 15 years maybe, but it has changed so much over the course of that time. You know, I've been here 11 years, as an employee at Allagash. And, uh, I think within the first six months, maybe a little later, uh, I started on the pilot team and back then there were four of us I think. Um, and you know, it was much different, we would meet maybe once a month and meetings were just kind of sitting at a table and they weren't organized by any means, uh, and our system for accepting ideas and like getting in new ones, it was all done by paper and like lots of paper, paper, ideas, paper ballots that we had to look at at, um, and, you know, looking at that, compared to how we are now, it's pretty incredible how, uh, the team has evolved. So, um, so yeah, it's been around for a while. Um, but it, it is unlike what it started out as

Brett Willis:

Totally, so to pursue that, like, what would you say are the biggest differences between then and now?

Patrick Chavanelle:

Um, oh man. Um, yes,

Liz Wilson:

Paper,<laugh>

Brett Willis:

All paper

Patrick Chavanelle:

Yeah. That's about it. Next question. No, um, you know, it's, there are, it's just, it's completely different. It's, it's kind of hard to just, uh, pick and choose a few things. Um,

Liz Wilson:

And Patrick who makes up the pilot team?

Patrick Chavanelle:

Right now. So right now there's a team of 11 of us, um, myself included and the, you know, one benefit of this team is that it's not just all, um, people within production or like, you know, brewers, there are some brewers for sure. Um, but there are also people there's someone from, uh, the lab, uh, there is someone from engineering. Um, there are a few positions that are kind of just, uh, um, what do we call'em, uh, basically like floating in a sense of, they can be from whatever department we wanna make sure, uh, that we have, uh, a number of people and ideas, just not just from, within, in production, but from all aspects of the brewery, the warehouse, we have a position from the warehouse. So, uh, and the good thing, and the unfortunate thing in a way too, is that a number of these positions will rotate. Um, so I say unfortunate because, you know, it's, they're, they're on a, like a, basically people stay on for two years and then you cycle off. Um, sometimes we can ask you to stay on for another two. Um, but generally it's two years you cycle off, then we can ask you back on at like a later time. Um, and the, the unfortunate thing is, you know, you, you start to work with these people and you bring'em up to speed and, uh, and you know, they're contributing and then you have to let,'em go and like bring somebody else on. But the huge benefit in that is that every time we bring, um, new people onto the team, we always improve. We always either change our processes. You know, if there we have new, fresh ideas coming in and, uh, we always get better. So I think that benefit outweighs the fact that like, you know, we have to say goodbye to someone for a little bit for, um, someone that's interested in, in submitting a new pilot idea. Like if you have a concept in mind that you want to submit, uh, it's as simple as going on to our internal website, uh, looking at at the pilot team page, uh, and then right on the top is submit your pilot idea. Uh, the whole intention there, uh, is to set the barrier to entry as low as possible. Uh, and so not only is it easy to navigate to, uh, and for any new employee, that's part of the, the pilot orientation, we kind of walk'em through this process and, uh, clicking on the link, brings you up to a form. Uh, and again, that's a super simple, easy form. It's not like someone needs to come with an idea and a recipe as well. Uh, you can just come with an idea, you know, like be inspired by something that you ate and wanting to recreate that in a beer. Um, so the way that the form is set up is it's more so asking you, you know, what is your general idea and concept? And, uh, the more important thing is there's a question on there that asks about what sort of flavors and aromas that you're looking to achieve finished beer. Uh, that's the thing that, you know, we put a ton of focus on when we review these new ideas. Um, so I guess going back a little bit too, you know, uh, in terms of the question of like, who can do this, um, it's literally anyone that works at the brewery. Uh, so going back to how like special our, our program is in general, the fact that anyone that works at Allagash can submit an idea and then potentially that beer can be released as like a full scale, uh, full scale brew at some point in the future, if it's well received. And so, um, in terms of submitting an idea, once a person goes through those steps and clicks the submit button, then all the pilot team members get an email, uh, saying like this new sheet has been populated with a new idea and we go in and look, uh, so the special thing is that, uh, when we do that, we are fully blind to everything, you know, except the answers to the questions that they, they submitted. So what is their general concept and what sort of flavors and aromas are they looking to achieve? Uh, we don't know who submitted it. Um, and that was purposely done in order to remove any potential for bias. Um, so say as an example, you know, Jason Perkins, our brewmaster, submits an idea, you know, in the past years ago, you, you would read the idea obviously, but if you saw Jason's name, you're not gonna give him like a three Jason, Jason's our brew master. It means you don't like it. Yeah, no. Oh, right. Sorry. Uh, so, so it's blind review. So, you know, Rob Tod, the brewery's founder, could submit an idea, uh, and, uh, we wouldn't know it until we vote on it and look at the results. And then we do a review of who submitted it. So again, to remove any potential for bias, uh, and along those same lines, we have set it up so that each individual pilot team member, uh, votes, you know, uh, you vote from one to three, so three is bad. Two you're neutral, uh, so by bad, I mean like you don't really like the concept. You don't think it's something that we should pursue. I don't say bad,

