New Image Brewing is a maker of fine beers here in Arvada CO. They are one of the better know Colorado breweries making the hazy IPA style and were one of the first. Today we talk to Brandon Capps head brewer and founder of New Image Brewing about how he got into brewing and his tricks to making great hazy IPAs.
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Show Transcript
It will have many errors it is AI created.
Colter Wilson: You know, for some people making a great. Hazy IPA is like chasing a unicorn. But I think that it’s a lot easier than a lot of people make it out to be. So I invited Brandon caps of new image brewing on, and we’re going to talk about his homebrewing days and how to make great hazy. IPA’s. This week on DIY
And welcome back to homebrewing DIY the podcast that takes on the Doobie yourself aspect of homebrewing, gadgets, contraptions, and parts to show covers it all on this week’s show. We’re talking to Brandon caps, founder, and head brewer over at new image brewing. He’s going to talk to us about making great hazy.
IPA’s we’ll also talk a bit about his history and how he started a brewery at the ripe young age of 22. So it’s a great, great conversation. So stick around for the interview. But first I’d like to thank all of our patrons over at Patrion is because of you that this show can come to you week after week, head on over to patrion.com forward slash homebrewing DIY aye.
I say this every week, but I really do appreciate all of our patrons. And if you are a patron member, you got an early episode of this show, probably not too early, like Wednesday beef instead of Thursday. And. The coolest part though, is that your episode doesn’t have ads. I am going to start doing a bit of a change to my Patrion levels.
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Cause I, I said, Hey, I see people using it and he let me know that, Hey, it was him. And I just thank you so much for your support. It really, really helps keep the show on the air. Like, like I say, I, this isn’t my job. I have a day job. I sell restaurant technology for my day job. And it’s something where you.
Have the ability to support a show that really. Is a passion of mine to make, I love reaching out to professional brewers homebrewers and all of the people that we talk to and your support just makes all of this possible pays for things like my website hosting. It pays for things like the equipment to make this podcast, the service I use to do my remote interviews.
I don’t actually use zoom like everybody else in the world. So all of those things add up and your support helps us. Keep the lights on. So thank you so much for your support. I guess it’s time to jump into the interview this week. Uh, very, very excited. We’re going to talk to branding caps of doing image brewing.
I’d like to welcome Brandon Capps. He’s the. Founder and head brewer of new image brewing here in our Batta Colorado. One of my favorite breweries and Brendan, welcome to homebrewing.
Brandon Capps: Thanks. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Colter Wilson: Awesome. You have a very unique origin story when it comes to how you got into craft beer and really how you ended up founding a brewery.
Let’s start there. Let’s let’s talk about your background a bit.
Brandon Capps: Yeah. So, um, I’ll just kind of start with how I got into beer to begin with. Uh, so I was an electrical engineering major at Georgia tech and I was in my second year and looking for co-op positions, it was kind of a part of the degree programs, sort of like a super internship where you do a three years of on and off rotations with one company and working as a full-time employee, as opposed to just, you know, picking up some summer hours or whatever.
And I was looking around at different options. And, um, one of the options that kind of popped up, it was funny, actually, I wasn’t even looking for it, but a friend was like, yo, check this out. Like Budweiser’s hiring, uh, for co-ops, that’d be pretty neat. And I was like, Oh yeah, that would be pretty neat. And like, I was.
18 at the time. So, um, I was 18 in it and a huge period. Um, I didn’t party. I didn’t drink like how was there for school working my ass off. And, um, but the position was intriguing to me. One because it sounded cool. And two, uh, specifically was like more managerially oriented and it kind of always had this sense that I wanted to run something, whether it’s somebody else’s company or my own company, um, I wanted to.
Start learning the skills of managing people and so on and so forth. So I interviewed there, uh, ended up getting a job there and, um, I actually hated it at first. Uh, I was in the packaging side, um, in the maintenance area and working under a really cool guy who was actually a great mentor. Um, but I just didn’t really.
It was a huge culture shock for me at 18 growing up in a pretty like religious, Southern community to be exposed to these like really kind of rough, uh, you know, it worked on these packaging lines all the time and they sort of traumatized me almost instantly. Um, and it was just, you know, the packaging side is very fast paced, just constant problems, constant headaches.
Um, and. So that actually that semester that I worked full time, there went really badly and they decided to like, rather than terminating my co-op, um, moved me over at brewing and see if that was maybe a better fit. And they moved me over to brewing and I started working under the brewmaster. Dan, Tom, he actually may have heard of Dan.
He was running Sierra Nevada’s, um, R and D for like the last maybe. Five or six years prior to deciding that he wanted to be a master distiller now, so now he’s working for, um, I actually forget which group he’s working for now, but, um, really brilliant, dude. You know, one of the, one of the last kind of true.
And has your Bush free masters with a, you know, 25 year tenure and just, I mean, the guy didn’t line up bud lights and tell you which American Budweiser brewery they came from. And it just incredible palette, um, insane wealth of knowledge. And I really gravitated to him a ton and, um, I still wasn’t really into beer.
I still wasn’t really drinking. I was very much there for like the management and the engineering. And, um, he encouraged me like, Hey, you know, I think you’d be a lot better at designing these systems and troubleshooting these systems. If you understood the process more wanting to try home brewing, um, And so I did, uh, I bought a, I went to Northern brewer.com and bought a, uh, All grain whites vites and Bach kit, um, and spent like tax on, you know, the cattle and just everything.
I’m, I’m kind of one of those weird, like zero to 60 type of people in general, you know? So my, my first batch was in all green fights and Bach. Um, and we, I brewed that with my dad and we kegged it also weird for a first time home brewer. Um, And we actually brought it out here to summit County. Um, I was living in Georgia, grew up in Georgia, uh, breathed this at my parents house in Georgia.
And then we drove it out over their pop-up camper. He came out here for climbing and fly fishing, uh, pretty much every summer when I was a teenager and college and to drag to this keg invites and back out here and cracked it open and drank it. And I mean, this was probably like my third beer, you know, I’d had like, A couple of, you know, light beers at a frat party.
My freshman year, I’d probably had a beer with my dad. Um, But this was a solid, like third or fourth drink of my life was this bites and Bach that I home brewed. And, uh, we drank it and I was just like, Whoa, this is dope. This super cool. Um, and I was also 19 drinking at altitude and drinking invites in box.
So we were just hammered the whole frigging trip. Um, but it was a blast and, um, It was sort of this moment where I realized, you know, I’ve been a musician as a teenager, played in a lot of bands. I did a lot of, uh, physical media art when I was younger. Um, but for some torture reason, I had an insanely practical mind and someone told me when I was like 12 years old, they’re like, don’t be an artists, artists start be an engineer.
And I was like, okay, I’ll do that. Um, and, uh, And I found this and I was like, man, they’re just like really technical side to this whole brewing thing. That’s really fascinating for someone who’s into science and into reading dense literature. Um, but there’s also this really cool artistic side. And there’s a side of me that I’ve kind of been suppressing since I became practical and decided I wanted to be an engineer and get into a top 10 school and all that shit.
And so I. You gravitated to it because of that. And so I started started home brewing, started going down the list of, you know, the beer advocate top 100 at the time and whatever I could possibly find, which was not much in Metro Atlanta. Um, And again, I was still under age. I was, I was 19 when I really started home brewing.
And so I would like go into a total wine with my dad and pick out like 30 singles. And then I would just like bail and he would buy it. And then I would like have a beer a night for a month. And every single beer I had, I would like go through and do the full, like, you know, appearance around the taste mouth feel overall.
Um, I wasn’t like a Raider. Cause I’ve always kind of felt like that was, uh, not ideal. Um, but I would record for my own sake. Um, just in some app I had on my phone at the time, my self reviews of beers, but more so just for like, Honing my own palette and learning how to taste things. Um, so like every night my original was like, get home from work.
Um, make something cool for dinner after I usually go on a long run or whatever, and then, uh, sit down to the beer. And I mean, at that time, you know, I would take an hour and a half to drink like a 90 minute IPA. Um, Which is super appropriate, actually. That was a totally unintentional comparison. But, um, but yeah, I would just sit there and just pick apart these beers and just drink so slowly and try to understand every little nuance and then do the same with my own beer.
Um, and I just, it quickly exploded into this ridiculous hobby where I had, I think, 35 gallon bucket for mentors at my parents’ house. Um, and then I had like five in my closet. At college. And I was just brewing like two to three times a week and just making so much beer and like, fortunately Anheuser-Busch paid really well.
So especially for someone who is 19 and in school. Um, so I was just dumping a ton of money and homebrewing and realized really quickly that this was going to be something that I wanted to do. Professionally beyond just working for a giant brewery and understanding, you know, the, the brain components a little bit better.
Um, And so it’s kind of funny when I had my exit interview at Anheuser-Busch, they asked me, so what’s next. And you know, it’s a big corporate company. They, everything is quid pro quo there. So like, they were expecting me to say like, Oh yeah, I’m going to join the global management trainee program. Or I’m going to try to apply for engineer one or something like that.
And I just like, I want to start a brewery. They were like, Really like, yeah, totally. Really. You, you don’t want to come and work for the company. I was like, Whoa. No, no, I don’t like to hear it all. I really, I really don’t want to be a part of this. Um, but thanks. Thanks for the memories. Um, so yeah, it was, uh, it was not super well received at the time.
Um, and I actually had a. Exit exit interview, um, where they discussed that, you know, there’s certain expectations about what you say and what you don’t want. I’m just like, I, I’m not full of shit. I never have been. I don’t. And this has actually gotten me in trouble with relationships too. Or it’s like, Like, why am I going to talk about this stuff in front of your mom?
And they’re like, Oh, because I don’t want them to know about that side of me. And I’m like, well, I don’t, I’m not good at lying. So if they ask me about this, um, I’m just gonna tell them the truth. You know, it’s just, it’s just my whole life. Like, it’s always how I’ve been. I’m an open book. I don’t really censor myself.
