This week we talk to Richard Preiss of Escarpment Labs. We talk all things Kveik and yeast in general.
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Episode Transcript:
AI-driven it will have errors.
Colter Wilson: In the past, we’ve had a few shows where we’ve talked about Like the new yeast from Norway that farmhouse yeast out there that is all the rage in the home brewing world right now.
Generally when we’ve discussed it’s been the history in the farmhouse sense and how to use it to make beers today. But today we’re talking to a scarf meant labs. We’re talking to Richard, Priess the founder. And we’re going to dive into the science of And a lot more today on homebrewing diy
And welcome back to home brewing DIY the podcast that takes on the do it yourself, aspect of home brewing. Gadgets, contraptions and parts. This podcast covers it all on today’s show. We’re going to have a conversation with Richard. Priess the founder of escarpment labs. We’re going to dive into Yeast yeast in general. And talk about a bit about their history as a yeast lab. It’s going to be a great show.
But first, I’d like to think all of our patrons over at Patrion it’s because of you, that this show comes to you for free week after week. You can head over to patrion.com forward slash homebrewing DIY and give it any amount right now. If you give at the $5 level, we’re giving a free gift from our ad sponsors, scrubber ducky. So check it out. I think you might see something you would like. So head over to home brewing diy.com, click on the support banner, or you could head to.
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As far as announcements go, got a couple of things going on here on the show. First of all, as of this week, this show has been out for one year. So woo. We have been a podcast for one year and boy have things changed. It’s kind of crazy. I started off using a Linux computer laptop from 2013 and have built this podcast studio that you’re listening to over the last year. It’s become quite the project.
And to be honest, I can’t thank all of our patrons enough. You were the ones that have helped me build this all out. And that being said, I also took a long needed vacation, just went with the family and the kids on a road trip and saw some, some family, grandparents and the such. And. It was a great trip and super relaxing. So sorry about things not coming in. As on time. For example, I always post episodes on Thursday.
And I had a bonus episode last week and this Le episodes a couple of days late, didn’t realize that being on the road would be so hard to produce a podcast, but Hey, that’s all kind of part of the deal, although more and we’ll do better next year. Well, that being said, let’s hop right into this week’s episode where we’re going to talk to Richard Priess from a Scarlet labs.
About yeast.
I’d like to welcome Richard Priess from escarpment labs. How you doing
Richard Preiss: Hey, how’s it going? Doing all right.
Colter Wilson: Well welcome to the show i’d like to start out asking you how you got started in the yeast business
Richard Preiss: Kind of by accident to be honest. Uh, I, uh, I always knew that I, that I, well, at least for, uh, for a few years, I knew that I wanted to be involved in fermentation and in one way or another. , really just fell in love with food microbiology. When I was in school at the university of wealth, , hearing wealth in Canada, , kind of ended up focusing in on beer.
When I, when I moved in, , to a, to a house where there was a guy who was homebrewing and, , I got into it through, through him and realized that, okay, I’ve got this skillset that lets me. And grow my own East and I don’t have to pay for it. And that’s awesome. And I was doing that for a little while. , I was also doing some research at the university, , just as a, as an undergrad student and, , met this person who ended up being my co founder for the company, Angus Ross.
And he was a grad student at the time and said, well, you know, that’s cool, but I bet that there’s breweries. That would also pay for this. And, , you know, have you have, have you considered. Selling yeast because no, one’s doing this here in Canada. Right. Everyone buys it from white labs and why yeast and has to ship it across the border.
And I’m like, well, that’s actually a pretty good idea. , maybe we should do this. So, so we basically came up with the idea for the know, through that, recognizing that no, we had the basic skill set to work with yeast and grow it. And, , no one was really doing it here. So let’s, let’s give it a college try and, , It ended up blossoming into something a little bit bigger than that.
And, uh, and I’m pretty happy about that. You know, we’ve got a, a bigger team now, a lot of really smart people that are, that are helping to make things happen. , for us helping to, you know, get as much yeast out to as many brewers as possible and, , give them a wider selection of, of strains to work with wider selection of flavors that they have access to.
And, you know, try to keep the freshness and quality is as high as possible.
Colter Wilson: Let’s start off talking about yeast in general. You know, quality and Fred. is always important. And you are across the border from the United States. What kind of things are you doing to deal with distribution to a different country?
Richard Preiss: , you’ve got to have the, the distribution, you know, on lock. , and, and I think that was one of the challenges that brewers are running into is, uh, you know, East is coming in across the borders. Sometimes it’s held up. , I know, you know, from our experience, you know, we’re, we’re shipping into the U S and Europe now.
And, you know, we have to be really on the ball about our paperwork, otherwise things, things can get held up and, you know, we’ve been pretty good at at that. But, , you know, there is always that risk.
Colter Wilson: Yeah, totally in and from a home Brewer’s perspective, I’ve totally had this happen where I order a pack of yeast online. It gets shipped to me via FedEx or however they get it shipped to me. It comes packed in ice but still when the it’s something happened, it got overheated and it just shows up dead.
Richard Preiss: Absolutely. Yeah, we did try to include lots of little ice packs in our, , our Homebrew shipments. Like when we’re shipping Humper patches to the shops, just to try to incentivize them to, , give the homebrewers some freebies and keep that yeast cold.
Colter Wilson: How long is this been in business and have, how long have you been in the East business?
Richard Preiss: So the company was founded in 2015. So, uh, just over, just over five years now, we had our, we had our fifth anniversary, uh, party celebration. Uh, if you want to call it, , you know, back in February when the world was normal and, uh, and that was a lot of fun. I’m glad we were able to do that.
Colter Wilson: That was probably your last Kool party, right?
Richard Preiss: Yeah, exactly.
Colter Wilson: When you’re talking about a And other yeast companies what do you think really sets you guys apart?
Richard Preiss: I think, I think we’ve built a pretty strong track record of, of often being one of the first East labs, too. Discover and validate a product category, you know, a certain type of yeast or a certain type of idea. , you know, I’m looking at a lot of the things that. These slabs are doing now and, you know, fully recognizing that, you know, at the end of the day, we’re all always copying each other, but you know, I’m happy to say that, you know, we were one of the first to put out non-diabetic stays on East, , one of the first to put out bike East, the first research and publish on like yeast, , starting to push a flavor and a narrative on, you know, lactobacillus for flavor rather than.
Just acid, , Berliner vice Brett strains. I’m starting to see those come out of the other labs now, too. So, you know, I will say, I think in a lot of cases, in a lot of product categories where we’re the first to, to move on something and say, you know, this is, this is worth spending your time to brew with, we think this is cool.
Check it out.
Colter Wilson: Let’s say i’m a brand new brewer and i don’t know what a Diastat yeast strain is could you explain to me what that is
Richard Preiss: So, yeah, when, when we, when I say Daja static, , what I mean is that some of these used having a special enzyme that. , that they, that they can make. And what it does is it can be break down starches and dextrins in that East environment. So this is how most stays on use are able to make a super, super dry beer.
Right. That’s what seasonal use are famous for is they’ll ferment a beer down to nothing, right? Like sometimes even below. Below one, , depending on the work, , and that’s because they have this special enzyme that lets them just break everything down on the commercial brewery side of things. This, this is risky as hell because if this yeast gets into any other beer that maybe has a little bit of residual, , starch and dextrin, right?
Most beers don’t finish at zero. , then this East can, can wreak havoc, right? It can cause, , cancer to over carbonate or explode. , it can cause off flavors, you can do all sorts of bad things. So there was a lot of demand, especially on the proper side, for something with that flavor profile. These people do like saisons.
They do like that yeast. Like these are the pretty much the most flavorful yeasts out there, but without that risk. So, so we happen to find just in our, in our collection of, of stays long East, just. You know, in screening them just so that we were doing our due diligence about this, you know, risk factor.
We found one of the strains didn’t have this gene. It has a deletion for that gene. So, , it has the desired flavor, but doesn’t, , produce that enzyme. So therefore it’s less risky. It doesn’t ferment as aggressively as, you know, a classic stays long use that has that, , Diastat enzyme. But, you know, for the pro breweries, they can solve that problem by making a super fermentable work.
