S1 Episode 13: Hop Reach - Brewing Our Ideal IPA

The task was clear: brew an IPA that is exactly what we’d want to reach for. But with so many options for hops, malt, and everything else, how did our brewers land on that perfect recipe? That’s the question we’re tackling on this podcast with the help of Jason, our Brewmaster, and Patrick, our technical R&D brewer. In this episode you’ll hear all about the various versions, the company-wide feedback, and the many, many tasty beers that eventually led us to the recipe for Hop Reach IPA.

This is part one of a three-part podcast series that’s all about our upcoming IPA, Hop Reach, which we’ll be releasing in January of 2023.

Transcript

Brett Willis: 0:00

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 personally had a great time again, as always recording this one. Yeah, Yeah.

Liz Wilson: 0:14

Patrick and Jason are just, you know, Yeah, they're great people.

Brett Willis: 0:18

They're awesome. So Patrick is an r and d brewer here at Aash. Jason's our brew master, and, uh, we just chatted with them all about a new beer we have coming out here called Hop Reach ipa, uh, coming out January, 2023. And, um, you know, it's just a fascinating look into the how sort of in depth we went into the process of trying brewing all sorts of different versions, getting feedback from the entire company to kind of come up with what we view as like our ideal ipa. And

Liz Wilson: 0:49

Yeah, I think it's amazing to sort of reflect on all of the trial batches and the feedback that they had to sift through, uh, to get to the, the IPA that we will be releasing soon.

Brett Willis: 1:01

Yeah. And it also, I mean, the way they describe it, it sounds really dang delicious. I wasn't, they were drinking it. I wasn't drinking it. Unfortunately, they only didn't have enough. Maybe they had enough. I don't know. They excluded me also

Liz Wilson: 1:14

Fairly early in

Brett Willis: 1:15

The morning. It's fine. Dirty in the morning. I would've had a sip. Me too. Um, but, uh, no, it's, uh, it really cool to hear all about that process. So if that sounds interesting to you, then give it a listen. I'm Brett Willis working on the marketing team here, joined by in person for the first time in our podcasting history. Uh, Liz Wilson. Good morning. Good morning. Jason Perkins, our brewmaster.

Jason Perkins: 1:52

Good morning.

Brett Willis: 1:53

Morning. And Patrick Chavanelle, our technical R&D Brewer. Is that still the correct title? Is there a different,

Patrick Chavanelle: 1:59

Uh, there's a different one technically I guess, but I don't know. I don't care

Brett Willis: 2:03

Technically. He's a really good brewer. Um, and so today this is the first of a three part, uh, series of podcasts that we're doing that's all about a special new beer coming in 2023. Uh, it's a beer that, you know, we're all super excited about and it's gonna be become part of our year round lineup. And that beer is called Hop Reach IPA. And in this podcast we're gonna chat with Jason and Patrick, uh, about how they, with the help of everyone here at Allagash, came to the exact recipe for this Tasty beer. But before we get into the beer, we gotta ask the questions, the special questions. So, uh, Patrick, what's the best, what's the best canned fish?

Patrick Chavanelle: 2:41

Oh, canned fish. You know what? I eat it four times a week and I couldn't tell you what the name of it is.<laugh>. Uh, I could tell you a little bit about it. It's$2 and 50 cents. Okay, good. Good. Um, you can't get the skinless boneless version because that's just garbage. Okay. You kind of need those little bones in there for some texture. Sure. Uh, and it's sardines, so that's all I know about it in olive oil too. Okay. Okay. That's the key as well. The olive oil. Uh, any fish and water garbage. Okay.

Brett Willis: 3:16

When,

Liz Wilson: 3:17

Um, beating your weekly allotment with Can Fish

Patrick Chavanelle: 3:21

<laugh>, is it an allotment? Is that what it's,

Liz Wilson: 3:23

Um, is it, is this your lunch or you

Patrick Chavanelle: 3:25

It's break. It's every, Yeah. It's what I bring to work for lunch every day. It's a combination of things. Who told you to ask?

Brett Willis: 3:34

Was gonna

Jason Perkins: 3:34

Say, did you know that he ate canned Fish? Cuz that was an amazing response. If you had ask me that question, it would've been nothing but silence. No,

Brett Willis: 3:41

We talked about the canned fish, but I've seen you eat, you eat it four times a week, so I see you here at the brewery. So, you know, it's

Patrick Chavanelle: 3:46

A, it's, it's not just canned fish. It's like, not like a, a cat or something. No, It's a combination of ingredients to, It's more of a dish.