Brett Willis:

<laugh>

Patrick Chavanelle:

So yeah, two is neutral. And then one is like, you like the idea, you think it's something that we should move forward with when each team member votes the vote is then hidden for all the other team members. So again, it's another means of removing bias across team members, so that, uh, just you using Jason as another example. So if Jason were to rank an idea one, and then someone were to see, oh, Jason likes this idea, maybe right? I should vote a one as well. So that's removed. So if he can do whatever he wants and then I'm gonna vote the way I want to vote without having to think about, you know, all these other variables outside of just being able to focus on the specific idea and that's it. So, um, so that, uh, once each team member votes, you know, we have a, a weekly meeting where we'll, uh, pull up all the new ideas that have been submitted. We will, uh, reveal the results, see whether or not it was accepted, uh, once it's accepted, then we'll pair that, uh, idea up with a pilot team member to help them work on a recipe. And then we'll reveal whose idea it was, so they know who to reach out. And, uh, yeah, that's, uh, that's kind of the pathway for acceptance. If you will, beyond that, you know, we schedule a brew day to brew, uh, and once it's brewed, it ferments for a period of time, um, I'm not sure if, if you want me to talk about the process of tapping and evaluating these right now.

Brett Willis:

I think we can get into that. But I just wanna say, like, as a person who has submitted, uh, a pilot idea and also knows very little and next to nothing about legitimately brewing beer, like it's really cool and empowering to see how the process works. Cuz you work with the brewer who knows kind of like, okay, you want a caramel flavor? Let's add this much of this malt or, oh, you want this sort of like a fruity tropical aroma. Okay. Let's add the hops at this point. Let's add these sorts of hops and it's not like they're just mandating anything they're saying like, does this sound good to you? And so you, you really talk it out. And so there's not an aspect of like handing it off so much as it is, like bringing it to life with, uh, the brewer. So very cool.

Patrick Chavanelle:

Yeah. And the other great thing too is, you know, it's not just that you're working with one person, every idea that comes through, it's kind of a team effort, you know, you do work with an individual to create that recipe, but then that recipe is sent to the entire team for the team to review and give feedback on. Uh, and you know, it's, it's basically every beer that goes through this system is, is like a full team effort outside of, you know, the person's whose idea it is. So, uh, so it's like a, we're all collaborating on it in a sense

Liz Wilson:

As someone who's never submitted idea. Um, I still haven't. I think about it like really frequently. And I, um, I'm like paralyzed by options. I think that is like, that's my problem is I can't, I'm like, oh God, what is it gonna be? Um, so I'm the, yeah, I'm writing these, I'm writing this process down. I'll, uh, I'll submit something. Um, but I think, you know, when you're evaluating the beers, you know, you put them through that sort of rating system are there. Cause I, I know we've released beers that have been pretty labor intensive where, or it's like a certain ingredient or something that would be hard to scale up, I guess, you know, just more of a fun question, but are there any memorable pilot beers that were fun because of an, uh, interesting ingredient or were particularly challenging and we're like, Nope, never do that again. Or, you know what it, I think that's sort of the beauty of the pilot system is to be able to experiment with things like this, but I just, are there any standouts, um, over the years?

Patrick Chavanelle:

I mean the first one that comes to mind, I, I can answer this question a few ways. The first one that comes to mind and is actually part of, kind of the acceptance process is we have to ask ourselves a few questions, uh, when we are accepting new ideas, one, is that like, is this a beer or concept that we can see Allagash pursuing and brewing on a larger scale? Uh, the other is, uh, is this an idea that seems feasible? Um, so that one was added A bit earlier, you know, a few years ago, I guess. Um, and you know, I, the example I was thinking of is we did a beer called darling Ruby, which required us on when we were piloting the beer to, uh, zest some grapefruit, you know, uh, when you're doing it on the scale that we are at least to start, you know, our pilot system is essentially 15 gallons, it's a half barrel. Um, it doesn't seem like too much of a hassle to zest, you know, five grapefruits and then, you know, takes a couple minutes and you're done. But when you think about it in terms of scaling that, and instead of doing half barrel, you do a thousand barrels, then it starts to become unbelievably labor intensive to the point where you have to consider hiring temp work in order to just zest the fruit that you need to use for the beer. So, um, so yeah, we have to always kind of make sure that any new idea is practical, but having said that, you know, we still do want some of those beers, not all beers that are submitted are going to be beers that we make like a thousand barrels of. Uh, and that's great. And maybe because it's fresh in my mind because we just brewed today, but we have one that, uh, uses Koji rice as a portion of the mash. And it's this intensive by intensive, I guess. I mean like somewhat labor intensive, it's a very long brew day. Uh, so a portion of the mash is converted. Uh, so the starch is converted to fermentable sugar through the addition of kogi rice. Uh, that's added to a bunch of cooked grain that sits for eight to 10 hours, and then we kind of grain in the base beer on top of it. Um, so just thinking about scaling that sort of concept up, that would mean that it would take nearly a day to brew one batch and right now on our 70-barrel system, we could do 10 batches in a day, roughly. So that's clearly not a beer that we could scale. But it's a beer that's extremely interesting that we've done a few times now and, and really like, and, uh, you know, not all beers are gonna be something that we brew on our larger house or 70 barrel brew house. Uh, we still want the ideas that, you know, we could just brew one, uh, and it might take a bunch of work, but it's gonna be worth it because in the end, the beer is awesome. So we kind of want both a good blend. Good mix of both.

Liz Wilson:

And yeah, Patrick, I think the other thing that is interesting is talking about a few of the beers that have been scaled up and that might be recognizable to people. So, um, one that comes to mind I think is one of our most used examples is Two Lights, um, which, uh, goes into a pretty big distribution for us each summer. Um, and that was a pilot idea that came in from a member of our sales team who enjoyed wine, spritzers and so on to see if we could brew a beer that had the essence of that, but are there other beers that folks might recognize, um, that have started on our pilot system?

Patrick Chavanelle:

Oh man. I mean, literally all of them do. Uh, the first one that popped into my ahead was Nowaday. Um, you know, it's a beer that we brewed last year, uh, and it started as an idea from, uh, Jason Winchester works in our packaging department and it was to do, uh, a, like a colder fermented beer of sorts. So, uh, so we're a brewery that, you know, we, we rely heavily on yeast character for the beers that we make. Um, I think Jason Perkins said before, we're more of a yeast forward brewery, it's a bit weird to, to say, but, uh, not weird to say, but it might sound odd for someone who doesn't know exactly what that means, but we rely heavily on yeast to give the majority of the character to our beers. So, uh, what that means is what we generally have to, you know, use Belgian strain and ferment warm. Uh, when you ferment warm, you're getting, um, what are called like esters and esters are certain aromatic compounds that will contribute to, you know, the aroma of a beer. And his idea was to, uh, do a colder fermented beer that, you know, you wouldn't get as much yeast character. And then to add a fair amount of, uh, these noble hops, um, hallertau that, uh, lend this, you know, floral green, uh, grassy character. So the beer was, you know, less yeast forward, if you will. And more about, uh, like subtleties of the yeast in fermentation. Uh, and it was more so about the hops than anything else. So, um, that was a cool beer that, you know, even over the course of the years, that it was first brewed, which was, I don't even know, six, seven years ago, maybe even it was cool to see the beer developed from, uh, from even like brand to brand first, it was called noble blonde. Um, and then maybe it was even brewed before that. Uh, but then it turned into it's Nowaday and that beer's so good.