, or, or by making, , or using just enzymes that yeah, like your used in brute IPA is that are used to drive with the beer. And even on the home brew side, I know, you know, people are also worried about, you know, diastolic Diastat, because it’s a, homebrewers don’t always have access to as. , extreme chemicals and sanitizes as the breweries do.
So there’s always a risk of, , cross-contamination there. And I know, you know, a lot of, , home brewers might struggle with, you know, things like bottle bombs, and that always sucks. So, , there’s a risk there on that side too, and it’s, it’s nice to, to offer a product that can help solve that problem.
Colter Wilson: Let’s jump right into Vikki East, since I think that’s a big reason why we’re here to talk. Let’s imagine I’m a brand new brewer. I don’t know much about the Yeast could you give me an explainer of what it is
Richard Preiss: Yeah, I mean, I can talk for hours about this. I’m not going to subject you to it, but I’ll, I’ll give you the Coles notes. , so like our, , you know, special family of East to come from neuro, um, at its most basic. Yeah. , what’s really cool is that there’s a living surviving farmhouse brewing tradition in Western Norway, , that has basically been passed down from generation to generation without dying out and in farmhouse brewing.
Existed everywhere. You know, homebrewing existed everywhere in Europe for years and years and years, possibly thousands of years, but in most places it does out after industrialization and definitely after globalizing. , but in certain parts, yeah, it gets it’s surviving. And there are people that are brewing, you know, the way that grandpa or grandma brewed.
, and that’s really cool because in a lot of cases, they’ve carried down the equipment and ingredients from the traditional brewing and in this case, With like, you know, this is the traditional yeast that’s used in that part of Norway. And what’s fascinating about it is that it has a lot of beneficial characteristics, , as compared to our, you know, our normal brewing yeast.
, it can tolerate really, really hot temperatures and still make clean beers. Like if you pitch yeah. Normal yeast that, you know, 35 Celsius or a hundred Fahrenheit, , it’s not going to do that well. , but these they’re happy, you know, they’re happy, they’re ready to party. So in terms of, , solving the problem of.
Summer brewing and temperature control. You know, these used to really great for that. , another really cool property of them is that they format really fast, right? These are some of the fastest fermenting yeasts out there. It’s not unusual for the traditional brewers to pitch their yeast. And then 48 hours later, they’re, you know, the beer is done, they’re drinking.
Right. , and you know, that this was something that was, you know, really quite. A mind blowing to us when we first started hearing about this, because we didn’t believe it. We wanted to challenge that it’s like, now they’re drinking half a minute beer. There’s no way this is possible. And we ended up getting some of these, , like he’s in, , back in 2016 and, , we were proven wrong and that was really fascinating.
Colter Wilson: I recently just made a beer using a Strain that I made basically a Pilsner out of, and I fermented it as high as 85 degrees. And I was blown away at how clean this flavor and yeast and how well it flocked out. Could you give me a bit of background as to why it would be so clean, even at such a high temperature.
Richard Preiss: so they, at least on the scientific side, they seem to be more resistant to stress than our typical resists. , as to why that is, it’s still sort of hard to understand and explain. , our theory is that, is that like are less domesticated than some of the, the yeast that we use. And in, , in beer brewing, , they they’ve retained more of the sort of wild characteristics and in a lot of ways, wildebeests.
Or just more stress resistant than domesticated ones, right? It’s like wolves are probably going to survive in the wild a lot better than a chihuahua’s going to, and it’s kind of the same case with, , with East. So that’s, that’s a suspicion, there’s obviously science that needs to back that up. But you know, that’s why we think that’s happening is just generally wild yeasts or.
A lot better at dealing with these, you know, crazy temperature swings and, , , environmental challenges. , and so, you know, if you’re a California El yeast and you’re very, very heavily domesticated, you might’ve sort of forgot how to deal with those situations where biker like, Oh, I’ve seen this before.
No problem. , cause they haven’t been babied quite as much. , and that’s the cool thing too. Like you said, you made a Pilsner with it. , depending on the strain and depending on. The pitch rate and the temperature, you can, you can get super, super clean flavor profiles out of these things. Or you can get, you know, really aromatic beers as well, just by even with the same strain by, , you know, twisting different levers with temperature and pitch rate.
Colter Wilson: Actually let’s talk about temperature and pitch rate real quick. If I were a brewer and I were using a particular strain of What are some of the levers i could turn or pull to change things like make a clean beer versus a beer with more esters
Richard Preiss: Yeah. So the traditional pitch rate for like is, is really low, right? You, you hear people talk about, you know, one teaspoon. In, in a, in a five gallon batch all the time. Right. That’s sort of the, , the statement you hear, especially like in the homeroom communities. And that’s fine because that is, that is more or less the traditional pitching rate for like, , that’s not going to Guild the cleanest beer.
You’re probably going to get a lot more yeast character and fruitiness if you’re, if you’re under pitching like that. So if you want a super clean profile, what I would do is, is pitch the, you know, the manufacturers. Suggested a pitch rate. So, you know, whatever you’re getting from, from us or any other manufacturer, you know, pitch that because it’s going to be a, , , sort of a more standard amount of East.
You’re probably going to get a cleaner flavor profile. Cause those guys aren’t going to have to work quite as hard as individuals. , temperature plays a role too. So most bikes are quite fruity. If you go above a 30 Celsius, 90 Fahrenheit, , so keeping the below there, , I think for clean flavors and staffs ferments, the sort of 20 to 30, so 72 to 90 Fahrenheit range is, is the best for Craig.
, if you go lower than then you start to lose some of the advantages over lager use, which are also, you know, a longer usable ferment, pretty fast, 15 Celsius, like, you know, , 60 Fahrenheit. So, , That’s sort of the sweet spot is right there in the middle where they’re going to still ferment fast, but not be quite as fruity or S3.
Colter Wilson: So confirm this for me. If I were to maybe under pitch or do something to get more of the STD profile. I’m not going to be limited in the time benefits from. Is that correct
Richard Preiss: Yeah, exactly.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. Cause one of the things that blew me away about this beer was that when I was making it just how fast it fermented, I did use the manufacturer’s rep recommended pitch rate. I actually made a starter for this beer and I was blown away that I dropped 30 points in 12 hours. It was kind of mind blowing to see that kind of.
Speed. When it came from a yeast. Why is that something you see with. One strain of covid or is that general across all strains of
Richard Preiss: Some of them are faster than others, but, , In general, they’re all pretty fast. They’re all above average, I would say as a group. , which is pretty cool. , we have seen yet, like some of them are really quite fast, like, , the, the strains from, , sclera, , which, which we also sell a couple strands from, from that, like as, as crispy.
, they’re really quite fast. , same thing with the horn and doll. , very, very fast fermentation. Yeah, boss, like a lot of the ones that, that I think you see being sold by bye labs are, are some of the faster ones. There, there are some that are, you know, maybe closer to normal brewing East, but still, still, you know, nothing to shake a stick at.
, But, you know, across the board, they’re, they’re pretty amazing. Like across the board with most bikes, you can turn around at beer in less than a week. And, you know, from granted glass.
Colter Wilson: Yeah, it’s kinda crazy. And it’s actually kind of mind blowing in almost kind of shocking when you’re an experienced brewer. And to be honest it’s the crazy part is you don’t even really get that green beer flavor right .
Richard Preiss: .
Yeah. So, I mean, I guess, I guess there’s still some open questions to answer there, but what we’ve seen is that a lot of those beer maturation. , things happen that’s for scale with like, just like the, the actual fermentation happens faster. Right. So if you’re thinking about like green beer, often, often you’re thinking about diastal, right?
They ask for being produced and having to be broken down again by the yeast so that you don’t taste that buttery flavor. , that, that seems to happen a lot faster and bike. Like sometimes you can catch diacetyl if you taste it, you know, less than 24 hours, but often after that it’s cleaned up. , in terms of other sort of green intermediate flavors, you might have like, , let’s see the aldehyde as well, right?
Like green Apple, , that you get before it’s fully converted over to, to F no alcohol. , and that just seems to happen really quickly. Don’t often get that flavor in like, , and they also a lot of these strands flocculate quite quickly. So in terms of, you know, used to always. Sticks to a lot of the hop compounds, right?
They’ll actually stick to the bitterness, the IVs in the hops, the alpha acids. And, , that’s why you get sort of a yeast, you know, a bite. If you’ve got a beer that has Eastern, it hasn’t fully settled out because a lot of the likes are pretty flocculant. , they’ll also pull that stuff out relatively quickly and, you know, help to make a, you know, a beer that doesn’t taste green, , at a accelerated timescale.
Colter Wilson: Yeah, you guys sell a wide variety of uses, you know, your traditional California, all type II, all the way up to sour, blends, and such. If I were to look for the Scarman labs at my local Homebrew store. Is it easier to find in some places than others
Richard Preiss: We’re still working on it. We’ve got a few sort of smaller regional, , home brew shops, , on board and we’re, we’re working on onboarding a few other ones. , we’ve, , solved a lot of it. A lot of the, , the challenges with the, you know, the shipping over the border, especially with the, with the home brew shops where, you know, prices is everything.
So. , you know, what I can say is we’re working on or onboarding a lot of, , us shops right now, , try to make it more widely available. , there is a shop just around the corner from us as well called KJ urban winery. , here in Gwelf they’ve actually been shipping to the U S for, for awhile now. So I know that a lot of Americans, , buy are used through them, and it’s very easy for them to sort of keep stocked up cause, , they can literally just walk over and pick up, pick up their yeast.
Colter Wilson: Yeah you’re pretty much getting it as fresh as you possibly can Right.
Richard Preiss: exactly. There’s a few places to find it. There’s, there’s going to be more if anyone’s listening and has a home brew shop, , reach out to us, , we’re happy to chat and, , we’ve got some really exciting stuff coming down the pipe this fall as well.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. And you guys have a really cool program called the Could you give me a little more information about that?
Richard Preiss: Yeah. So, so one of the problems that we sort of encountered with, with, with the whole world of like, is that it’s just so big and there’s so many. Things out there there’s so many different bikes that have been found and discovered and shared, , and no, a whole lot of information on a lot of these things, right.
You might get one or two anecdotes from someone about a certain cause like blender strain, , on Facebook or, you know, other communities, but. , there wasn’t really a whole lot of info out there. And this is sort of, of the problems that we found is like, you know, we want to make like available to folks, but we often don’t even have that primary experience with a lot of these strengths.
So, you know, our thought was, can we just sort of shorten that, that chain? And, , you know, we’re often very careful about what product so we decided to release, but this was sort of the opposite philosophy of saying, okay, let’s just, , You know, pick a list of likes, , let’s just grow them. We don’t have to know everything about it.
Let’s grow it, let’s release it. And let’s, you know, work with the brewing community on characterizing these things. And, you know, if, if, , if there’s a certain strain that people keep asking for, you know, a few months after we grew it, then, you know, that tells us that that was a success and we can, , shorten the turnaround time on, you know, getting the really good likes into people’s hands.
And making those regularly produced products because otherwise it’s like so daunting, right. We’re sitting on two, 300 individual strains from bikes and, , it’s simply impossible to test every one of those. So this was sort of the kick in the button I needed to, , Get more of these things into brewers’ hands and that’s been a lot of fun.
So we’ve been able to, to find that, you know, certain strains work really well for certain people, other ones, , you know, have have more choices. And, you know, there’s been a few that have been really popular to the point that we’ve yeah, no regrown them or, , you know, launched a different product sort of based on, on those ideas.
Like the, , the Laird ALK bike has made a return a few times. , cause it has this really cool pineapple Esther, , and the all, a lot of the brewers were reporting experiences with this skerrick bike about making these super clean, super fast beers. So we were able to take that feedback and develop our crispy blend and, , based on, on those bikes to really make a product that’s, , custom tailored to, to make sure.
You know, as clean as fast beers as possible.