Brett Willis: 3:55

Oh, just fish. I admire it on its own. I honestly admire it. I feel like I eat like a, like a, like a three year old. Like, I literally eat like a piece of bread and a piece of cheese with like no mayo or anything. And you're there eating your nice fish. And I just, I,

Patrick Chavanelle: 4:07

Well, I mean that, that's what I mostly eat. Aside from that, I am the family garbage disposal. Okay. So I'll eat any of the leftovers that anyone else in the family won't eat, which is generally a lot. Yeah. So young children, Any box of cereal that's a partial or, or anything that's been kicking around for a few days in the fridge? No one likes leftovers in the house. Like our, our kids love mac and cheese.

Brett Willis: 4:30

Yep.

Patrick Chavanelle: 4:30

Day old mac and cheese. Total garbage. Yep.

Brett Willis: 4:33

I, I'm in the same boat.

Patrick Chavanelle: 4:34

Sure. I don't get it.<laugh>. So<laugh>, next time you buy some of those, you buy, you buy an extra one for me. I Oh yeah. Give him a try. Yeah.

Brett Willis: 4:43

Oh yeah. We'll have a little, uh, yeah. Little sardine

Patrick Chavanelle: 4:46

The next podcast. Yeah.

Brett Willis: 4:47

There you go. Talk about sardines more. Uh, alright, Jason, uh, you take a, I know you've taken a couple trips up to the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. What is your kind of favorite spot along there? Oh, it doesn't have to be like a, it doesn't have to be like a camping, it could be like, you know, a camping place. But I feel like just some area in the Allagash.

Jason Perkins: 5:06

Oh man. There's several amazing spots. The first one that came to mind was Chase Rapids, which is, you know, where we started as a company when we did our company trip. It's not, it's, some people consider it more of the middle of the waterway. It's just this great section. It happens. And fun, a fun way to it. It's really the only section of like, I guess I could somewhat serious rapids, but Sure. But, um, that's more of like the exciting area. But, um, you know, some of the really other campsite just such, so peaceful, um, such, such great spots. All it's hard to pick one to be honest. I could totally see that. There's so many great spots. I could

Brett Willis: 5:43

Totally see that. Yeah, it's pretty idyllic. Uh, you might hear some background noise. That's because we're literally in a brewery and we're in our brewery. And so, uh, if you hear some music, uh, that's the, uh, packaging line, packaging out beer. So let's get in the meat of it. Yeah. We're brewing an IPA to add to our year round lineup. So, to kind of back up, can you give a little context around our history with IPAs?

Jason Perkins: 6:06

Yeah, I mean we've, we've, I guess the first IPA we made, uh, was a beer called Hugh Malone, which we made back in 2007, I believe. Mm. Um, and that was just a specialty released, you know, much different company back then. We were, you only had a couple core year round core beers, three year round core beers. And then specialty beers were, you know, we did one or two a year kind of thing. Much different than what we're doing now. And, uh, Hugh Malone was the first one. So we, you know, we called it a Belgian-style IPA, but, um, it did, did use a Belgian yeast, but, um, very much a hop-forward beer. And we made that beer every year for many years to come after that. I honestly don't remember when we stopped making it, but that was the first one we ever made. Um, and then we've had a handful of other ones over the years that we've made. Swiftly was just recently one. We did this earlier this year. Uh, and then, you know, we've done, um, you know, we did Brett IPA is another one we've done in the past. Oh yeah. So we've, we've in theory been doing IPAs to some level since 2007. Um, just nothing on a, on a national year round release scale. Totally think

Brett Willis: 7:11

Just, sorry, this is an aside, but, uh, I had Brett IPA at my wedding, uh, and it's, Brett refers to the yeast strain Brettanomyces. It's not my name, but there were a lot of people at that wedding. I'd been working at Allagash, maybe like a year who were like, man, Brett's moving up in that company. Yeah. He's got his own beer. So it was, it was good. Um,

Liz Wilson: 7:29

Yeah, I feel like we also have the hop pilot program too. That is a lot of that's trial and research into

Patrick Chavanelle: 7:38

Hops. Yeah, definitely. So for that, we take, uh, an existing beer we make here and transfer a a, a portion into another tank and then basically dry hop the hell out of it. Uh, with typically, uh, more experimental varieties. Um, they've kind of leaned more towards publicly available varieties too. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, and it's just another way for us to, to get a look at and a feel for, uh, what a particular hop would lend to, to beer. Um, so we've done a few of those. Uh, they started as draft only and we packaged I think two of'em. Oh man. It's hard to keep track of time<laugh> with these things. Maybe three years ago or so, two, three years ago, uh, we packaged two different versions. That's right. Uh, of, of two. And, uh, there were, uh, HBC 4 72 and HBC six 30. Wow.

Brett Willis: 8:35

I was gonna quiz you on. Nailed it. You nailed it.

Liz Wilson: 8:39

Good job. That's

Patrick Chavanelle: 8:39

Impressive. Or I just made those numbers on<laugh>. I'm not gonna double check<laugh>.

Brett Willis: 8:43

We'll figure it out. Um, yeah,

Liz Wilson: 8:46

I feel like it's really interesting to have them side by side. Um, which was kind of cool when those two came out together. Cuz without doing the side by side, you're like, Yeah, it's kind of a hoppy, a hoppy tasty beer<laugh>, but when you taste them next to each other, it's like, Oh wow. There are some very different characteristics.

Patrick Chavanelle: 9:04

Yeah. That was, I think that was kind of part of the, the intention around doing two, uh, using the same base beer, because you're right, it's, you know, it's, it's not just with a lot of the beers that we brew here, we focus and rely heavily on yeast to give character to those beers. Right. Um, but hops can do the same thing. And not all hops are the same. And, uh, there are ones that are a bit more expressive than others. Like, I don't know your sos of the world that are super tropical coconut bombs. Um, and, uh, some that might be more subtle, uh, like, uh, more traditional, uh, European style hops. Um, so having that sort of outlet, uh, where you can compare the two using the same base beer was, was pretty cool to do. And we should probably do something like that again at some point in the future. Yeah.

Brett Willis: 9:57

That was the, Yeah,

Jason Perkins: 9:58

That's fun. Yeah. Agreed. And, and as Patrick said, you know, these are, uh, hops that are kind of early in the stage of development and by early you're still talking five or six years into the development of these hop varieties. But the reason they just have numbers is cause they haven't, they haven't been fully commercialized yet. So, um, some of the suppliers who are in the breeders who are making'em, make'em available for, on the small scale to do these trials with, and it's just a really fun way to see just the incredible range of hop aromas that can come from, you know, what people just think is hop and, and those aroma characteristics that can come through are incredibly broad.

Brett Willis: 10:34

Yeah. One of those, um, the hop pilot beers, the, it was like the blue version, It was six something, six 30 that, like, I feel like that hop was a really interesting hop. Like, it, it provided, what was it like, almost like a vanilla-y but also like a dried leaves or something. That's not very, doesn't sound very appetizing, but it was an interesting Right. Wasn't there just something

Liz Wilson: 10:53

I thought it was like a piney woody. I would be, I don't know, just making things, making things.

Patrick Chavanelle: 11:00

Honestly, with, with all beers in general, people can, uh, perceive Yeah. The same beer a little differently. Totally. So, you know, if you get, uh, uh, like vanilla and you get pine, like, there's nothing to say that there's anything wrong about that. Right, right. Um, that's what makes those beers so interesting. Totally.

Brett Willis: 11:18

So we have that sort of background. We've been brewing sort of hopy-ish beers, Hoppier beers for a while, but then kind of now this decision was made. And so I guess for, for both of you, you know, Jason and Patrick, what was the first thing that went through your head when it was like, we're doing it, we're brewing a year-round IPA?

Jason Perkins: 11:34

Yeah, so, uh, I would, I'll start, but I mean, it, it was, it was super exciting decision to make. So, you know, like I said, we've been making IPAs off and on over the years, but you, it's not something we have done on a national scale. And, um, you know, we made a decision in this case, and we can get into a little bit about the development of the beer specifically. Yeah. Um, where we decided, okay, we're gonna make an IPA. We want, this is time for us to do a year round IPA mm-hmm.<affirmative>, and then let's get to work on it. Um, so it was a little different than a lot of our other beers. Most of our beers, if not all of them that come through the pilot program, which we, you know, can talk a little bit more in detail about. But, um, you know, I had the just really good fortune to be able to be the one to go around and tell, um, you know, people like Patrick and the rest of the pilot team Yeah. And the rest of our brewer team and so on, that it was time to, to do this and is super fun because I personally was incredibly excited. I mean, it's a beer style that it's, it's, there's a reason why it's the number one beer style in craft beer. Yeah. But I can speak personally that it's a beer style that I really very much enjoy mm-hmm.<affirmative> and often talk about how, um, if I'm going out to a bar or a restaurant, you know, I'll always have an Allagash of course, always because I love our beer and because it's a good way to, you know, check on quality and all that kind of good stuff. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. But often if I'm having a second beer, often I'm reaching for an IPA from one of our, our friend breweries, cuz there's some fantastic ones out there. And so, um, it's a beer style I personally drink a fair bit of. And um, so just really excited to be able to make it our own and then to be able to tell Patrick and the rest of the pilot team and just see the excitement build around the brewery as this, that word got around was pretty, pretty awesome. Totally.

Brett Willis: 13:15

How about you, Patrick?

Patrick Chavanelle: 13:16

Oh, I was so stoked.<laugh> it, and that's like, that's an, an understatement, uh, big time because, you know, when J- bone told me, Jason, sorry.

Brett Willis: 13:26

No, you're good.

Jason Perkins: 13:27

Oh man, it's out of the bag.

Patrick Chavanelle: 13:31

Um, when I was told that it was, you know, it's, we had been doing some here and there mm-hmm.<affirmative> piloting some here and there, but to be able to put a lot of time and energy and focus on a particular style is just, it's really exciting. It's just a whole new challenge. Um, but that's not to say, you know, based on our history, we've done some, we also do some internal, uh, r and d trials. Um, and some of those are specifically revolving around hops hop varieties mm-hmm.<affirmative> and exploring those internally and, uh, creating internal descriptors on those. So, um, yeah, to say the least, I was extremely excited and, uh, and I very soon realized how this was gonna be a really big project and we needed to start working on it immediately. Yep. Because these sorts of things take a fair amount of time to get going and, uh, and brewing pilots and evaluating and so on and so forth. So, uh, it was both excitement and, um, some anxiety kind of mixed in a, in a way, um, but um, more so just stoked for it in general. Totally.

Liz Wilson: 14:43

Yeah. And I feel like we can talk a little bit about it. You kind of formed a subcommittee of people who are focusing on brewing IPA and, um, it was the two of you and two others on our team. And then, so when you all first got together, um, you know, how did, how did you decide on what style of IPA we were going to brew? There's so many out there. We live in New England. Are we making a New England, uh, hazy ipa? Like Yeah. How did, how did those first conversations go, um, in deciding what type of IPA we were gonna, we were gonna try and hit?

Jason Perkins: 15:22

Yeah, I guess I can, that one, I guess I can start. Yeah. I mean, um, yeah, I referenced earlier the pilot program and that's a whole nother podcast. Yes.

Brett Willis: 15:31

Literally, we did one with Patrick, literally a whole podcast.

Patrick Chavanelle: 15:34

I heard it was like the best rated podcast. People stop me on the street. It's crazy.

Jason Perkins: 15:41

So I won't steal any thunder from that awesome podcast. But in a nutshell, all of our beers come from this program where an individual employee suggests an idea and then we bring it to life. And that's the super short story. Um, in this particular case, like I mentioned, we, we decided that, and it was time to make an ipa, so it didn't necessarily, the idea didn't necessarily come from a person, uh, it came from, now it's time for us to do it. And so that's why we, you know, formed this team with Patrick, myself, Zack Boda, quality manager, and Cory McNutt is one of our senior brewers. And the four of us kind of started, but that we were kind of the, I guess the project team, if you will. Uh, and throughout the process we wanted to involve the rest of the pilot team and the, and really the rest of the staff, which we can get into mm-hmm.<affirmative>. But to get back to your question was I, I really wanted to go into it with a fairly open canvas because I didn't wanna limit the creativity of the team. I didn't want to come in and say, Hey guys, we're making a, you know, super tropical four at 7.2% hazy ipa. Like, what's the fun in that? I mean, not that we couldn't make that a great beer, we could, but I wanted to give as much freedom in the process as, as was possible. So the scaffold was pretty, the initial scaffold was pretty broad. Um, you know, in the six plus percent range mm-hmm.<affirmative> mm-hmm.<affirmative> and Hop Forward basically, and<laugh>. Uh, and then, um, once we met as a team and started chatting, we found that our opinions were actually fairly aligned in the direction we wanted to go. Cool. Um, and the pilot team as well. And we kind of wanted, um, what we kind of decided was, again, like this closer to 7%, which is where we ended up, but from a hop character, which is obviously the big defining component of a beer like this is that we didn't want it to be one dimensional. We didn't want it to be just piney, just citrus, just tropical, Um, wanted it to kind of be a meld of all of those three really, those three components. And so that was the kind of target we developed. And then from there we made a whole bunch of IPAs, 17, I think pilot patches,

Brett Willis: 17:55

Right?

Patrick Chavanelle: 17:55

17. Yeah. Yeah. It's like I said, there was a pretty big project. It took a fair amount of time. I mean, mean you could say 17 beers and, uh, you don't really get a sense or feel for how long that sort of thing takes because, um, the way we went about it was in a number of like rounds mm-hmm.<affirmative> where round one was for individual recipes. Um, that's, you know, take some time to brew and to ferment and to carbonate and to put on tap for the staff to evaluate, to then take that feedback and analyze it and then having to decide how do we move forward from here? And that's just round one. Yeah. So repeat that four times and it's stretched out over the course of at least the first, oh man, six, seven months or so is, is how long that process, Uh, that's right. Took us. Um, so it was a fair amount of time.

Brett Willis: 18:58

The, the part that always just kind of fascinated me, like we have a little tree of the, you know, here's round one and then we took like, you know, a version C and then we versioned it out into three different ones for the second round. Like, I guess, how did you go about deciding what parts to keep from a certain round and what parts to change?

Patrick Chavanelle: 19:17

Uh, that's a great question. Um, so before you get into it, really, we kind of have to talk about the way in which we collected feedback right. On all of them. Right. Um, so we have a system in place for just pilots in general where we will put beers on tap for all staff to taste and, and analyze. We use a platform called Draft Lab mm-hmm.<affirmative> that will capture information, feedback. Um, a very simple, straightforward test is what we normally go for. It's a hedonic test, essentially your tasting the beer and rating it on a scale of how much do you like it or how little do you like it or anywhere in between. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, uh, there's a section for leaving comments and, and again, that's just the normal feedback we get for any new pilot beer that goes on tap. We figured with this project being a bit different than our standard pilot beer, we wanted to kind of open up our feedback mechanisms. So not only did we do that, uh, and the beers were on tap for about a week mm-hmm.<affirmative>, we also wanted to have, well, so before I move on, I should say that that sort of feedback is, um, is unbiased feedback. So it's an individual tasting beer on their own by themselves, uh, without any sort of outside influence on what they're tasting. So that's the feedback that we're receiving is just, you know, the thoughts from that specific individual without someone saying like, Oh, don't you taste this, don't you, you smell this, Uh, don't you hate this part?<laugh>, uh, you know, those things was me. That was me. I apologize. That's all good. Uh, so, um, we wanted to have, uh, a bit more of an, an open conversation, uh, with everyone on the staff as well. So we also set up some what we called IPA socials where we had the beers pouring on tap at a different building, uh, on our sites. And, uh, we, we set aside, you know, an hour on a couple days where anyone that was interested, uh, can come by, taste the beer more so in like an open environment, uh, and openly talk about their likes and dislikes. Um, and with, with that sort of situation, we are also from, uh, you know, the small team perspective, able to communicates to others what our approach is and what we're we're looking to achieve in a beer. And that way that conversation could, can lead to, um, you know, uh, some more, you know, open thoughts on, on what they think and to see if there's some alignment in terms of what we are looking to get, uh, out of the pilots versus, uh, what someone is perceiving. Um, so just another way of, of collecting feedback in a way. Uh, and also there, there was this system that was involved in these of taking little tokens and, you know, once you're done tasting through L four, you can put a token into your favorite, uh, IPA to see if that aligned with the feedback we were collecting from a draft lab perspective. So, uh, that was, uh, what we used to collect feedback. Uh, and then in terms of utilizing that feedback, that was, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna lie, it was a little challenging, at least initially. It's like, how do we make a decision based on all this information we collected?

Liz Wilson: 22:41

I'm sure there was no shortage of opinions. I feel like you're saying it very nicely, but Well,

Patrick Chavanelle: 22:46

And we wanted people's opinions. You know, that's, that's exactly what we were looking for. Yeah. We wanted to, we, we were doing our best to involve anyone that wanted to be part of this process because, and you know, one way that I, I kind of like, I still like, uh, referring to like what we did is, uh, it was more of like a brewery wide collaboration Totally. Um, than anything else, you know, because everyone is willing to or able to give feedback on these. And the feedback is obviously it's actually critical, uh, in terms of where, you know, the, the chart that you're referring to Yeah. Where those arrows then then lead in terms of like how certain beers get moved on from round one to round two and, and adjustments that are made. So I still haven't answered your question. I realize that it gets complicated.

Liz Wilson: 23:33

<laugh>. Sure.

Patrick Chavanelle: 23:34

We'll, just that

Liz Wilson: 23:35

I don't even remember what your question was, so I'm impressed that you do.

Patrick Chavanelle: 23:38

So I think it was something along the lines of how do we decide on how to move forward? Yeah. Um, so it, it essentially we, we took in that feedback, looked at it, uh, as, as a small team, looked at it with the pilot team, um, gots that team's feedback as well. And then for the most part, based on what was the most liked beer, um, we would then, and, and if there's a close one, uh, we would then use either one or both of those to then either re brew entirely for the next round mm-hmm.<affirmative> to almost be used as a control in a sense. So a beer that was well liked that could be compared against with some changes for round two. Uh, and then, uh, you know, we can make some adjustments based on some other things as well. Yeah. Um, whether or not it was worth adding or subtracting different kinds of hops, uh, hop varieties or the different types of hops. Yeah. Um, because once you start getting into the world of hops, it's, it's kind of incredible. Uh, not only are there hundreds of varieties that you can use, uh, all like Jason was saying, could have, uh, varying aromatic qualities mm-hmm.<affirmative> characteristics, but then you can take the same variety and uh, have different types of that variety in terms of is it a normal pellet, is it a concentrated pellet, is it an oil, uh, is that, uh, is it a flowable product that's added on the hot side? Is it a flowable product that's added on the cold side? And, you know, within a variety there are all these iterations that could lend to different characteristics in the beer. So it, it was a little overwhelming to try to explore all of those options simultaneously, uh, while we're brewing all these pilots, so. Right. Um, so yeah, it was a lot to take in, but I, I think we did okay. For the most part. I'm pretty pleased with where we ended. You seem to have your, you seem to have yourself together, you know, you seem like you're freaking out too hard. This is why I wear a hat all the time. I'm actually balded. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I wasn't to start the year, but something happened.

Liz Wilson: 25:47

How do you have, how close is the, the IPA that we have now Hop Reach to any of the first batches?

Patrick Chavanelle: 25:56

That's really great question. I don't know. J-bone, do you want take?

Brett Willis: 25:59

They just brew the same exact batch, 17 times 10?

Jason Perkins: 26:04

Oh no, I mean it's somewhat similar. That's the simple answer. I mean, there's no singular thing that maybe the alcohol content is about the same as it was the beginning, but I think everything else has changed to some degree. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, um, hop variety. Um, I guess one thing that's similar from the beginning is, um, cuz we kind of had this right from the get go is kind of color and mm-hmm.<affirmative> malt profile I guess. So it's lighter in color, um, but it's not a simple grain be either, uh, because you know, we didn't, we want the hops to be the showcase for sure. So we didn't necessarily want something like caramel sweetness to pull away from that. Yeah. Um, at the same time, you know, just using simple base mal alone, like two row barley alone would not have given the backbone that it needed to kind of stand up to all those hops. Right. So, um, I forget exactly what our original grain bill was, but that probably hasn't changed as much as the hop varietal stuff did. You know, we use uh, couple, we use wheat, uh, un malted wheat in and we use oats in there. We use carapils. I think all of those were in there in the initial batches, if I remember correctly. Yeah. Everything aside from the Munich malts, the Munich malt. That's right. That was added later and that was based on feedback really. Yeah. Cool. Um, both conversations and, and the draft lab feedback.

Brett Willis: 27:25

Yeah. Thinking of the feedback too, cuz we get, you know, in marketing we have, we'll present something and we'll get feedback from various different people and I feel like it is really interesting when you, when you give a a particular thing to a wide variety of people, you tend to get very varying feedback, but you also tend to find some like little, you know, rivers of feedback that like resonate with each other, where you're like, okay, there's like four people saying the same exact thing that they're either really liking or really dis And so it's like you can start to pick some actually, like really I feel like tangible and helpful stuff out of even that kind of scatter shot amount of feedback.

Patrick Chavanelle: 28:00

Yeah. You're gonna get that with any beer you put on tap, whether it's an IPA or, or especially with beers that we brew on the pilot scale that use more unusual, uh, ingredients. Yep. Uh, you'll get comments of this is too much of this, or this is too little of this with the same beer. Yeah. Right. Like, how do we then move forward with this? Like, I know what I like, but how do we please everyone? And that's the thing. Yeah. You're not gonna please everyone with, with, um, I guess beers in general, but we saw that sort of feedback for the IPAs for sure not. Yeah. Even the ones that we moved on from round to round, it wasn't as if those were just, uh, there, there were for, for every beer that we had done. Uh, there was some dislikes, you know? Totally. Um, for, for some particular reason. Um, so that was, I guess another potential challenge in it all is making sure that we're utilizing all the feedback that we get appropriately and, uh, moving forward with that, making adjustments based on that. So, Totally.