Brett Willis:

I love that. Beer's awesome. I feel like it just brings up an interesting thing that I've experienced from that I wouldn't have expected coming from outside of the beer industry. And it's just that, like, it feels like our brewers and people generally in the brewery get so excited by beers that people outside of the brewery might not get as excited about, or like wouldn't hear and think excitement. Like, I think of like, uh, Cory's lager, like, uh, one of our brewers brewed a, a really, really good beer, but it was, it was a lager, you know, it was a very balanced, excellent lager. And it was like, everyone in the brewery was talking about it when it was on a pilot tap. It like went away almost immediately from that pilot tap. And it's just funny cuz you wouldn't necessarily think that that would be the most exciting beer for people, but it was so good.

Patrick Chavanelle:

Oh, so good.<laugh> uh, yeah. You know, uh, just thinking about how we capture feedback, that was more of like the old school approach in a sense where, um, you know, we we've gotten a bit more technical lately, but um, but back in the day, you know, five-plus years ago, the way we determined whether a beer was good or not was how full the keg was when we took it off tap or the chatter about the beer throughout the brewery. So that was one of those, uh, instances where, you know, not only was it well received with the metrics that we're looking at nowadays, but, um, but it was also anything that it was, there was all that people were talking about, uh, essentially for, I wanted to say the week that it was on, but I don't even think it lasted a week<laugh>

Brett Willis:

So for these pilot beers, I guess what's the, what's the next step. If you have a successful pilot beer, uh, it gets good metrics inside the brewery. Like I guess what, what happens next?

Patrick Chavanelle:

You know, uh, we've actually, um, changed that process, uh, as recently as last year, um, just to ensure that you know, of the beers that were brewed over the past year, uh, we wanna make sure that we are considering scaling up the ones that were the most well risk received. So one thing that we did, uh, last year was we took a look at, you know, the, the list of all beers that were what we call catalog. So if they're well received, uh, by everyone who tastes them and uses the platform that we use to, to gather sensory feedback, called Draughtlab, we will, uh, then during our team meetings, we with whatever beers are taken off tap as a team, we'll look at that information. And then each team member has a vote as to whether or not they want to, you know, catalog a beer or kind of move on from the idea. So what we did last year is we took a list of all those beers that were catalogued. So all of like, you know, the great beers that have gone through the system and as a team, we ranked them. So we did an exercise to, you know, see, uh, of all of these, what are your top 15, uh, once we got that information, we kind of looked at that list and, um, and sort of figured out what made the most sense in order to, to take the next step. Uh, so the cool thing that was really started last year is this new series that, uh, is tasting room only. Um, and, uh, it is sort of like the, you know, once a beer graduates from the pilot system, uh, it then moves on to a, or it has the potential to move on to a From Maine, With Love, release. So those are, you know, like I mentioned earlier, we have two brew houses. We have the 70 barrel brew house and a 30 barrel brew house. Mm-hmm<affirmative> um, so for all From Maine, With Love releases, it's just a one batch on our smaller brew house. Um, that's released in our tasting room. So I can't even remember how many we did last year, maybe 13,

Brett Willis:

It was 12, I think. Yeah, we're just, we're just on 13 now.

