Q&A with Steve Anderson, Big Bend Brewing Co.
The creative process in beer brewing
Whether you enjoy a cold beer or not, you’ll appreciate the creative effort that goes into the brew process.
That creativity is now on display right in the Big Bend at Big Bend Brewing Co. in Alpine, Texas. Big Bend Brewing Co. will produce the two types of beer produced today – lagers and ales – with four to five varieties.
Galleries & Artists (G&A) sat down with brewmeister Steve Anderson, a man who really knows how to brew great beer (formally of the famous Live Oak Brewing Co. and Waterloo Brewing in Austin) to learn more about the art of brewing one of the oldest beverages known to man. Learn more at www.BigBendBrewery.com
G&A: Describe for me the differences in beer?
Steve: There's lagers and ales.
G&A: Those are the only two?
Steve: Right. And then there are subcategories of both. A pilsner is a lager beer that is the ancestor of all the big macro beers today like Bud, Miller, Coors, Heineken. It's golden colored. But with the true pilsner it's very hoppy. It's really bitter. It’s a lager. With the pilsner it's going to be mostly pilsner malt. I don't think we'll have any specialty malt in it.
G&A: What does that mean?
Steve: It's just a base malt. Malt is barley that's been germinated to a certain point and then dried out. But it's still viable so when you expose the endosperm with warm water then the enzymes reactivate and continue the germination process. Except now instead of making a plant it breaks the starch inside the endosperm into sugar. And then we'll remove that sugar from the grain and the water, and we boil it to sterilize it, add hops to bitter it up. And then we send it to the fermenter with yeast that will consume that sugar that we've made from it and it produces ethanol and carbon dioxide. And so then it makes beer. But that requires lots of tank space. And because we're going to be making a lager, primarily which is the pilsner, that ties up the tank for a month.
G&A: So why is that? Aging?
Steve: Aging, yes. The difference between a lager and an ale is the yeast, and the lager yeast ferments at a cooler temperature and so it takes a little bit longer to ferment but not a whole lot. But because it ferments at a cooler temperature it produces and retains a lot of sulfites that are unpleasant. And it takes a while for that to scrub out of the beer. It's called "green beer".
G&A: Do you have yeast that you've used before that you bring to bear on this?
Steve: I think I'm going to use a different strain than what I've used before for the pilsner.
G&A: Where do you get the yeast?
Steve: There's yeast banks. There are three yeast banks here in the states.
G&A: So you're talking about a lager, is that the most popular typically?
Steve: It is the most popular by far. And then there are ales.
G&A: What is typical ale like?
Steve: Ale is an older version. The original beers were ales. And the ale yeast ferments at a warmer temperature and it produces esters that give it a fruitiness and kind of rounds the flavor out. With a lager the yeast doesn't produce any flavors so to speak, so you get just the malt and the hops in the beer.
G&A: So the malt and hop flavor is what you're using to draw that flavor.
Steve: Right, and the yeast imparts very little if any flavor.
G&A: And so then you're flavoring it?
Steve: Right, and this particular beer [we were tasting] it's 50% wheat and 50% barley malt and very little hops. You don't taste any hops. You can't really
even get bitterness. It's just that it counterbalances any over-sweetness, and that entire flavor is coming from the yeast. And it produces also a phenol that is reminiscent of clove spices. We don't add anything to it. The yeast produces it.
G&A: If you used a different kind of yeast would you get a different kind of beer?
Steve: Yes, this is very unique [the beer we're tasting]. Very few yeasts will produce that much of a flavor. If this yeast were used in any other style it would be considered "off".
G&A: So when you say you're going to go and get yeast to do this - are there different kinds of yeasts?
Steve: Yes there are hundreds of kinds of yeast.
Discussing what kind of beer will Big Bend Brewing Co. produce -
G&A: You’re deciding you've got four or five beers you're going to produce here, you're coming up with a profile for each one?
Steve: Yes. We're trying to get across the board. The original four was a pilsner lager, which is clean but bitter. You know, nicely bitter, hoppy lager.
The other one is like on the opposite end of the spectrum, a dark porter, which is heavy on the malt, almost caramel and chocolate-like.
G&A: So that's an ale.
Steve: Yes – and another ale would be an IPA (India pale ale), which is going to be very, very hoppy, for the hopheads. … the beauty of having hops in the beer is it produces another flavor, an additional flavor that wine cannot have.
G&A: What do you mean by that?
Steve: Well, wine can be astringent but it can't be bitter. And an astringent generally is undesirable anyway, but bitterness is a desired flavor in beer. For instance, like a pilsner it's very, very desirable. And with an IPA it's mandatory. But the other beauty of bitterness is that in order to perceive it, it has to pass the back of the tongue. Which means if you're sampling you can't spit it out. But with wine you can spit it out. And maybe rightfully so, but when it comes to beer you must consume it.
G&A: That's really interesting. Okay, so you're looking for a pilsner, an IPA, a dark porter, what else would you do?
Steve: A hefeweizen. It's a German or Bavarian style wheat beer.
G&A: Meaning wheat is a component in the beer and not in these others?