Colter Wilson: One strain that really stood out to me and I’m probably gonna say it wrong. Is the Marina. Farmhouse russian strain could you talk a bit about that
Richard Preiss: Yeah. So, I mean, they’re completely different. , simply because that’s a, that’s a yeast from, from Russia used in Russian farmhouse brewing and you know, this is, I think sort of the next. The stage of, of this narrative is, , you know, everyone understanding that farmhouse brewing and farmhouse Eastern, not just client, right, like was sort of the first one really popularized.
, and the reason for that is that these are really, really great yeasts for a lot of different beers. , okay. There’s farmhouse brewing in other pockets. In Europe and there’s special things going on in those places too. So Lars Marriott GARS hall, this is like the guy that’s, you know, basically the reason that like is popular and the reason that everyone is a, you know, now thinking or talking about traditional brewing, , he’s, he’s made sure to go out of his way to, you know, go to other places like Russia and, , Lithuania to, to also, , understand and document the farm has to bring this happening in these places.
And in these places, there, there is traditional yeast as well. So, you know, you go deep into Tavasia in Russia and there’s these. , these, these people brewing with traditional yeasts and, , they’re, they’re completely different from Collike, right? Because they’re nowhere close to each other geographically.
, the only thing they have in common is that it’s a traditional yeast. That’s been passed down through generations. So yeah, Marina’s not spiked, but we thought that it felt within, it felt within sort of the philosophy of, you know, let’s get more of these things into people’s hands. , you know, grown.
Grown well with, with, with great quality control and freshness on our side, but, you know, give people an opportunity to test out these really, you know, kind of obscure yeasts and Marina, actually a really cool one because I think it’s quite unique. , very much not like, like at all. It’s I would say if anything, it’s closest to.
A Belgian yeast in character, like it has the sort of peppery phenols, , it’s fruity. , we really liked it. , I really liked it in, in, you know, and style beers. It had an almost like white wine kind of character that really complimented, , Belgian style beers. And , you know, certainly, , the, the, the traditional beer that it, that.
, coming from is, is, has a whole lot of rye in it. , and, and, and certainly would be very, very different, but I thought even, even in the context of, you know, modern brewing, , if you were to make a, you know, a Belgium triple or something like that with it, it would, it would work really, really well.
Colter Wilson: Yeah, and that this is a place where I’m actually going to do a bit of a plug of my own show. We’ve actually had Lars Michelle on the show. He w if you go look at the backlog, you can see the episode with him. We’ve also had chip from chop and brew on the show where we talked about his trip to Norway and his experience with as well.
Those are some shows that we’ve had the password. We’ve talked about as well. One yeast that stood out to me is well is crispy could you talk a bit more about that strain?
Richard Preiss: Yeah. I alluded to this a little bit earlier. , , well, there’s sort of two sides to the story. No one was doing this, like ring a project and having something new. I would every month that that brewers can try out and give us feedback on. And that was something we noticed was that, , sclera S K a R E a M like, was, was really popular and that people were using it to make locker.
Like beer is very clean beers. And, you know, that was the feedback we were getting is like, You know, you guys should, should sell this thing more. Yeah. And because I used it to make a Pilsner or I used it to make, you know, a super clean beer super fast and you know, this is really cool. And, you know, on the other side we were seeing that, , there there’s, you know, a lot of, a lot of hype and a lot of interest in.
Like, , origin ease that that can make really, really clean beers. You know, our, our initial focus was, was on the flavor intensity. Right. , that’s why we sort of led off with horn and doll and Boston and everything else, because those are really, really flavorful yeasts that can do really cool things and beers like a new England IPA is.
But, , there’s sort of this, the second wave and, and I, you know, totally credit. , boot Lake biology with, with setting this trend of, , you know, they have a, , called Oslo that that was kind of marketed for clean beers, , and works quite well for that application. So, you know, we saw that in, you know, and also saw the interest in the sclera and, and, you know, , basically sort of pulled that apart, tested, , the three strains in there and.
