The Redheaded Step Child of Marijuana

In honor of 420 instead of not showering, rocking a tie-dye grateful dead shirt and pulling a real life version of Dazed and Confused (although you may notice this blog is a day late..)             I wanted to talk about a close related family member to the HIGHly celebrated plant of the day.

Hops or "Humulus lupulus" is the Jenna Jameson in the orgy of ingredients that goes into the creation of every beer. With all the different styles, the plethora of available extracts and the variation in how they can be used there is no ambiguity to why this one ingredient has commanded such a cult following of "hop heads" in the brewing industry. The names IPA, Double IPA and Imperial IPA have pretty much become the flagship of the American craft brewing scene and has somewhat turned into a "who's is bigger" contest for brewers. Now, I don't hate an IPA at all and I know that some of you would gladly take an Imperial IPA into the basement closet for some 7 minutes in heaven action, but ask yourself...what do you really know about your bitter lover?

Well for starters, one of the biggest growing regions in the U.S. is in Yakima Valley, WA which hosts an awesome event called the Hop Harvest every year. From what I've heard it is a must go to event where brewers can pick the cones off the vines, get to sample the next years product and of course over enjoy some great beer with brewers from all over the country.

The hop plant is a bine which is cultivated in hop yards mainly between the latitudes 70 to 35 degrees N. I recently met a girl who has purchased land and has already gone through one harvest in Southern California...sorry to be the one to tell you, due to the shorter day length its not going to work unless you put up light polls($$$$). Another problem with going further south is that the winter temperatures aren't cold enough. The plants need it a tit bit nipply because the lower temperature breaks the post-harvest dormancy.

Rub & Sniff to check aroma of a whole hop variety

Hops are inseparable from beer because they contribute characteristics such as bitterness, spice, aroma, foam stability, and antimicrobial factors to a beer.With the hop plant, like most things in life all of the bitterness is contained within the female. Don't get mad ladies, also like most things in life the female is the only one with any value. That value of the female hop flower is the alpha acids and essentials oils contained in the lupulin gland and can be processed to increase the versatility for the brewer. The reason for the variety of hop products is the same reason that really kinky girl that changes things up a little bit each time, to keep things interesting and new. Some of those products include, whole hops, hop pellets, hop extracts, isomerized hop extracts and essential oil extracts.

Whole Hops (Sierra Nevada is one of the few breweries left using these)

• Perishable, bulky (200lb bails), expensive to store ship
• In homogeneous, making sampling and bitterness hard to control
• Poor utilization of alpha acids
• Special brew house equipment needed (hopback)

Hop Pellets

• The are many types of hop pellets but in general they have better keeping quality due to being sealed in evacuated foil and film bags
• Blending takes place during processing gives a highly uniform product
• Better utilization of alpha acids compared to whole hops because the lupulin glands are ruptured in the hammer milling process

Hop Extracts

• These non reduced extracts are made by removing the alpha acids from pelleted hops by generally using liquid CO2 as the solvent
• One down side is they add no aroma to the beer because it is only the essential oils they are volatile compounds in the finished beer
• Are the most stable form of hop products
• Must be added in the kettle so to change them into iso-alpha acids.
• Very high utilization of the alpha acids
• Extremely uniform products
• Can be made into isomerized hop extracts that can be added directly to the green beer.
• Reduced extracts such as rho, tetra and hexa hop extracts are made to be light stable for companies that want to use clear bottles without "skunking" the beer.

Beer Girl of the Day!!!

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Just post the funniest/dumbest caption you can think of for this picture!

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Lesson of the day.....

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Crafting a Brewer

My story starts, as most good ones do, with a drunk conversation on the roof of a twelve story building. It is funny how some of those at the time seemingly meaningless conversations can end up being what shapes your plan in life. In this case, it gave me the cojones to drop my medical school plans (I mean who would ever trust a Dr. Yeager anyway?) and decide to move all the way across the country to California for the Master Brewers Program.

After what seemed to be an eternity at my post-undergrad-dead-end-sucked-ass-FML job as an auditor for an electronic recycling company, the time to pack up and leave finally came. I loaded my car with all the must haves (clothes and brewing equipment) and set off on an epic venture. Since my best friend and future business partner bailed on me last minute for the 3,000 mile trip because of a new job, I was extremely lucky to have my friend Madison as a stand-in and primed to start out on her own life quest for the holy grail.


We headed out on New Year's Eve with plans to stop in Nashville, St. Louis, Omaha, Denver, Salt Lake City and end up in quirky Davis, California. After nine days, $1200 and 15 breweries (Yazoo, Morgan Street, Schlaflys, Upstream, Sudwerk, Rockslide, Broadway Brewhouse, Downtown Joe's, Rockbottom, The Great Divide, Rubicon, Silverado, Breckenridge, Squatters and Epic) I had a new sense of how important is it to do something you love.


The Master Brewers Program has been one of the best decisions of my life. On my first day of class everyone was given nineteen books for an eighteen week program, a coffee cup and a harsh realization that we all knew absolutely nothing about beer before this. I am now over halfway through the program and I am still dumbstruck at the mountain of information there is to take in. During the first eight weeks we covered review of chemistry, barley, technology/biochemistry of malting, brewhouse technology, mashing biochemistry, hops technology/analysis, water chemistry for brewing, beer foam/gushing, handling/biochemistry/analysis of yeast, beer filtration/carbonation/stabilization, yeast flavor compound formation, microbial stability, quality control/assurance, sanitation/effluents, sensory evaluation, packaging and brewery engineering.

I am impressed if you read all of that, let alone know what the heck most of that means. As hard as that all seems to take in, its not all that daunting (having taps to get free beer in the back of the classroom helps). I am able to learn from two of the greats in the industry, Michael Lewis and Charles Bamforth and I have been able to enjoy beers with titans in the brewing world such as Vinnie Cilurzo from Russian River, Floris Delee from Dogfish Head, VP of operations at Miller-Coors, and head brewers from Sierra Nevada and Anheuser- Busch.


Since reaching Davis my life has been full of so many new things, getting my ass kicked by brewing science, becoming single (a positive thing but slightly reminiscent of breaking your favorite beer glass, the one that gave you an awesome head), attending the Craft Brewers Conference, camping on the coast of Northern California in Muir woods, sliding down a 40ft concrete slide in a snow sled and meeting brewers who are always great/interesting people. All I can say is that if the rest of this year is anything like it has been so far, I can't wait..bring it on!

Beer girl of the day!

Caption contest, just post a comment with the funniest/dumbest caption you can think of for this picture. I haven't figured out a prize just yet but I'm working on it!

Example: "Oh, that's how a girl gets a yeast infection!"