Brett Willis: 29:05

I remember, I had this conversation with a couple people as we were trying, uh, the different trials, but I think like it was the ultimate thing of like, I might like this, but I kind of want, like, me as Brett wants you, the brewers and the team working on this to like, kind of go for it, do something different and bold and like that you're really pumped up about that might not appeal to everyone, even on our staff. You know, like I think that was kind of where I was coming from and I really feel like this beer does that. Not to say that it's like, you know, unbalanced or any other way, but I feel like it was just a fun thing for me to be like, I've said my piece and now I want you to do what you as experts are really pumped about. And I feel like that's where we, uh, where we ended up.

Patrick Chavanelle: 29:44

Yeah. Well there, I, I don't think Jason said it, uh, earlier, there were three really main descriptors from an aroma perspective that we were looking to hit. Uh, and that was pine, tropical citrus. And you know, all along the way this is what we were communicating to people like this is, these are the elements that we want and we don't want them to the point where one is kind of overtaking the other we wanted more. So, uh, like a balanced a balance of all three. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Um, so I guess fast forwarding a little bit, uh, once the, uh, once we were towards the end of this project, we put the, the final selected beer on our description panel. So people are going into, you know, these, these rooms that are controlled in terms of like temperature and like there's all the walls are white and, uh, they're, they're, they're being,

Brett Willis: 30:36

They're locked in<laugh>. Padded walls. We throw them fish heads,<laugh>,

Jason Perkins: 30:41

Only sardines though.

Liz Wilson: 30:44

In oil.

Patrick Chavanelle: 30:45

We're very nice. Yeah, that sounds great

Liz Wilson: 30:48

Actually.<laugh>

Patrick Chavanelle: 30:50

And, uh, so, so people are in there basically they're, they're tasting a beer without knowing what it is. Yes. Uh, I mean sometimes they do just based on, you know, with if with with this beer particular, it's kind of hard to not know that it was an ipa, but yeah. Um, out of that description panel, uh, so people are tasting the beer and then selecting certain aromatic, uh, descriptors mm-hmm.<affirmative>, uh, to describe it as well as color and flavor and all that. Uh, and in the end, uh, the three descriptors, so the leading ones, uh, which tend to be, uh, weighted in a sense. So whatever the description is, whatever it starts with, that is the, the, the element that was called out the most mm-hmm.<affirmative> and it was like citrus tropical pine. Yeah. And it was the greatest feeling ever to see those final results nailed in a blind panel and having those reflect our original intention for the beer. So That's awesome. Um, I don't even know if there's a question to begin with here. No, that's a great, uh, I'm pretty pleased and when I saw that it was just, it was, it was the best feeling ever. Yeah.

Brett Willis: 31:57

Yeah.

Liz Wilson: 31:57

I feel like, do we wanna talk a little bit about the final result and you know, what it tastes like and you know, we just sort of discussed the aromas, but color and where we landed on ABV(alcohol by volume). I think from a marketing, uh, perspective, it was really fun to watch this process and we were sort of parallel path thing branding Yeah, yeah. Of this beer at the same time. And I felt like there's like a lot of check-ins along the way of like, Oh, is it gonna be tropical cuz we're gonna reflect that in the branding or is it gonna be this? Cuz it's gonna have to, you know. Yeah. It was a really interesting project from a few different angles, but yeah. Jason wanna tell us a little bit about

Jason Perkins: 32:32

Yeah, totally. And I agree with you Liz. It was another kind of cool part of this project was that how we had, we had the beer development process happening and then, you know, the marketing sales team was working on branding and, and label development and so on, but the, not in a vacuum, they were kind of parallel project Totally. Which was kind of fun and back and forth conversations throughout. So, um, Patrick and I are having a little sip of this beer and yes, it is nine 30 in the morning, but we work in breweries and so that's what we do professionals. Yeah. This is the job. This is, this is a sensory experience here. Exactly. Um, so yeah, we, you know, we Chavez talked a little bit about what those key hop, uh, aromatic compounds were, but you know, again, we were looking for something that was, I, I think I'm stealing this from, from Zack boda quality manager, Something timeless is a nice way to describe what our target was. Here is something that people are gonna love now and people would've loved five years ago and will love five years from now. So. Sure. Um, and with that we wanted, you know, aggressive, do you know, dominant, maybe aggressive is not the right word, but intense hop aroma, but not, you know, not something that, something that's still balanced and drinkable and so on and so forth. And I think we really achieved that. Um, 6.8% is where we landed from an alcohol perspective. So for me that it, uh, falls in a nice range where you're getting, you're getting some of the kind of structure and and texture of, of higher alcohol beer that helps to kind of compete with the hop aroma. Yeah. But you're not pushing into this like ethanol focused, you know, really overly warming, which, you know, has its place in certain beers Sure. But in, in a beer like this, you know, it's something we wanted somebody, you know, if they could do so safely to have several of<laugh>, um, and enjoy'em, um, and not feel overwhelmed by that ethanol character. So pretty happy with where that is. You know, we talked a little bit about, you know, a balance of, um, from the malt perspective. We've got oats in there, we've got, um, some, a bunch of local grain in there, both oats, uh, wheat and barley and then, um, so nice blend of, um, grains and then yeah. We just really hit like nice, nice, nice bitterness, uh, in there as well. Yep. Um, good balance of citrus, tropical pine, Super duper happy with how it turned out.

