BKS Artisan Ales (Kansas City, Missouri) is the result of husband-and-wife team Brian and Mary Rooney’s attempt to bring taproom-based rapid innovation to brewing in their hometown, and their GABF silver medal in 2021 for Clouds hazy double IPA, GABF gold in 2022 for Rockhill & Locust dark mild, and great scores from the Craft Beer & Brewing blind judging panel have confirmed that they’ve been able to achieve it. They started small and still remain small relative to may breweries of similar volume, choosing to brew more batches more often into more fermenters so that they can keep the taproom lineup fresh and constantly evolving.
In this episode, they discuss the brewery background and philosophy, before diving into hazy beer approaches that include:
developing soft processes for soft beers that aren’t blocky, angular, or harsh
using the “terroir” of local water while still achieving very low total dissolved solids numbers
taking a conscious approach to pre-boil, kettle, and knockout pH for softer hop character
selecting hops and hop formats for softer bitterness
evaluating hop COAs to ballpark desirable (and undesirable) hop oil content in lots
aging Mosaic for better expression in hazy IPA
fermenting with Conan yeast in an unconventional way
And more.
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