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We have a saying in the wine business
that it takes a lot of
beer to make great wine.
Well, with the amount
of wine that I consume,
I'd better know how to make beer.
I'm Leslie Sbrocco.
Come on, and Taste This.
I'm hear at Craft Brewer Benoit-Casper,
which is in Richmond,
and I'm with Tim, who's the head brewer
and Chris, who's the assistant brewer,
so I guess that just
makes me the drinker?
- The expert.
- The apprentice and the drinker
The ingredients, really, of beer
are pretty simple, aren't they?
So we've got water, we know that,
and then what else is here?
- So right here we have the malt,
it's pretty much what
all beers are made with.
It's either two-row or Pilsner Malt.
We have some roasted malt here.
- People are sometimes think
these darker beers are really heavy.
No, that's not the case, it's ...
The color comes from that roasting,
which you can really taste and smell.
- And then we have hops here.
They come in a pellet form.
- Because normally they look like flowers.
- They're flowers, yeah.
- Yeah they look like flowers.
You can kind of grind it up and see.
Now it really smells like hops,
very aromatic, very floral.
- So here's some flaked rice,
this goes in our Saison.
- But that's not as common.
- It's not that common, yeah.
- And then yeast.
- Yeah, this is a liquid form
of yeast, and that's the yeast
that goes into making the beer.
- So that's it, that's
all you got to make these.
- Yep.
- Alright, take me through the
process, get my hands dirty,
tell me how we're making beer.
- So our first process here
is the grain is gonna go into the mill.
The mill will crack the grain.
The grains will depend on
what kinda beer we're making.
So as the cracked grain is
coming down through here,
this is where the hot water is coming in
to hydrate it as it's going in,
and we have a rake stirring everything.
- Which creates the mash?
- Yeah.
- And you can really smell that.
Oh my gosh, it's a very sweet,
very sweet aromatic smell.
- And after it rests
in there for 60 minutes
to extract all the
sugars out of the grain,
we pump it over to the boil kettle.
- And that's creating the wort.
- Yeah
From the boil kettle, it comes into here,
and we add hops, and then we whirlpool it,
so it spins in a whirlpool,
and all the proteins
and hops will settle in the middle.
- So this is the byproduct, is the yeast.
And you don't really
do anything with this?
- No, this just gets
dumped, we're done with it.
- It does have kind of an
aromatic hoppiness to it.
Looks like baby poop.
Now we've gone through all
this, we've got the reviews,
this is all the good stuff in here, right?
- Yeah, and it goes
through a wort chiller,
because we wanna pitch the
yeast at a certain temperature.
These are our fermenters.
- Right, because now you
have sugar, you have yeast,
now you can ferment it into beer.
- Yeah, exactly.
Lagers take six weeks.
And ales, two to three weeks.
- Alright, we have the
ingredients, we know the process,
let's get to the fun part, the beer.
- Yeah.
- I've been waiting.
I've been waiting patiently.
- So here's our, it's a German Altbier.
It has some of those darker malts in it.
It's an ale but fermented
at colder temperatures.
- And you know what that is?
It's got that cocoay,
sort of lovely cola note to
it, but it's so refreshing.
Very light beer, yeah.
- And then here we have our Double IPA,
so that has a lot of hops
in it after fermentation.
- Double IPA,
I'm going for the
International Bitterness Units,
IBU's over the top.
- So that's around like 9%, yeah.
(slow rock music)
- Oh yeah that's hoppy.
- Yeah
- That's bitter.
- Yeah, it's not for everybody.
- No, this is an IPA... I like it.
I like it, but it is mouth puckering.
- Yeah.
- And then this...
- Then this is our Saison.
And that actually has
the flaked rice in it.
- So good,
what I love about Saison is
this creamy kind of character
but with a very citrusy brightness to it.
- Yep.
- Yeah, so it really is...
You could drink a lot of those.
- All derived from the yeast, yeah.
- Fantastic stuff.
Alright, good beers.
Well cheers my Dear.
- Cheers.
- I gotta load the grinder.
(straining grunts)
(laughing)
