Brew-Monkey's Brewer Interview

of

Peter Bouckaert

from

New Belgium Brewing Company

New Belgium Brewing Company 500 Linden Fort Collins, Colorado October 04, 2005

Well known for their award winning beers and their commitment to energy conservation (they are commmited to being the 1st wind powered brewery) New Belgium Brewing has become a big player in the small brewery world. Today I was able to get to talk to Brewmaster Peter Bouckaert of New Belgium Brewing.

How long does it take to settle on a recipe for commercial production?
3 years and three months. The real test brewing is short, but the concept has been build on for a way longer time.

How did you decide on the beer styles you make?
I do not make beer styles. I create beer. Like an artist, I create. You will classify it. Jackson Pollock did not care how he was going to be classified.

I want to initiate a crusade against Beer Styles. Limiting the creativity of any artist in this way should be the death penalty. Although, I am not in favor of death penalty.

About beer styles - I like your idea about the crusade against the styles - interesting. If you do not brew to a style or with some type of style in mind - how do you start a new beer - what are you shooting for, can you explain your process a bit? A good illustration is Biere de Mars. The inspiration came from a Brussels architect, Victor Horta. See the below picture to help you understand the process. Biere de Mars has oats, wheat, lemon peel, Lemon verbena, Brettanomyces, high fermentation temperature and is orange.

Photo credits: Hôtel Tassel 6 rue Paul-Émile Janson, Brussels. 1893, Victor Horta. Image from http://www.giant.net.au/users/rupert/art.htm

Is this helpful? To me, all those details are cluttering my brain. If you look to that picture, did you see the cast iron, the tile work, the wall painting, the curves in the stairs? Or did you see something beautiful.

After our trip to Belgium to come up with a new beer, Phil and I were wondering how we could create a piece of art like the buildings of Victor Horta we had seen. How can we make every ingredient or process blend in one piece of art, one beer? We did not want the stairs to stand out (like a lot of brewers want the hops to stand out), we wanted to make them a part of the total. We kind of knew how it was going to taste when we flew back from Belgium, but did not have any idea how we were gone make it.

We tried a lot of stuff, from soft fruit to mash temperature. Always staying true to our three Belgian Reinheitsgebot ingredients of course: experience, knowledge and creativity. Creativity was the main ingredient for this beer. We were only shooting for something beautiful, blend ingredients and process into beauty. That's all.

The same is true for all the beers I create. I could have brewed Blue Paddle, our Pilsner, after studying in Weihenstephan. I could have created a clone like there are so many of in Bavaria. I absolutely did not want to this. I want to go for a high salt content, based on the Belgian Reinheids gebot ingredient: experience. I had to use knowledge and creativity too, to come in an unconventional way to a beer people think they can recognize.

How far removed from the initial idea is the final product we all now commonly drink?
Dead on. It depends what you call the initial idea. If you talk about the 3 years in the 1st question (building the concept) then it's pretty far away from it. But the real goal is defined only 3 months upfront. It is mostly only outlined in certain criteria. The final product meets those criteria, although it can be removed from what some people initially thought it was going to look like.

What settings do you use for crushing grain?
This is variable depending the brew. We use a 2 row wet condition mill and we use setting between 0.25-0.7 mm.

Do you perform the legendary "20 minute" mashes?
We do 20 minutes mashes, we also do decoction mashes and up to three step mashes. Again depending on the product.

What kind of efficiency do you normally get? How much fluctuation do you get from batch to batch?
Brewhouse efficiency is around 92% compared to lab extract at 100%. Variations are around 2% for our main brands.

How long does a typical brew session take? What is a typical brew day like?
Brew cycle is around 6 hr from mash to end of knock out. We brew around the clock, around 11 brews a day.

How often do you brew? What days do you brew?
We typically start on Sunday night or Monday morning. We brew until all required brews are done somewhere Thursday or Saturday.

How many brewing setups do you have? (boil kettles, fermenters, mash tuns) And what kind of crew do you have working with you?
We currently have two operational brew houses (100 bbl and 200 bbl), fermenters of 300-1200 bbl but we are only expanding with 1200 bbl fermenters, the fermenters also serve as aging vessels with 1.5x the fermentation volume in aging, one filtration line at 150 hl/hr, a 300 bottle/min line and kegging capacity of 120 kegs/hr. We have currently 6 brewers, 12 cellarman and 29 people in packaging.

