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59: Jack’s Abby Brewing's Jack Hendler: The Ins and Outs of Their Lager Brewing Techniques
59: Jack’s Abby Brewing's Jack Hendler: The Ins and Outs of Their Lager Brewing Techniques
ratings:
Length:
63 minutes
Released:
Nov 30, 2018
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
When he and his two brothers founded Jack’s Abby Brewing in Framingham, Massachusetts in 2011, Jack Hendler thought their craft brewery making only lagers might grow to brew 3000 bbl of beer per year in the first decade. Fast forward to 2018, where they’ll finish the year around the 50,000 bbl mark, and lagers are a bona fide trend with Jack’s Abby as one of the leaders of the charge. In this episode, Jack discusses the ins and outs of their lager brewing techniques, from yeast management to spunding, recipe design, ingredient selection, designing lager recipes for barrel-aging, and more.
“I think recipe formulation is a bit overrated,” says Hendler. “There’s only four ingredients, and unless you’re trying to brew a Helles with roasted barley, you’re probably going to be close, plus or minus 3% of one malt versus another malt or one hop versus another hop. You can make great beer as long as you’re in the ballpark on the recipe. It really comes down to process, and for us, our process is what makes us unique. I don’t care about telling people what we put in our beer—what our recipe is—because I know there’s not a lot of people who are going to try to replicate what we do, because what we do is really hard.”
“I think recipe formulation is a bit overrated,” says Hendler. “There’s only four ingredients, and unless you’re trying to brew a Helles with roasted barley, you’re probably going to be close, plus or minus 3% of one malt versus another malt or one hop versus another hop. You can make great beer as long as you’re in the ballpark on the recipe. It really comes down to process, and for us, our process is what makes us unique. I don’t care about telling people what we put in our beer—what our recipe is—because I know there’s not a lot of people who are going to try to replicate what we do, because what we do is really hard.”
Released:
Nov 30, 2018
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
29: Monkish Founders: The Techniques Behind Their IPAs: Our guests on this episode are Adriana and Henry Nguyen of Monkish Brewing in Torrance, California. Their small family-owned brewery started with a focus on Belgian-style beers and for years the brewery taproom featured a small sign stating “No MSG, No IPA.” But the advent of hazy, flavor-forward and less bitter IPAs convinced them to back off that humorous stance, and over the past two years of making them Monkish has become one of the leading brewers of the style on the West Coast. Here, they discuss the patience and technique behind their IPA process (disproving any argument that hazy IPAs are rushed), the impact of hops varieties on mouthfeel, the cultural development of taste and palate that has led to their taproom being one of the most diverse in Southern California (if not the country), their embrace of the concept of tension over balance and the dynamic result of not seeking stasis, and the challenge of small business own by Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast