Some of you may remember my recent trip to Mayflower Brewing Company in “Professional Brewer for a Day: Mayflower Brewing Company.” In that article, I stressed that professional brewer is very different from homebrewing. Not necessarily in the chemistry of how the beer is brewed, but in how your day goes. I told you that it’s
not just sitting around with friends while you have a few beers. It’s not barbecuing or relaxing and ordering pizza. The ingredients cost a lot of money and you have to know you can sell it. There is no down time, there’s always work to be done. I went on and on about how it’s different and it’s a job…
Well that’s going to make this one of the most ironic articles I’ve ever written. I was invited back to Mayflower Brewing Company a week and a half after brewing with Matt Steinberg for a special brew day. We ended up having a day of hanging out with friends and drinking amazing beer, plus we ordered pizza. When there was down time, instead of cleaning tanks, we socialized and drank fresh Mayflower beer plus rare or limited beers from Cambridge Brewing Company, Portsmouth Brewery and Rock Bottom Boston that head brewers Will Meyers, Tod Mott and Scott Brunelle, respectively, hand bottled or put into growlers.
“What was so different?” you may ask. This year Massachusetts will be hosting the Craft Brewers Conference. Each year brewers from the host state collaborate to put together a special beer for the conference called the Symposium Brew. This year Will from Cambridge Brewing Company and Matt from Mayflower were selected to produce this collaboration. They decided to open it up to brewers from all over Massachusetts, and even Tod Mott from Portsmouth Brewery in New Hampshire came down. All in all we had 14 brewers at this brew day, three members of the beer press, a beer salesman and a brewery owner.
From Mayflower Brewing Company, we had Director of Brewing Operations Matt Steinberg, Assistant Brewer Ryan Gwozdz, Sales Director Jeff Nardone, Owner Drew Brosseau and Brewing Intern Dan Whitelee. From Pretty Things Beer & Ale Project we had brewer and owner Dann Paquette. From North Country Malt Supply we had former brewer George “Murf” Murphy. From Cambridge Brewing Company we had Head Brewer Will Meyers, Assistant Brewer Kevin O’Leary and Assistant Brewer Ben Howe. From Portsmouth Brewery we had Head Brewer Tod Mott. From Rock Bottom Boston we had Head Brewer Scott Brunelle. From Cape Ann Brewing Company we had Owner and Head Brewer Jeremy Goldberg. From Harpoon Brewing Company we had Assistant Brewers Ray Dobbens and Jeff (last name unknown). From Ale Street News we had News Reporter Dan Kochakian. From BeerScribe.com, and author of The Good Beer Guide to New England, was Andy Crouch. From Boston-based BeerAdvocate.com we had Co-Founder Todd Alstrom. And, of course, I was there, Jeff Wharton from DrinkCraftBeer.com
Obviously this was a good time where brewers were trying to show off. Will from CBC brought his Golden Ring Belgian Strong Ale which he put in a growler three year ago and added Brettanomyces. Delicious, with some seriously fruity funk from the Brett! He also brought some of his Heather Ale from last summer… that stuff just smelled like a beautiful meadow on a warm summer day, truly amazing liquid! Tod Mott brought some of his limited Flanders Red Blend that he hand bottled. Sweetness from the cherries served to balance out what had been a very sour Flemish Red Ale. This was amazing; his sours are easily on par with anyone in the country or even Belgium! Scott from Rock Bottom brought some of his Golden Ale, as well. Very clean and crisp with a great finish. Also, we got to try the Golden Ale I helped to brew a week and a half before. It’s tasting very nice, probably even better than the Golden Ale normally does. I like to think I helped make this batch extra delicious.
Well, on this day and with this amazing collection of renowned brewers, we were brewing a Belgian IPA based on Will Meyer’s Audacity of Hops from Cambridge Brewing Company. The target was 65 IBUs which, as one of the brewers jokingly mentioned, will really mess with the west coast brewers who aren’t used to balance. “They drink so many hops their pallets are shot,” another kidded. The consortium of brewers used almost every type hop in existence (I believe, in multiple additions including first wort hops, kettle hops, whirlpool hops and Will even brought his hop back! The hop list included Magnum, Columbus, Hallertau, Tettnanger, Cascade (which Matt stated in jest that this was the first and last time Cascade hops would be in his brewery), Amarillo, Palisades, Simcoe and Strisselspalt all together weighing 57 lbs for
a batch of a little over 20 barrels (620 gallons) of beer. That’s nearly three pounds of hops per barrel!
The brew went off without a hitch, despite having so many people participating, and everybody had a good time. While the beer is what will result from this meeting of the minds, what I came away with is that fact that the craft beer industry is a beautiful thing. With seven breweries represented, all competing against each other for shelf space and sales, there was no competitiveness or bad feelings at all. Today was a fun day for them, with donated raw ingredients and no work to do but make one brew. It’s probably the closest any of them have to what a homebrewer would consider a brew day. But, in the world of professional brewing, this was definitely the exception and not the rule.
Don’t worry, though, if you’re not attending the Craft Brewers Conference on April 21-24, you can still try this beer. Will Meyers said he hopes to have it on draft at some point at Cambridge Brewing Company. Plus it will most likely be on tap in a limited capacity around Boston. Definitely keep your eyes open for this one… or your nose. With the amount of hops these guys used, you’ll probably be able to smell it from a mile away!