I filter when it’s appropriate, but I try not to be fake. So anyway, yeah. So, yeah, I left that job. Um, I was wrapping up college and the first brewery they ended up at was called brew gentlemen, beer company in Braddock, Pennsylvania. It’s just outside of Pittsburgh. Um, those guys found me on pro brewer. And, uh, we started talking and it felt like a good fit.
They are also like a year older than me. Um, so it’s three, you know, one 21 year old and two 22 year olds. Um, all like they were just graduating Carnegie Mellon. I was just graduating Georgia tech and, um, they were really adept at the marketing and branding side. Um, but lacked the brewing knowledge. And so I kind of brought that component.
So I came on there. Like the third, um, No partner and started that up. And, uh, it was, it was super fun. It was crazy experience of the genus Shanti, uh, as an old convent built in like the mid 18 hundreds and our rent was $50 a month. And, uh, it was, it was quite bizarre. I mean, I was working like. Brewing for 16 hours and then work in the taproom for like four to six hours.
And then I just crashed sometimes I just sleep on the mall and then wake up and start brewing again. Um, but didn’t stay there for about a year and kind of decided to part ways with those guys. But then that’s when I came out here to start a new image.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. And you started new image. You were 2223?
Brandon Capps: Yeah.
Yeah, it was, um, 2014. When I founded the company. So it would have been, I would have just turned 23 when I started in Mitch. Wow. That’s
Colter Wilson: so crazy. Eh, I gotta admit when I was 23, I was waiting tables and bartending like at a, at a bar. And that was, uh, You know the extent of my career at that point. And you’re like founding a brewery.
That’s awesome.
Brandon Capps: I mean, I’m fully aware that I’m, I’m the weird one in the equation, but you know, at the time it was like, and I don’t have any blues. Like I don’t, I don’t have a house. I don’t have a high paying job. And I mean, I could literally try this for a decade and fail and I’ll just be a 30 year old guy with an engineering degree and no money.
So basically an average guy, and then I can just go from there. Um, so that was kind of the, the risk calculus at the time was like even looking at the industry too. It seemed like the growth rate was still just exponential for breweries at the time. And so it felt like dang, I’ve got a really good experience with the branding side.
I mean, brew gentlemen blew up pretty quick in Pittsburgh and, um, So I learned a lot from that experience. And, uh, I think the craziest part was the I’m going to go do this in Colorado thing. I mean, just jumping into one of the most competitive brew scenes in the country, not to mention a very expensive place, which I didn’t really realize before moving here.
Um, just across the board, I was also kind of used to Atlanta, so I wasn’t super shocked by how expensive things were when I first moved here. But. In any case. Yeah, it was, uh, it was an interesting way to just jump into it. But at the same time it made a ton of sense. It’s like, well, when am I going to have this little to risk?
Um, you know, and if I don’t do this now, I’m probably going to be. Pretty successful as an engineer and it’s, it might make it that much harder for me to ever take this risk. So, yeah.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. Well, I, I would, I would say now it’s 2021. It’s pretty apparent that you’re probably gonna brew for awhile. Um, so let’s, let’s, let’s dive into some beer.
I. One thing that, and just, I’ll give you my experience with new image. I actually did move to Colorado till 2017. Uh, I actually work in restaurant technology and, uh, and my old company moved me out here and I. Bought a house in Arvada. And the first beer I actually bought when I moved to Arvada was a new image East coast transplant, which was also one of the first hazy IPA’s I actually have ever had was back in 2017.
And so you at that brewery, I think have really kind of set the standard for the style of here in Colorado. And so let’s talk about, you know, maybe your approach to that style and how you’re really, uh, Ju, uh, I’m going to say juicing up the hops, but that’s not really the right term, but really just kind of getting a really consistent product from really something that has, uh, I mean, it’s at any given time you have multiple different, uh, hop combinations of beers on tap, but, but I would say that they’re all consistently well done.
What is your approach in, into a hazy IPA to kind of get that consistency?
Brandon Capps: Yeah. Um, I’ll briefly touch on sort of how I came to brew hazy IPA’s in the first place. Um, it really wasn’t, uh, it wasn’t a thing yet when we started doing it. Um, we weren’t the first by any means. I mean, alchemists have been doing it for several years, so pharmacists doing it for several years.
Uh, but what’s funny is I didn’t really have, like, I had like a Facebook, but I didn’t really use social media. Um, back then. So I wasn’t super aware of like what was going on elsewhere. Um, so I really stumbled upon making a hazy IPA super organically. And the thought process was I’d never as a homebrewer used in American East train.
Once I just thought, why would I like the main descriptors for this in a positive light? Are. Clean and, you know, non-contributing like they make alcohol and that’s it. And I was like, well, that’s boring like that. Blacks, any nuance. So English strains, like they have this kind of like messy, fun Ester profile that, that complicates things like, why wouldn’t I want that in my IPA’s cause you know, like hops are great, but like we could layer this tied together and make a more cohesive.
Overall thing. And so I just always been brewing with English Easts and was playing with a bunch of different English East to brew gentlemen, and stumbled upon brewing a handful of batches. I think with like British IL two was like the first one. We started time making these IPA’s with, and nowhere near as you know, opaque is kind of stuff we’re doing now, but she’s really going more heavy on like kettle additions, really going more heavy on dry hopping, just trying to.
