Upcoming Technical Meeting:
The deadline for registration is Aug 3, on a first come first
serve basis with a strict cap at 175 people. We expect this meeting to
fill fast, so register early! A 40-passenger shuttle is available from
Fort Collins (pending 80% capacity is reached). Sorry, no outside beer will be allowed at this meeting.
Our technical talks scheduled are:
Title: Practical
Advice For A Young Barrel-Aging Program
The world of barrel-aged beer
is exploding, but starting up an expensive new barrel-aging program has some
inherent challenges and a steep learning curve. Learn from our mistakes instead
of making your own. We'll go over two important aspects of the barrel-aging
world. First, a quick primer on equipment for filling and emptying
barrels. With visual aids! Second, quality control. Any good brewery
knows when beer should be going down the drain instead of into a package, so
it's important to know when your barrels just aren't going to make it.
We'll taste a couple of samples that won't make the cut.
C.V. - Brief: Andy Parker quickly realized
that using his degree in Sound Design In Film from Syracuse University wasn't
in the cards, decided to expand on the home brewing hobby he started when he was
19, and found his way into the professional brewing industry via a now-defunct
brewpub in New York and Kona Brewing Company in Hawaii. He started at
Avery in August 2002, and after geeking out over some small barrel-aging
experiments in 2004 he started the barrel-aging program in earnest. The
first bottled release, Brabant, came out in 2009, and since then Avery has
bottled almost thirty unique barrel-aged beers, dozens of other draft-only
specialties, and a series of annual releases that will total almost 3,000 bbls
in 2015 alone. He's pretty happy that he ended up with the nickname
"Hollywood" instead of whatever his coworkers are actually calling
him when he's in the next room.
Title: Yeast and Genetics: Managing Multiple Yeast Strains
In addition to the challenge
of preventing bacterial contamination in our breweries, brewers using multiple
strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to produce their different beers
should be aware of the possibility of cross contamination in a fermentation by
their own house yeast strains. The Lab at Avery Brewing Company has
partnered with the University of Colorado Boulder to address this potential
problem by deep-sequencing 6 of their most commonly used yeast strains and
developing RT-PCR assays for strain-specific mutations. This provides for
a definitive method of assessing any suspected yeast cross-contamination before
it reaches the point of changing the aroma or flavor of the resulting beer.
C.V. - Brief: Dan Driscoll has a Bachelor's
Degree in Microbiology from Colorado State University, and a Master's Degree in
Molecular Biology from Oregon State University. He worked for several
biotechnology companies in the Denver Metro area for 6 years before he was
unceremoniously laid off. He decided that the boom-or-bust biotech
industry wasn't for him, and he would much rather get paid to drink beer for a
living. He started at Avery as a Microbiologist in May of 2011, and has
been putting his experience to use in advancing the Avery quality program ever
since.