Liz Wilson: 34:44

Yeah. It is amazing to me how like, it, it feels really like a reflection of Allagash. Yeah. It is such a balanced beer, but interesting and complex at the same time and super easy to drink. And so I don't, like, I am so impressed as to where we landed Yeah. On

Patrick Chavanelle: 35:02

That beer, you know, at hop aroma side. And I think it's killer. I love where it's at. I think my favorite part of the beer is how like clean the finish is. Yeah. Like, it just makes me want to sip it again and again and again. Then all of a sudden it's gone. It's like, how did I drink that beer so fast?<laugh>. It's, it's, I, I don't know.

Jason Perkins: 35:23

And I, I think that bitterness, that bitterness is something we talked a lot about. Yeah. Right. Like if you think about the range of bitterness, uh, over time, especially with IPAs, you know, you had almost had the IBU race right. Uh, of, you know, whatever 10, 15 years ago and people bragging about how bitter their beers were and so on. And then now there's some IPAs out there that are really low bitterness. Um, and you know, for us we really felt like you, you need, you need some there, you need a little, that crispness. And I think that's where that finish comes, that that clean finish. But also there's a crispness there that really makes you wanna drink a little bit more, but it's not, you know, you're not puckering up. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you don't get the keystone bitter beer face<laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. Did I just date myself with that right there

Brett Willis: 36:06

<laugh>? No, I know about that. Patrick, you also reminded me thinking of the finish of this beer. It is funny because I had, um, some friends over like the past weekend, um, and we were having one of our beers named Two Lights. And I feel like that is a beer where it starts in a certain way of, it's, it's brew with Sauvignon Blanc must. It's a really interesting process, but it starts out where like, you kind of get a flavor and it goes to a certain level of intensity and then it just disappears in like the best possible way. It just kind of evaporates on your tongue. And my friend, like kind of unprompted was like, Man, this beer, like where does, like, I love how it finishes. Like he just was commenting on that. And I feel like this does a very similar thing and it's a similar thing among so many of our beers in that like, it takes it, it gives you this amount of flavor, but then it's not that cloying lasting lingering thing that where when you get three quarters of the way through the can, you're kind of like, uh, do I really wanna finish this thing? It's, it is that kind of like, where d id it go situation. So, uh, yeah. Congratulations.

Patrick Chavanelle: 37:02

I'm happy to hear that we did make one slight tweak to the Two Lights recipe and I don't think it helped with that.

Brett Willis: 37:11

Particular. Yeah. This, I mean this, this year I would say some of the beers like Two Lights has been my favorite version. I think that we've brewed of it. Haunted House I think is actually my favorite that we've ever done. And I've certainly liked a lot of the haunted houses we've done. So, uh, guys are, guys are crushing it.

Patrick Chavanelle: 37:25

We make good beer.

Brett Willis: 37:26

Make good beer.

Liz Wilson: 37:28

Yeah. We, uh, we'll do a couple more episodes as it relates to Hop Reach. So certainly stick around, listen to those. This beer is gonna come out January, 2023. Yeah, we are Maybe bring one or one more batch before the real deal, um, which will happen in December. We'll, uh, we'll be capturing some of that and, and sharing it out on the social medias. Um, and then yeah, it'll start shipping out nationwide early next year. So we are super excited about it and we hope you will like it.

Brett Willis: 38:01

Yes.

Patrick Chavanelle: 38:01

You're going to like it cause it's that good.

Brett Willis: 38:03

Thank you. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, Jason Patrick, awesome to have you.

Patrick Chavanelle: 38:08

Thanks for having us. Very fun. Happy to do it. Yeah.

Speaker 6: 38:13

This

Brett Willis: 38:14

Has been an Allagash Brewing production. If you have something you want us to talk about on the show, shoot us a message@podcastsatelash.com. And thanks as always for listening.