Be as aroma focused as possible. And then just tying together, like, alright, we want to close this gap between the malt and the hops and make this more cohesive picture. And thus kind of our version of hazy IPA. There was born when, in between the transition of leaving brew, gentlemen, starting new image and that inevitable, uh, period of time between the two I was, you know, back to home brewing a lot.
And, um, And trying to really develop, you know, really develop viscose transplant. That was, uh, one of the first beers that I really knew we were going to make. Um, weirdly decided I wanted to have a double IPA as the only IPV Sara to enter flagship. Um, I think that was heavily influenced by, uh, the Alchemist and heady topper.
Um, so yeah, it was just developing that beer and, um, So a couple of the things about my approach initially were, uh, I, I was always using, uh, extract for the bittering and first word additions. Um, you know, at the Homebrew level, it was the like hop shop products and then commercially, uh, Yakima, chief hops.
Who’s our main supplier. They make seem super critical CO2 extract. So I was using that for bittering. Um, but also notice today, like they, haven’t pretty impactful. Uh, flavor and aroma contribution. Um, we were using, I was thinking Conan, uh, for the first several years, that new image. It really, really likes that strain early on.
Um, and I liked it a lot. I think I liked it more as a home brewer. Um, because I didn’t notice the intern system sees that I would notice once I started packaging beer and trying to like, really think about shelf life. Um, so for homebrewers I think coming in as is a great strain for commercial brewers.
Um, I mean, it’s not just tricky. It really is a very difficult beard, their yeast to use as a, as a. As a work horse, flagship yeast kinda inconsistent, um, sort of a diaspora upon. Uh, so we started drifting away from that in the longterm, but you know, one of the first and foremost things about a peanut making consistent and especially stable hazy IPA was figuring out well, We’re trying to have some level of turbidity.
Although admittedly, especially early on to venue is a byproduct, not a goal. Um, in fact, I think the first time we brought an IPA that was hazy, the way we make them now is like, Shit. This doesn’t look great. No, one’s going to buy this. I have a fine in there and the BioFire didn’t work. And I was like, well, we’re too poor not to serve this.
So let’s serve it anyway and see what happens. And, uh, and it was hit and it did really well. And they were like, well, maybe there’s something here, but then it’s funny. Cause like, by the time we were doing East coast transplant, how here. It was a new challenge, which was, uh, I mean, initially it was trying to get people to drink the damn thing.
In the first place I was getting laughed on a bars, uh, left and right by buyers, there was like, you fucking lazy ass home brewer. You don’t know what you’re doing. Like go back to home brewing, get the fuck out of this industry. Just. Like when you can make a proper West coast IPA, that’s crystal clear, you might consider walking across our threshold again.
And, uh, you know, five years later they couldn’t have been more wrong. Not that it’s not that it’s really influenced. Their memory at all, because for some reason they still like, remember us as like a new image. Like I had a bad experience with them early on. It’s like you had the experience of being completely fucking wrong about the next huge phase for IPA, but whatever.
Um, so, you know, one of the big challenges though, was like, how do we get these things? Not like not snow globe. No oxidize, um, you know, there’s a lower, lower carbonation products. So especially we started canning more susceptible to oxygen pickup, um, especially in like a non counter pressure fillers situation, which is what most breweries our size.
Um, Or kind of working with, especially at the time. And so for people who are home brewing and want to make a consistent hazy IPA and a stable hazy IPA, the first and foremost thing before you mess with any of your ingredients before you mess with any of your methods, um, just oxygen, just oxygen, post fermentation, anything and everything that you can do to prevent.
Oxygen from entering your beer is going to be the number one difference. Maybe the only other thing. And I kind of forget about this, but as a disclaimer, clean, clean stuff, well, like clean stuff. It’s amazing to me when I was first getting into homebrewing, how many of you were like, Oh yeah, just give stuff a quick rinse and then like throw some star sand in there and call it a day.
I was like, not that doesn’t cut it. Like if you’re going to do anything, I think I remember like listening to it. The brewery knackered network back in the day. And they’re like it really, if you’re going to do anything, just clean it, PDW and rents and don’t use Sani. You’re better off that way. Then the rivers, um, You can’t sanitize something that’s not clean.
So
Colter Wilson: people forget that beers food. I know that we all drink it and put it in our bodies. But I think that a lot of homebrewers when they think about cleanliness and, and especially newer homebrewers you got to think of it is, it is a food product and. If you were in a restaurant or if you were cooking or if you were doing something like that, and it wasn’t a clean and, and, and sanitary product that you were going to use to even cook food in, it’s not even good enough for beer.
Right. So that’s just what, one of my thoughts on cleanliness when I try to explain it to people. Cool.
Brandon Capps: Totally well, you know, and I, I know that I could even. Five six years ago when I was listening to a lot of home brewing podcasts, I heard this reiterated over and over again. Um, but I still think that it’s one of the most important points that was ever made, which is, um, I remember when I was first getting the home brewing and I was writing all these super complex recipes, especially with grain bills, just trying to find every little unique.