Picked a, you know, really there was one strain that was quite fruity and two that were relatively neutral. So crispy is kind of just a blend of the two more neutral strains, , so that, , it’s not quite as intensely fruity, , and, and helps brewers to make those really clean, , beers. And, you know, recognizing that I, and I, I think this is something that a lot of East labs are now jumping on because of the interest in, you know, being able to turn around.
Super clean beers super quickly. , you know, we see, I think, , I’ll make a lapse how’s there, , Electra as well that they just launched. So, , we’re seeing a lot of options in this space of, , super-clean bikes to, to make, , clean beers, lager, like beers, Cole, shes, , or even if you wanted to use it to make a West coast IPA in a week, you could do that too.
And that’s really exciting.
Colter Wilson: Now is that a trend you’re seeing with breweries? Trying to turn around beers really quickly using is that something you’re seeing in the market?
Richard Preiss: Oh, yeah. Especially, you know, especially this year, especially this summer, , with a lot of breweries, , you know, reopening after COVID locked down and, , Really feeling a lot of pressure. Like I think a lot of craft breweries have been selling a lot of beer, , and having to package a lot of beer. , if a brewery can, can change their turnaround time from two, three weeks to one week and, , get more beer out to customers faster, , without having to invest in, you know, more, more space, more tanks, more capital, , that’s a huge help to them.
Right. They can get up and running. , be a lot more nimble with, , with, with their production, , fill gaps, you know, when, when they, when they start running out of beer. , so, so on the proprietary side, it hit has a huge advantage there in the sense that, , it can help these guys get beer out the door that tastes good and, and helps them make money and keep the lights on.
Colter Wilson: Let’s jump back to the Ring just a bit more. If i were a home brewer and i wanted to become a member of the Kovac reading, what is the process look like?
Richard Preiss: Yeah, I mean, so, so how it works in terms of the, , the communication is, , it’s a mailing list, so you can sign up to that and you’ll get an email every month with the information about, you know, what’s coming out this month and also, you know, just a reminder of, you know, what we were doing in the past.
And, you know, often we’ll put in some extra information, just, you know, what’s new in the world of bike or farmhouse brewing, you know, check out this thing, check out this book. , you know, just nice to sort of have that communication all in one place, , in terms of accessing the Easts. , the way that we do it is, is that the East, , are distributed just like any other home brew used.
So, , the shops purchase from it wholesale and yeah. And the shops have it available to sell to, , to their customers. , we are exploring direct to consumer, , for, for some of these products, especially with, with like ring where, , You know, some of the shops, especially the smaller ones might not be able to bring in a whole bunch of these things.
, but you know, we’re, we’re not quite there yet. I’m hoping that that we’re able to do that in the fall. , just try to give people as many options to get these things into their hands as possible.
Colter Wilson: Awesome. And if you’re a brewer right now, listening to this show, and you want some more information on the Ring head over to a Scarlet labs.com. Forward slash Green and you can get more information.
Let’s talk about your brewing
Do you still brew and
if so what are you brewing these days?
Richard Preiss: I do. Yeah. I still somehow find time to brew. , even when I should probably be doing more important things.
Colter Wilson: That’s that’s actually what my wife says about my brewing in general. Yeah so you know what are you brewing lately?
Richard Preiss: Ah, okay. Uh, I, I always, Bruce stays on, so that’s, you know, that’s really my, my first love, , I I’ve been making six seasons of all descriptors, right? Whether it’s, you know, a little bit tart and funky or whether it’s clean, I really love brewing those beers. There’s so much to learn. There’s so much you can do, right.
It really is that choose your own adventure. The East that are used to make saisons are some of the most interesting and diverse and flavorful out there. And, you know, that’s really exciting. So always, always got saisons on the go. Um, but beyond that, I’ve also been, , definitely working a lot on brewing loggers.
, you know, whether that’s something very traditional, you know, with, , with. European malts and lager yeast, or whether that’s something, you know, a little bit different with something like crispy and, , , some of the, you know, wonderful local malts that are made, , here in Ontario by Barronelle malt, for example, , really love experimenting with loggers.