Patrick Chavanelle:

Yeah. And the, the majority of those, you know, some came from our wild facility, but the majority were from, uh, you know, were, were pilot ideas. Um, and one of the, the benefits of having something like this is, um, to be able to not just gather feedback internally, but to get a sense, you know, because, you know, we're all, we all work in a brewery we're all in some way shape or form beer geeks, you know what I mean? Yeah. Um, so just as like, like I spoke of before as, uh, there's a potential bias there just across all of us, especially if, you know, I taste the beer, I'm like, oh, Hey Brett, this beer's so good. And then putting that in your ear, like, oh, this beer's so good. Yeah. Then you spread it. So with the front man with love, uh, series, we can kind of get a sense of, you know, what, um, what everyone else thinks about, uh, some of the beers that is like, the way I look at it is like the cream of the crop of all the pilots go through there. And that's kind of like the first step into something potentially bigger. Um, so when, you know, when a beer is released as a From Maine, With Love, uh we c ould then, you know, have a better understanding as to, you know, what others think of a particular, u m, b eer in general. Sure. U m, and then use that information a nd t o consider something bigger, u h, down the road. So it's a really cool outlet in order to not just have to go from, u h, you know, half barrel pilot to a thousand barrel national release, it's kind of, you know, baby steps towards that sort of thing. It's like, u h, going into like the minor leagues, if you will, u h, before it, you know, breaks it out into either a national release or, o r like a year r ound release, who knows

Brett Willis:

On that little anecdote too, about Corey's lager, uh, that lager was, uh, From Maine, With Love#6, that released in 2021. And then in now in 2022, that's actually been bumped to a national release. So it's gonna be, uh, called Seconds to Summer. And it's coming out, uh, in a 12 pack of 12 ounce cans this summer. Yeah. So

Patrick Chavanelle:

That's not the only one

Brett Willis:

That's true!

Patrick Chavanelle:

Floating Holiday. So, uh, that's uh, lemon, um, pale that we did, uh, you know, that was another From Maine, With Love release for 2021 that we all, we already knew that beer was good, uh, before it transitioned into From Maine, With Love. But, uh, once we did, you know, the, the, beer's just the beer's awesome. Uh, and that's now floating holiday for, uh, for this year. So, so it's cool. And this, you know, this, this whole progression is fairly new for us. Um, prior to, you know, last year, even, uh, we didn't really have a sort of, um, process from, you know, uh, like this, we didn't really have this, uh, this middle area, I guess, if you will, mm-hmm<affirmative> to, in order to allow us to, you know, um, do a smaller release of these. So it's pretty cool. And I think moving forward, it's just going to ensure for anything that we do on a larger scale that we're picking the best beers that we make, all, you know, all the beers that go through here, all From Maine, With Love releases. They're awesome. All the beers that we have cataloged on the pilot scale. Like they're awesome. We already know that, but you know, of the ones that we decide to do on a, like a much larger scale, like those are beyond awesome. Those are incredibly awesome. So, and we know that because it's, it's gone through all these steps.

Brett Willis:

Yeah. Liz, what's your favorite From Maine, With Love beer so far?

Liz Wilson:

Uh, I love any of the, the, um, wheat beers aged on fruit. Like that is like the way to my heart. So I think From Maine, With Love 13 was I think we're both, yeah. Wheat beer aged on fruit, different fruit. And so those are like so, so good.

Brett Willis:

And those are, those are just really cool in the, a process because they're actually aged on second-use fruit. So it's like for From Maine, With Love#13, to be specific about that, we have a beer coming out called, uh, Honeyberry Tumble. That's aged on cherries and honeyberries are also called haskap berries, but it's, we brewed that beer, you know, aged, fermented it on those berries and then took that beer off those berries and put a wheat beer on those second use berries. Um, and that it kind of sours them a little bit. Is, is there some more like lactobacillus kind of hanging around on the fruit, uh, Patrick, or how does that kind of,

Patrick Chavanelle:

I mean, there's some residual beer on there, but, uh, in general, you know, some of the fruit still has fruit character to lend. So, um, we're able to capture that in a smaller amount. So I will say too, it's, it's helpful because, you know, the way we add fruit to beer, just in terms of looking at it, uh, from like a pounds per gallon perspective, mm-hmm,<affirmative>, we're around two pounds per gallon, uh, fruit to beer, which is, you know, when you think about it, it's, it's pretty insane. That's yeah. Heck