Grain that could possibly make my beer tastes a little bit better. And every unique content that makes my beer tastes a little bit better. This is very ingredient. So just, and I just heard it over and over again was like, you can make a phenomenal stout with a small black model and crystal ball. You can make a phenomenal IPA with Centennial and Pilsner.
Um, The difference is your methods, you know, are you good at cleaning? Are you good at managing oxygen, post fermentation? Um, and just doing every single step meticulously. And I can tell you from looking at the really good professional brewers versus the ones who, you know, just make barely make the cut the biggest difference.
Isn’t the ingredients. It’s not the. Brand of hops that we’re buying it’s it’s technique and method. And in some cases, technology sure. Once you have a certain amount of money behind your operation, but even if you don’t have a ton of money, like if you put in the time and you’re very meticulous and you really focus on, you know, Just even, even cleaning your fermentors super well, like the same at the commercial levels is on the small scale.
Like, and it’s something that I reiterate to my seller team constantly. It’s like, you don’t understand how small the mistakes you can make are that can. Fuck up something huge. You know, it takes a milliliter of oxygen to ruin a 2000 gallon batch. And when you like give people that perspective, like it’s very small mistakes that have huge impacts.
And so you have to do everything in brewing with this mindset of really, really overly cautious care to every detail to make sure. Um, you don’t ruin something cause it happens instantly. And we had a batches Coriolis effect, 60 barrel batch. Um, So a thousand gallons of beer, that was all the way into the bright tank.
It’s about ready to get packaged. Um, but our main CO2 tank, uh, kicked than a day. And so we switched over to the backup CO2 tank. Now, when he came back the next morning and measured the dissolved oxygen prior to packaging, and it was through the roof of his way, high. I mean, we rarely see a beer in the tank above like five parts per billion.
And it was sitting in like two 50, um, which is just horrible. Absolutely awful. And I was racking my brain, like what the hell happened? I mean, like I just measured this yesterday and I’m the one that, you know, carbonated it. I didn’t do anything I can think of. And I realized that. Whenever the backup CO2 tank got connected to the main jumper line that we didn’t do a pre purge, um, from the coupling.
And so when we switched over to that backup CO2 tank, the. Amount of oxygen. That was just between the coupler on the CO2 tank and the receiver, uh, went all the way through our system and then through the car soon and dissolved perfectly into the beer and ruin the batch. You know, we dumped it. Um, and you know, it was just like, it happens from time to time.
People get really bad of shape about dumping beer. Like it’s, you know, like you’re a painter, sometimes you just like. Yeah, knock over your canvas. He is still paying on and you’re like, ah, shit, well, canvas, you know, um, that adds, but just to put it in perspective, it’s like when you’re homebrewing, your margin of error is even smaller because you deal want five gallons.
So you do the math on what one part per billion of five gallons is. And then your margin of error is 10 of those. It’s 10, you know, it’s probably a thousandth of a milliliter of oxygen. That’s capable of ruining a batch of beer. And I reiterate this point over and over again, because I think that again, people are like, is it the hops I’m using it to the model I’m using?
Is that the use of it? Is it, this is that’s probably accident. It’s probably AxoGen, there’s probably unclean for better. Most of the time. Once you get past those things, um, then you can start talking about some more intricate stuff in, and because I know homebrewers and really any beer enthusiasts that really want to hear, not so much of what I just talked about a little bit more of the other stuff, I’ll tease a couple of those things.
So, um, I personally really liked, uh, full spectrum extracts on the hot side. I think they make some really unique beers that stand out, have a more pungent, hot side character. Uh, than, than what you can get with just regular hops. Um, I really, I definitely have, um, I’ve gone full, fully across the spectrum of, you know, Dry hopping frigging two times, three times, four times, five times, um, you know, knocking out onto the first dry house, just all these different methods.
And honestly, the best way to dry hop for hazy IPA’s is to, and actually for pretty much all APS is cool to be you’re down a little bit. Um, not like cold crash, but like, you know, high fifties, mid fifties, and, um, let the yeast drop out for a couple of days so you can get the cell count down. Um, and you know, if maybe if I was home brewing, I might even consider racking to a separate fermenter after some initial cooling, um, And then dry hap once the yeast has been mostly removed from the solution and just do one dry drab, especially, especially as a, as a home brewer, you’re not going to deal with stratification and, you know, the kind of issues that we deal with at the commercial level to the same degree.
Um, You don’t need to try hop 15 times. Um, yeah. And you know, like biotransformation is like a big buzzword that a lot of people have talked about in my experience. Like it is interesting. I would say if you’re interested in biotransformation, seeing your hands on a hop extract, that’s terpene driven and try dosing with that because when you have vegetable matter going in.
During fermentation more than what you get from the biotransformation of the hot oils, you’re going to get in polyphenol extraction. And that’s just going to make your beer tastes super, you know, people say green people say hot people say, Oh, ITA tastes young. Um, is where the whole conversation about like, why does some people’s IPA’s need three weeks in the canned before they taste drinkable and others don’t most of that’s polyphenols and.