At what temperature do you do your mashes?
Single temperature mashes at 68C. Step mashes are done at 45C, 50C, 63C, 68C and 72C. Not more than three of those at once.

How long does your boil commonly last on the regular beers? What about on the specialties?
35 minutes. We use the Steinecker Merlin thin film boiling system. This strips the wort again to boiling temperature after whirlpool. This very short boil in combination with stripping afterwards gives a better bitterness isomerisation than our other brewhouse at 80 minutes of classical boil. We have chosen this system since it is very energy efficient. Reducing our foot print on earth is very important for New Belgium.

With the Steinecker Merlin system - what do you mean by "it strips the wort again" and "stripping afterwards" - are we talking clothes here ? :)
At the end of whirlpool we send the wort again over (the heat cone of) the Merlin. This looks like a cone pointing upwards that has steam jackets. The wort flows over it by gravity in a very thin layer. By doing so we strip the volatiles (like DMS formed in whirlpool, but also hop and spices) out of the wort to the level we want to retain.

Do you adjust the water (use water modifiers) for the different styles or just go with the local water source?
The front range of Colorado has soft and low mineral content water. Some major brewers make a big deal of this. We add salts (gypsum, calcium chloride) depending on the type of brew.

What type of yeast do you use and how do you maintain your culture?
Year round we have two ale yeasts (one neutral and one very estery) and one lager. For seasonals and other beers we use another ale yeast, champagne yeast and a wild yeast (Brettanomyces). We maintain our cultures on slants for the short turn and have everything frozen in liquid nitrogen as a back up.

How many times do you reuse your yeast from batch to batch?
7 times maximum.

What about hops... do you use whole or pellet hops? Why?
Pellets. Way more stable in time.

Do you use a Whirlpool or Filter method?
Whirlpool. The Merlin boiling system has a holding vessel that we use as a whirlpool.

What finings or clarifiers do you use if any?
Long shelf life beers we use silica gel. Most beers are DE filtered.

What temps do you ferment at on this level?
Between 10 to 19C for the lager, between 15-30C for the ales

Do you pasteurize or add preservatives?
We have the means to flash pasteurize, but we only use it in emergency or for some unfiltered beer. We heat up the bottle-conditioned beers to bottle temperature with that flash pasteurizer.

Which award are you most proud of and why?
Being invited to speak for PARC (Palo Alto Research Center). If you look to their website, they talk about Nobel Prize winners and Congressmen speaking there. And then they invited me.

Do you have any techniques or processes that are unique to your brewing/brewery? Can you tell us about it/them?
Yes and no. I think most people are thinking too limited about their process. I sometimes think that what makes is us special is any beer is the sum of the whole process. No parameter is loose from all others and it is the combination that creates a beer. Spices can be an example. It's not the use of the spice, but the integration with the moment of addition, and the rest of the process (mash, boil, yeast, fermentation temperature, way of filtration), the treatment of the spice before addition.
New Belgium has been working for quite a while with other micro-organisms (lactobacilli, pediococci, acetic acid formers, wild yeast) and with aging with wood. The first time La Folie won an award, there was not even a sour beer category at the GABF.

Peter, what is your take on the hop revolution going on these days - the race to see who can make the hoppiest beer around? Are you a fan of this type of beer? No, I'm not a fan of those beers. I like that people are exploring different extremes in flavors (chili, alcohol, bitterness, sourness, spices, process, fruit, different things with wood, grains,...). That is real fun for us Geeks. My favorite beers will never stand on one leg or extreme factor only. It's the total picture as I was trying to explain with Victor Horta. The new beer from Urthel claims 80 IBU. What makes it a good beer for me is not the 80 IBU, but how the 9.5% alcohol and malt character is balancing the 80 IBU.

But what is the sales of those extremes? If we want to reach 10% market share with the craft brewers, in will not be those extreme beers. They will always be a proof of our roots though. We are a fun loving industry with a lot of passion for the product. I hope we all continue to expand the borders of beer. It's my crusade to make people talk about a beer as a piece of art that we passionately hate or love without having to know what style it is. But crusades took a few centuries...

What do you see in the future for you and your company?
New Belgium has a great potential. It can be a key player (together with others) in helping the craft brewers reach 10% market share, as Kim Jordan mentioned it in the Craft Brewers conference in New Orleans.
I want to learn more. It is too critical, you can never sit still and there are still so much area to explore in Brewing.

Brewery info:

Location: Fort Collins, Colorado.

How long has the brewery been around:
New Belgium started with a home brewer bike through Belgium and discovering Belgian Beer. The brewery started in the basement of Kim and Jeff in 1991.

What is the yearly production? 360,000 bbl in 2005

How many different beers are made and how many are bottled? Where do the rest go?
Year round we have: Fat Tire (amber ale), Sunshine Wheat, 1554 (Brussels Style Black Ale), Blue Paddle (Pilsner-Lager), Abbey (Belgian style dubbel), Trippel (Belgian style tripel). Seasonals in 2005 are Biere de Mars (complex wild yeast beer), Loft (light ale) and 2 Below. Besides this we have La Folie (age for 2 years on oaken barrels), Frambozen (Raspberry dark ale). All those are in kegs and bottles. Besides this we always have some experimental beers, just for visitors at the brewery.

What is the current distribution?
14 States in the west.

I know out here in CA there was a lot of demand for Fat Tire especially about 2 years ago, just before it was distributed here. Is this how it is in most places or does it come in as a relative unknown in some places?
We were surprised that we were a relative unknown in CA. There has been way more recognition in every other state we rolled out.

When you choose a new place for distribution, how does that come about? Do you go by where there is a demand or is there a research department that does some poking around or what?
There are multiple factors that determine a new place for distribution. What production capacity we have, size of that market, how is distribution in that state (chain or not, what are the mayor beer selling places like, relation ships with distributer or selling places), demography, current beer consumption pattern, proximity, importance for neighboring market, number of request per state, number of visitors at the brewery from that state, how other craft segments are doing... We do not have a research department as such, but it is daily fed with information (anecdotical and real data)

Brewer Profile:

Name: Peter Bouckaert

Position/Title: Brewmaster

Date Of Birth: 3/7/65 - 21 yrs old if you can count right!

Current Brewery: New Belgium Brewing Co.

What kind of education do you have? Master in Brewing and Fermentation Science.

Did you attend a Brewing School? University of Ghent, Belgium

How long have you been brewing? 18 years

How long have you been at your current job? 9 years.

What did you do previous to this job? Brewmaster in Brewery Rodenbach, Belgium.

Every brewer has high and low points... what are yours?
2002, meeting Paul and Wim at Brewery De Gouden Boom on the first day of my visit to Belgium was a low point. Both stated independent from each other that they were leaving the brewing world. De Gouden Boom was going to close, but nobody really want to say it so directly to me.

The high point is the industry we are in. We are all competing in the market, and yes it gets sometime ugly. But when you come together with brewers, this is such a fun industry! Brewers are talking mostly friendly to each other, exchanging information and even ingredients openly. What other industry is doing this? And then we have the home brewers, who are always on the verge of trying something different, keeping us as professional brewers on the top of our toes. Could you dream a about an industry being more fun?

What is your favorite beer style and why?
You do not need to try so hard to get me on my soap box.

OK then, what is your favorite beer?
Fresh Orval, the combination of dry hopping with Brettanomyces is too good to be true.

Which beer do you enjoy brewing the most? Why?
I enjoy the most brewing off site. I brew from time to time in another brewery. The challenge are always so beautiful since you need to learn the system and create something extra ordinary at the same time.

Do you still brew at home? What do you like to brew if you do?
No, the last time I did it, it ended up being a brewpub in Belgium. My wife and kids do not want to see this happening again for the moment.

Personal notes/outside interests:
Cave climber, hiking, biking.

Any other comments or words of wisdom?
Moving to the US, I have been impressed about a brewery like New Belgium. This brewery is a role model on a lot more things than making beer. The focus of New Belgium on the environment is a role model. Pretty soon we will most likely be the brewery with the lowest water (per unit of beer made) consumption in the world, in Eastern Colorado a very critical point.

Just stop by and visit, if you are in the neighborhood.

Peter, thank you for your time and wisdom. You have brought up many interesting ideas and certainly will give us all some things to think about. Let us raise a glass to Peter of New Belgium Brewing. Cheers!