Liz Wilson:

That's heck ton of fruit

Patrick Chavanelle:

A heck a ton of fruit, for sure. Uh, but then when we put beer back into that tank, if we're reusing it, we don't do it at that same amount. We'll do a smaller amount just knowing that, you know, the amount of character that is still there is, uh, is minimal to some extent. So if you pull, put less beer in, you'll get more character when you take the beer out. So, but it's a, it's a cool thing that we're doing, you know, a way to, to reuse something that would of just gone as like compost, essentially.

Brett Willis:

Totally. And those beers specifically are the ones that Patrick was referring to. When you said like most of the From Maine, With Love beers come through the, you know, pilot system, those beers just happen to be like, by necessity, we have this extra fruit we're going to use it this kind of second time to make a little more beer that it's very special and tasty.

Liz Wilson:

What about you Brett?

Brett Willis:

Biere de garde? I don't think I even knew what a Biere de garde was, honestly. So whenever, it's been popping up in like yeah. Popping up the tasting room. Every time I see that beer, I have to get it. It inspired me to, to submit a beer to the pilot system.

Patrick Chavanelle:

What was it called? Brett, say it, say it.

Brett Willis:

Oh, it was called, well, it was brewed with a butternut squash. So it was called biere de gourd. And I thought I was the cleverest person alive and I looked it up on like untappd and there were like 40 other brewers with biere de gourdes. So<laugh> It doesn't, it's not gonna have that name, but I was honestly really pumped with how that beer came out. I really enjoyed it. Yeah. Me

Patrick Chavanelle:

Yeah, me too.

Liz Wilson:

Is the color was, did it impart like a nice color

Patrick Chavanelle:

Yeah, I think there are some darker, uh, malts in there that probably lent more towards the color than anything else. Yeah. One of the cool things for me, uh, was the fact that that beer used a yeast strain. It's this French ale strain that we had never used before. And for me it was like this vinous character, this almost like Grapey white wine sort of character to the beer that I've never experienced using, you know, a strain here. So we've already done some riffs. Like we, I mean, uh, pilot team, um, you know, Zach Bodah, who's our QC manager. Mm-hmm,<affirmative> he, uh, brew a beer a few weeks ago, uh, using that strain, but a lower ABV beer, a Grisette, um, to see if he could get those characters, uh, just in the lower, lower ABV beer, uh, and then paired it with some, some, um, hop varieties that are known to give off, you know, similar characteristics like Nelson Sauvin, you know, it's supposed to be like white wine, like, uh, and that beer's so good. It's actually, it's on tap right now. Y'all should come over and try it because it's, it's one of my, one of the best beers I think we've done so far this year.

Liz Wilson:

Wow.

Patrick Chavanelle:

And that just kind of goes, you know, that plays into what I was saying earlier about, you know, how important yeast is to us. It's we, you know, it's, it's the most important thing really? Mm-hmm,<affirmative>, you know, obviously hops are important. Like I love hops, um, but we're really looking for yeast character for the majority of beers that we we make here. Uh, so along those lines, you know, we started, um, I guess if you want to call it like a, an R& D program a while back, uh, which initially was just focused on just kind of stepping outside of the box of ingredients that we were generally using for most pilots that were submitted and seeing what else was out there. Um, if you know anything about hops, you know, there are new hop varieties coming out every year, and it's not just new hop varieties, it's experimental varieties too. It's it's overwhelming. Um, and it, it could be challenging to get a look at all of'em. Um, so one thing that we wanted to start doing was just exploring to see, you know, what sort of characters, certain hop varieties that we hadn't used before were like in our beer. Um, so in order to trial those, we do some small scale dry hop using, you know, uh, a specific variety. And then it will kind of go through a similar process to our pilots where it'll be put on tap. Uh, and those beers will be, you know, rated on a hedonic scale of how much do you like it? How little do you like it? And then you're also able to comment on, you know, what do you smell, taste, uh, and then we get feedback that way. And, you know, initially it was it the intention of starting a program like this was for pilot team members, you know, to give us, you know, other tools in our belt for helping folks create recipes, but really what, uh, what came of it was not just that, but, uh, people would submit ideas specifically around certain trials that we are doing. So they would be like, oh my God, I loved X, Y, Z hop variety. That was just on tap the other week. I want to brew a beer around this. This is what I'm hoping to achieve flavor wise. Uh, but we also do, you know, yeast trials, uh, which are just as important, uh, for the same reason, you know, to, to see what's out there for yeast strains and, uh, be able to integrate those and, uh, and new beer ideas. Um, so it's, it's pretty cool that we're able to, you know, have all these trials go through this like feedback process and, and to give us more options, um, for helping folks concepts come to life, which is like literally the most satisfying thing ever, you know, when you help someone with an idea and you see it through, and, you know, if you're able to taste it with them, like the look on their face, uh, if you are able to help them achieve exactly what they're looking for, it's like the greatest feeling ever. So that's just on the pilot scale, then if you're able to tell'em like, oh yeah. And we're interested in doing this beer and scale it up. Like it's, you know, that, that is such a cool thing to be able to, you know, tell people. So, so I don't know. I love my job.<laugh>,

Brett Willis:

That's awesome.<laugh>, that's awesome. Uh, I feel like, I mean, Liz, did you have anything else that you were wondering?

Liz Wilson:

No, I gotta submit an idea

Patrick Chavanelle:

For sure.

Brett Willis:

Yes. And I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna not, I'm gonna put you out there a little bit, Patrick, because, uh, Patrick, oh, well, a I've, I've kind of one thing to say. And one thing to ask the thing to say is that, so Patrick's actually the person behind, Saison. If you were an Allagash saison fan, uh, you have Patrick to thank, uh, we love that beer. And, uh, the question that I have for you, Patrick, is have you, are you like submitting pilot ideas? Do you have one on the books or are you just doing a lot of R and D stuff?

Patrick Chavanelle:

Uh, it's a little of both. Um, you know, I have one that's in the ferment right now. Um, so we were, you know, years ago playing around with the idea of creating, um, a beer that had some tartness or acidity to it, but that could also be sent, uh, through our normal tanks and our normal processing equipment. You know, when you talk, when you start talking to out like tart or sour beers, then you're talking about stuff like bacteria and any beer that has bacteria. Um, you know, those beers are amazing, but we can't send those beers to the same equipment that we, that we send something like white through just, it's, uh, more challenging to ensure that you're cleaning those, uh, those tanks and, you know, the centrifuge, uh, properly to ensure that, you know, there are no, um, there are no areas that still have, um, you know, whatever it might be that was in the beer, uh, whatever bacteria. Um, and, uh, so one kind of one, I don't wanna call it a project. We were basically trying to brainstorm some ideas in which we could, you know, achieve that tartness by other means. Um, so through, I think some paper and also through a suggestion by our, my microbiologist in the lab, uh, Mike Billon, we started looking into this strain called lachancea thermotolerans. And, you know, nowadays, uh, there are used suppliers that sell this yeast, but three, four years ago, uh, no one was selling it. So this is a yeast strain that ferments sugars and creates alcohol as well as lactic acid, which is tart. Um, so, uh, and it's, it's a yeas strain. It's not like a bacteria, so it it's something that's, you know, if we chose to ferment a beer with it, uh, we would then be able to send it through our normal equipment and not be concerned about any cross-contamination. Um, so just playing around with that yeast a little more, uh, is something that I find interesting, particularly in a lower ABV beer, you know, once you get to around 3% or so, it's, it's challenging to make a beer that doesn't come off as watery and thin mm-hmm<affirmative>. So my thought was, you know, what if we boosted a beer of that sort with some acidity by means of lachancea thermotolerans. So, uh, so the, the beer I have that's in a tank right now, it was, it's like a three and a half percent, um, you know, low ABB beer that use that yeast strain as a portion of it. Um, and it was dry hopped a little bit. So, uh, I guess we'll see, you know, it's tasty, you never know, but yeah, I, I think it's more, my, the majority of my like focus at least lately has been on the R and D side of things. So ensuring that we're, we're trialing new, uh, new raw materials. Uh, we also have, if you don't mind me talking just a tiny bit more, uh, we have, uh, we started this program about a year, year and a half ago. Uh, we call it yeast, bio prospecting. So what that means, it's a fancy way of saying, you know, capturing wild yeast, um, and given our focus on yeast as a brewery, we thought it'd be cool to be able to try to find yeast in the wild, which, you know, obviously with a beer, like our coolship beer that happens spontaneously. So, you know, we send hot wort outside it cools overnights, uh, gets inoculated with wild yeast microbes and then fermented for a year plus, uh, at our wild facility. But this program is more, you know, uh, a focus on like one specific yeast strain. Uh, so not just like a, a mixed culture of a number of yeast bacteria. So, uh, what we've done so far is we've been able to isolate a strain off a wild flower that was outside the back of the brewery, uh, that gives off this aroma of exactly what you would think is like pungent flowers, uh, which is really cool to kind of integrate into, uh, into a, a recipe. Um, we also, which we haven't tapped yet, but we isolated one off of raspberry that was right outside. We have, uh, some, some wooden barrels and, uh, right around our tasting room that has some like random raspberry plants. And, uh, we took a sample of that and put it in some medium and, uh, and, and grew it up and, uh, might be on our microbiologist who was able to prop it up and isolate it. Uh, then it gets kind of transferred to my phase, which is the R and D phase to do some fermentations make sure it's interesting. Uh, and he's also isolated some, um, some yeast strains from some coolship barrels too. So, uh, pulled like single strains and then prop those strains up, uh, to see if they would, uh, give off interesting characters. So, uh, the, you know, even though we've started this program over a year ago, it's still kind of in its infancy in terms of reaping the benefits of it. But eventually, uh, who knows we can have our deep freeze, uh, in the lab. So the deep freeze is a place that we store our, our yeast that can be filled with these strains that were just either pulled from the air from a flower, uh, from wherever around the brewery, some tree bark, uh, and we could be utilizing those strains to make pilot beers and then have it go through, you know, the process that we just talked about. Uh, so that's awesome. Literally being, you know, as local as possible, if you want to call it that. So that's something that.

Liz Wilson:

The visual I have in my head of Mike, like wandering around the brewery, looking for on a yeast hunt is we've done pretty

Patrick Chavanelle:

Incredible. We've done three or four of'em. Now we literally will go find some grass or go peel off some bark from a tree or go find some rotting fruit, cuz if fruit is rotting, then there's chance for there to be some yeast on there. So, uh, we've been doing it for, you know, in the springtime and the fall and we plan on doing it once the weather starts to warm up. Um, so it's, it's really cool. I, that's something that I'm super excited about and I wanted to make sure I talked to you guys about it.

Brett Willis:

<laugh> no, that's, that's so cool. I feel like it was like almost an anti climax to end on rotting fruit, but it makes great beer. Well, we'll see, we we'll test. We'll

Patrick Chavanelle:

See, it might not. And then we just move on and dump it and find something else.

Brett Willis:

<laugh> that's awesome. Well, Patrick, it has been a pleasure. Uh, thank you so much for, for sharing all this info. It's so cool to hear about and, uh, exciting to be a part of.

Patrick Chavanelle:

I mean, I get excited talking about it. Uh, I like live and breathe this stuff, so I'm always more than happy to talk to anyone who's willing to listen, uh, about anything that's going on here at the group.

Liz Wilson:

<laugh>

Brett Willis:

Uh, so if you have listened to this and want us to talk about any, anything, any questions you have, any thoughts, anything you want, even us to clarify that we already kind of talked about, um, just shoot us message at podcast, alleg.com. Uh, we'd love to hear any feedback or any thoughts you have.