Polyphenols increase in extraction with temperature time, et cetera. So, um, I would, if I was, I haven’t, home-brewed in a long time. If I was to make an IPA as a homebrewer AAPA, I would probably do. I don’t know how this translates to, you know, ounces per gallon. So somebody else could do that math. Um, but okay.
Do a panel,
Colter Wilson: but also be an email. Somebody will send me an email with it.
Brandon Capps: Do you do a pattern, uh, to two pounds per barrel on the hot side? Um, you know, and feel free to mess around, do whatever you want. It’s have fun. Um, but for, for us a pound and a half, two pounds per barrel hops on the flat side, um, give him about 15 minute, uh, hot stand.
I personally like to use hot, hot extracts on the hot side. Um, erect that over for men and out we use London three, it’s our house strains kind of everybody’s house strain. Um, and let it completely ferment. I mean, just. Hit your hit your numbers. And I would honestly say to like, hit your numbers, have already dry hop.
Um, if you have funders anyways, issues like work on that too. Um, because under attenuated IPA’s just across the board as a matter of it’s West coast or hazy, even though hazy is, tend to be secured and higher final gravity hit your numbers. Um, and then cool down a little bit, or, you know, give it some time to like useful also just prop out with time.
Um, and then do one dry hop. And do it for 24 hours. Um, honestly, As a homebrewer I would say, even too, you could just cold crash to 30 to 32 degrees, put in a keg, dry having a keg for 24 hours. Um, and then, or even overnight like 12 and then rack into your finishing vessel. Um, a lot of studies, especially that scale, um, have shown that you reach saturation, uh, for dry hopping in about.
Four hours and a five count solution. And once you hit about 24, um, you’re actually starting to see those compounds that you’re working really hard with all your dry hopping to get into solution, start to precipitate out a solution. Um, they saturate really fast and they. Fall out, um, not nearly as fast, but at kind of an inverse exponential rate.
Um, the, the compounds that make hops aromatic are super hydrophobic, um, and beer is super hydrous. So, uh, you kind of want to take what you can get out of the solution quickly, and then just capture that and hang on to it. Um, so whether you’re kegging or bottling, you know, personally, I, I used corny kegs a lot as a home brewer.
Um, I think that it’s a great way to do hazy ideas, especially because you have a vessel that you can purge and that you can do positive pressure during racking and so on and so forth. Um, So, yeah, you use CO2 use pressure for your racking. Try to try to purge things like we always have a positive pressure purge going during dry hops, positive pressure during anything, you know, always have CO2 pushing out of whatever vessel you’re dealing with post fermentation.
Um, so that you’re limiting oxygen intake, but keep your dry hop short. Um, that’s a big thing in terms of when we talk about like, you know, juicy character. Um, other than like the hops you might choose for that. I think a big part of that is extracting the oils and not extracting a shit ton of acid and polyphenol.
So, um, you know, to put that in non-technical terms, uh, reduce your temperature, reduce your time. Uh, you’re going to get more of what you want in a haze, APA that way. Um, Regardless of the hops you’re using. And then in terms of ingredient selection, um, don’t be too overly complicated. Now I would say this across the board too, especially with home brewing because you know, when you’ve got a, a huge 40,000 BTU flavor burning on a, um, a little town, a five gallon pot, you’ve got so much more, you know, Melanotan develop development, um, and million reaction characters can be in that beer.
You don’t really need to have an overly complex malt profiles. So don’t feel the need to go crazy on crystal malts and add in melanoma malts and stuff like that. At that scale, like really, like, I think at a decent two row, I used a lot of Colton promise when I was home brewing. Um, some oats Holly’s fun.
I personally really like white wheat, uh, Uh, you know, but I, I don’t, most of our hazy IPA’s or, you know, three ingredients, baseball, wheat malt, sort of based on what lead mold and flaked wheat. Um, and then I personally, don’t like to use usually more than three hops and rarely more than two, um, But also rarely one.
I personally don’t love single hop beers, all that much, certain hops like Nelson were great. Um, but most just don’t have the complexity to stand up that well. Um, but you know, focus on, especially say to do a lot of too hot beers and really get to know, you know, some quintessential pairings that you can come up with there, which ones come on, each other, which ones don’t really jive.
Um, the less. Parameters, you’re trying to tweak at a time, the more you’re going to learn about each individual parameter and, um, and then also water profiles, uh, as we’ve geared towards a really hard water profile in two to 300 parts per million, um, of most of the, the big hitters in terms of calcium sulfate, chloride, um,
Colter Wilson: So you’re not doing the, I always hear the two to one chloride to Cal, uh, the like basically calcium, more chloride than a sulfate is, is what I hear a lot when it comes to water profile.
And you’re saying you kind of do some all up. Is that, is that what you’re saying? So
Brandon Capps: they all ended up being pretty high and we still, I would say sit anywhere from, I mean, sometimes it’s, you know, like a, a hundred to one ratio of chloride sulfate, um, and sometimes it’s two to one, sometimes it’s, you know, one and a half, 1.2, five to one.
Um, but I think something that I would say has been more consistent. Uh, and I forget when I read someone talking about this years ago, um, But it’s actually the, having an overall higher concentration, um, has more of an impact than a ratios, which is sort of counter to a lot of the preaching that was going on, you know, maybe five years ago.
And maybe even still, um, if your chloride and sulfate ratio is 50 parts per million to 25, um, I don’t think that’s going to have as big of impact as if you had 250 parts per million of chloride and 200 parts per million of sulfate. Um, it’s that saturation of, of salts that seems to really kind of get people towards the character that.
Uh, that I think they’re, they’re looking for, um, that set of needs and really great IPA’s with no salt additions whatsoever as well. Um, I will say that when you’re using less hops, um, using heavier assault additions, and don’t do too much, cause you can actually push to where you’re starting to strain your body physically.
Um, so you don’t make sure to pay attention to like recommended levels for your physical health. Um, but assault. Right, right. But yeah. It’s like, if you look back at those old, like Burton, IPA, um, water profiles from England, uh, and you know, the IPA’s had made IPA’s in the first place. Um, something that I think got overlooked really early on, it was just that across the board, their water was hard and they had just a lot of, all of the ions present.
Um, And people kind of honed in on ratios, but I think that overall concentration and total hardness, uh, comes into play, especially with ACA PAs. There’s definitely not a single other, maybe stouts stouts. We also tend to have some pretty heavy salt additions, but, um, That’s something that’s, that’s had a pretty big impact on our CPAs.
I’ll also, I like to acidify the boil, but that’s not really a secret anymore. The way I was like five years ago, I think almost everyone is doing that. So, um, but you know, just if you want a confirmation. Yeah. I like like 4.9 pH started oil that’s I think a good, good way to reduce isomerization, pick up more character and also pH really does a big impact on perceived flavor.
Um, yeah.
Colter Wilson: Yeah. Uh, well, and one of the things, uh, you just kind of going into your, the other part that let’s go to the other side of your portfolio. Uh, one of my favorite beers is your Czech Pilsner that you’re making, and that is completely different than your hazy IPA’s, but it is a great beer. And so, uh, I, you know, w w I don’t, we don’t need to go super long on this one, but the idea is, uh, uh, it’s, it’s very, very different.
And, and maybe what your approach on that
Brandon Capps: beer. Yeah. Well, it’s funny, you mentioned that one because I’m actually drinking that one. Right. Right now I had one
Colter Wilson: last night. It was delicious
Brandon Capps: of the spear. Like, I mean, I love every beer we make in a different way, but in terms of what do I actually really drink?
Yeah. Uh, this beer is so good and, uh, I bring it home by the case. Um, so what makes this beer is, again, it’s that kind of gets back to that same point, which is process, um, really focusing on. All of the little elements. And so, um, couple of the big ones for this one, pretty straightforward, very soft water profile.
Um, you know, we use, uh, fireman, Pilsner, just regular, uh, Pilsner, malt, um, not Barca or Bohemian to that’s actually something I do want to play with more. Um, And just that malt, uh, we triple the cocktail, um, which is, you know, something that, especially the commercial scale. You don’t see all that often, just because it’s kind of hard if you don’t build your system around that to do it.
And it can be extremely time consuming and challenging. Uh, fortunately I just absolutely phenomenal brew house that can do anything. And so we tripled the cost of this beer, um, which decoctions fortunately super easy at a Homebrew scale. Um, it’s a triple the competition. It’s all. Howertown MiddleTree. Um, for hops and we don’t do any dry hopping.
I can’t remember for the life of me what our dosage rate is, but it comes out to about like 35 ish calculated IBU. Um, we, uh, we’ve actually played with a few different yeasts on this one. And it’s funny because, uh, my philosophy on lager yeast, I was like trying to find the right one for the longest time.
And then I was hanging out with bill from Bierstadt and, uh, he just told me, you know, If you’re doing there, if you’re doing things correctly with lager, The yeast should be contributing, almost nothing except for alcohol. So it really shouldn’t matter, like, yeah, I have a preferred house stream, but it really shouldn’t matter what you’re brewing your lagers with.
If your technique and your loggery methods are good, the yeasts carry dirt should be irrelevant. Um, you know, maybe the only real big differences is sulfur direction. Um, But, you know, you get a good, healthy fermentation. Uh, you should see most of that clear up, especially if you lager for a sufficient period of time, you know, length of time laundering, super important.
Um, we also emulate one of the methods that they do, which is a float tank, um, which is a very old school, traditional German method where you rack the beer into a. Um, flat bottom and vessel, you pitch the yeast you oxygenate, uh, and then you let the oxygen, um, start to rise out of the solution and it floats, uh, this cold break up to the top.
And then you rack out of that vessel to try to you let the yeast, it wasn’t viable enough to get into the solution in the first six to eight hours, uh, fall out to the bottom. You leave that behind. And then you let a lot of, you know, poly phenol and, uh, you know, tannic, troub from Boyle, um, get kind of stuck in this foam at the top of the solution.
And he leaves that behind as well. And I will say, like in terms of methods, that is one that has a really noticeable impact. I mean, the just cleanliness and the definition of the beer that you get, um, after doing that process is incredible. Um, some of the other methods, a little harder to do at a whole brew level, but, you know, just getting, getting rid of your troub, um, And dead East, uh, during the early parts of fermentation.
Uh, to try to make sure that you’re keeping the solution pretty clean, pretty neutral of anything that might cause off flavors. Um, and then just giving it a lot of time, a lot or crashing slowly, you know, not just dropping from 49 degrees to 32 and 12 hours. And it doing two degrees Fahrenheit per day or one degree Celsius per day.
Um, it’s a nice rate. Uh, we don’t, we just, we just let him ride flat at 49 degrees until they pass the hassle. Um, they’ll eventually pass unless your fermentation’s super fucked up. Um, so, you know, we don’t, we don’t do it to SLRs, uh, in the traditional sense, just for me, it cold the whole time. Crash slowly, uh, stay low for a long time.
And, uh, the only method that we don’t really get to employ it do image simply because we just don’t brew the volume of lager required for this. Although it’s something that I would, uh, having a flagship like a real flagship wire that would make him more sufficient. Quantity is something physical of ours, uh, in the, in the coming years.
Uh, but seasoning, uh, is, is super. Just a really amazing technique for cleaning up bloggers, just throwing just a little bit of fresh yeast in there to clean up for the lazy dying yeast that has, you know, really just they’re done. They don’t want to do anymore. They don’t want to clean up their mess. They just wanted to make it.
Um, so cruising is a really, really great method for walkers and cleaning them up on the cold side. But, um, Yeah. I mean, that’d beers super, super simple, one lot, one hop all method. Um,
Colter Wilson: and, and it is a striking beer. Like when you. Order one. I, it is crystal clear. It’s, it’s a, it’s a beautiful logger. And, uh, and I just feel like it, and maybe it’s because, uh, I’m a, I’m a geeky homebrewer, but I, I always try to, I like to judge breweries on their logger.
Right. And, and yours is killer. So it’s, uh, it, it, like you said, one, one hop. One malt all method, uh, lagers scream, nothing but method in the end. Right. So it’s that, there’s nothing to hide behind in that beer. And it’s, it’s
Brandon Capps: a great beer. Yeah. And you know, I think making a, a passable locker is not that hard.
Um, but making, you know, use the word striking a logger. That really is great. I don’t want to like. Declare our own Lauder is great, cause it’s not my place to do so. I find that people think that that’s awesome, but, um, you know, that’s the goal anyway is to make a great lager and the difference between making a passable lager and a great locker.
It truly is a lot of attention to really, really small details. But at the same time, I would say the same about making a great IPA versus pass-fail IPA and a great stat versus the passable stout. It’s really finding the tiniest details that make a huge difference. Um, but most of those details are. Just pay attention to details.
And, you know, I personally would say like, I know it’s heresy to say don’t drink on your brew day, but don’t drink on debris day until you’re done.
Colter Wilson: That’s uh, I, I tell people that too. So, uh, I may, I’m a one beer on a birthday guy. That’s, that’s my rule. And, and I drink it when I’m cleaning. Yeah.
Brandon Capps: That’s my method.
And I think too, like, you know, when you get a. You get a nice sleep two and a half percent alcohol Pilsner or a sessionable table stays on or something that you really keep your wits about you. Cause I mean, yeah, I love having a beer too, but you know, your, your standards to strap and your attention to detail and it drops off and you know, but at the same time too, like it’s about having fun.
So if that’s, if you’re there more to hanging out with your friends, Then having beers, but if you’re asking yourself, what’s the difference? It’s that?
Colter Wilson: Yeah, totally. Well, Brandon, I have to thank you for giving me the time today. I know you’re a busy guy and so thank you so much for coming on home and DIY and it, it was, uh, this was, uh, uh, a great conversation.
I learned, uh, I learned a few things that I’m definitely gonna. Take after this conversation and start trying on some of my hazy recipes, like out the go. So, um, thank you so much for, for being on the show. And if you ever want to come back, please reach out. I’d love to have you back.
Brandon Capps: Absolutely. Anytime. Um, you know, I love talking about this stuff.
I tend to be very verbose and nerdy with beer and, um, not all crowds appreciate that. Uh, see a lot of mine does clean Dover eyes and, you know, people like Jesus shut up. It’s fun to. To speak to a community that I know values, uh, eats up the verbosity. Just more, more information. I want to learn more. And especially in the, in the year, that is 2020 continuing to 2021.
I listened to podcasts endlessly, and I see, you know, normally in episodes an hour in one series, it’s like sweet out a need to find another podcast to listen to in this episode.
Colter Wilson: Well, awesome. Well, thank you so much, Brendan. And, uh, We’ll have you back.
Brandon Capps: Awesome. Appreciate it.
I’d
Colter Wilson: like to thank Brandon for taking the time to come on. This week’s show, like I said, in the interview. He had a few different takes on hazy IPA’s that I’m definitely gonna apply to making my hazy IPA’s and it was a great conversation. I have a feedback for next week, not this week. So, uh, if you, if you wanted to stick around for that, it was a long interview.
DIY .