, it’s almost the opposite of the Saison where it’s really not a choose your own adventure. There are rules. There is structure. There’s a certain way to do it. Right. , and that’s nice too, right? Cause it’s completely, it’s almost completely different brewing, you know, you have to have a completely different mindset, , between the two things.
, and I find that fascinating and it’s been a big learning experience, I think. , I’ve been making lagers for four or five years. And I think I’ve just starting to get okay at it, in my opinion. So I like the challenge there too. , there there’s, you know, you’re never perfect and that’s really exciting and just making small tweaks and being able to observe what kind of difference that makes in the final beer.
, and then, you know, it was just drinking, delicious, clean crushable beers, always wonderful to.
Colter Wilson: Yeah, I totally agree. I could tell you that with my loggers, it’s like sometimes I will get on a run where I make some really great loggers and then the next time it’s just not as good as it should be. But that that’s something about lagers. It’s something we are always looking to improve.
So if i wanted to find out more information about escarpment labs,
And what home brew shops and where to find your yeast would that be on your website
Richard Preiss: that is something we need to improve. We do have a new website that should be launching in September. So, so that will have all the information, , as to, you know, what home brew shops stock the East. We do have a Homebrew page on our, on our current website that does have a list. , I believe we need to update that, but, , that is on our docket.
, but yeah, we, we do keep a list that is, , mostly up to date. , but recognizing that we are onboarding a lot of shops in the U S and Europe right now, and that should expand the availability of these yeasts. And, you know, we are, , putting in some extra space to, , to, to package more home brew, putting in another, , packaging line for our home so that we can get more of this stuff into, into people’s hands.
Colter Wilson: Alright, I am going to say that I’ve never actually used in this A yeast at this point. That’s because i live in colorado and none of the local shops near me actually carry your brands of east and that’s exactly why but that being said if i were to see one of your packages what does the packaging look like and what’s the size it comes in.
Richard Preiss: Yeah, I think we’ve been a little bit of this like Canadian secret for a little while, but, , I think we’ll have the capacity to, to change that in the next little while. , we do, we do package the Eastern pouches. , that is a pretty common packaging format for liquid East. , so it’s a similar size pouches, as you might see from, from Imperial or a mega, , kind of the same format, , target, you know, more than 180 billion cells for the clean East.
, and then, you know, we, we also offer bacteria, Bret, , stuff like that as well. , but very, very similar format. , And, , you know, try to have a wide, wide range available to, to the brewers and try to have these sort of limited edition things like, like ring and post COVID. We’ve been doing some limited edition stuff beyond that, too.
Just trying to get some, some of the strains that we’ve been excited about internally into people’s hands to get some feedback as well.
Colter Wilson: Let’s say i was a home brew shop and I wanted to carry your yeast. Would I just go to your website and fill out the contact form? Is that how that would work? Right.
Richard Preiss: Yep. That’s how it works right now. So, you know, if a Homebrew shop reaches out, we’ll, we’ll get them all the info they need for, for onboarding, pricing, shipping, all that stuff. I’m always happy to help there. Like I said, we’re, we’re, we’re, we’re working on a direct to consumer approach. , That being said, there’s some logistics to sort out, especially with, , you know, getting, getting Homebrew poaches into the U S but I, I’m pretty confident we can solve that.
You know, our target for that is the fall, but for the time being, , Homebrew shops, yeah. Feel free to reach out. , and you know, we’re, we’re happy to work with you and, you know, we we’ve solved a lot of the problems with the international shipping. So, , you know, that that’s sort of just running quite smoothly right now.
Colter Wilson: Well richard i want to thank you for coming on the show and taking the time to talk to home brewing diy thank you
Richard Preiss: Sounds awesome. Yeah. Thanks for having me on here.
Colter Wilson: I want to thank Richard for taking the time to be on this week show. We had a great conversation as always. And, you know, I learned a ton about Yeast that I did know. So there we go. That being said, you can always follow us on all of our social media is head to homebrewing, diy.beer, all one word. Just look for us on Facebook.
On Instagram or Twitter, we’re on all of the socials. And we really look forward to talking to you next week. On homebrewing, DIY.