Steve: Yes. Weiss, I've heard two different theories. It can be either 'wheat' or also mean 'white'.
G&A: Yeah, that's what I thought it was, like a white beer.
Steve: White. Yeah. In Belgium they make what's called a white beer. But it is an ale, but like we discussed, it's the yeast that's producing all the flavor in
it and it's generally consumed around breakfast time with weisswurst.
G&A: Okay. We can have beer in the morning.
Steve: I've worked with a German brewer at Live Oak (in Austin) and he got some authentic weisswurst, and we had Meals-On-Wheels right next door. Right across the street actually. And he took it over there and had them boil it up. And he had some fresh pretzel and some sweet mustard. And we had this hefeweizen in these great big glasses, hefeweizen glasses. And at 10:00 in the morning he goes, "Now this is a traditional German breakfast!"
That creativity is now on display right in the Big Bend at Big Bend Brewing Co. in Alpine, Texas. Big Bend Brewing Co. will produce the two types of beer produced today – lagers and ales – with four to five varieties.
Galleries & Artists (G&A) sat down with brewmeister Steve Anderson, a man who really knows how to brew great beer (formally of the famous Live Oak Brewing Co. and Waterloo Brewing in Austin) to learn more about the art of brewing one of the oldest beverages known to man. Learn more at www.BigBendBrewery.com
G&A: Describe for me the differences in beer?
Steve: There's lagers and ales.
G&A: Those are the only two?
Steve: Right. And then there are subcategories of both. A pilsner is a lager beer that is the ancestor of all the big macro beers today like Bud, Miller, Coors, Heineken. It's golden colored. But with the true pilsner it's very hoppy. It's really bitter. It’s a lager. With the pilsner it's going to be mostly pilsner malt. I don't think we'll have any specialty malt in it.
G&A: What does that mean?
Steve: It's just a base malt. Malt is barley that's been germinated to a certain point and then dried out. But it's still viable so when you expose the endosperm with warm water then the enzymes reactivate and continue the germination process. Except now instead of making a plant it breaks the starch inside the endosperm into sugar. And then we'll remove that sugar from the grain and the water, and we boil it to sterilize it, add hops to bitter it up. And then we send it to the fermenter with yeast that will consume that sugar that we've made from it and it produces ethanol and carbon dioxide. And so then it makes beer. But that requires lots of tank space. And because we're going to be making a lager, primarily which is the pilsner, that ties up the tank for a month.
G&A: So why is that? Aging?
Steve: Aging, yes. The difference between a lager and an ale is the yeast, and the lager yeast ferments at a cooler temperature and so it takes a little bit longer to ferment but not a whole lot. But because it ferments at a cooler temperature it produces and retains a lot of sulfites that are unpleasant. And it takes a while for that to scrub out of the beer. It's called "green beer".
G&A: Do you have yeast that you've used before that you bring to bear on this?
Steve: I think I'm going to use a different strain than what I've used before for the pilsner.
G&A: Where do you get the yeast?
Steve: There's yeast banks. There are three yeast banks here in the states.
G&A: So you're talking about a lager, is that the most popular typically?
Steve: It is the most popular by far. And then there are ales.
G&A: What is typical ale like?
Steve: Ale is an older version. The original beers were ales. And the ale yeast ferments at a warmer temperature and it produces esters that give it a fruitiness and kind of rounds the flavor out. With a lager the yeast doesn't produce any flavors so to speak, so you get just the malt and the hops in the beer.
G&A: So the malt and hop flavor is what you're using to draw that flavor.
Steve: Right, and the yeast imparts very little if any flavor.
G&A: And so then you're flavoring it?
Steve: Right, and this particular beer [we were tasting] it's 50% wheat and 50% barley malt and very little hops. You don't taste any hops. You can't really
even get bitterness. It's just that it counterbalances any over-sweetness, and that entire flavor is coming from the yeast. And it produces also a phenol that is reminiscent of clove spices. We don't add anything to it. The yeast produces it.
G&A: If you used a different kind of yeast would you get a different kind of beer?
Steve: Yes, this is very unique [the beer we're tasting]. Very few yeasts will produce that much of a flavor. If this yeast were used in any other style it would be considered "off".
G&A: So when you say you're going to go and get yeast to do this - are there different kinds of yeasts?
Steve: Yes there are hundreds of kinds of yeast.
Discussing what kind of beer will Big Bend Brewing Co. produce -
G&A: You’re deciding you've got four or five beers you're going to produce here, you're coming up with a profile for each one?
Steve: Yes. We're trying to get across the board. The original four was a pilsner lager, which is clean but bitter. You know, nicely bitter, hoppy lager.
The other one is like on the opposite end of the spectrum, a dark porter, which is heavy on the malt, almost caramel and chocolate-like.
G&A: So that's an ale.
Steve: Yes – and another ale would be an IPA (India pale ale), which is going to be very, very hoppy, for the hopheads. … the beauty of having hops in the beer is it produces another flavor, an additional flavor that wine cannot have.
G&A: What do you mean by that?
Steve: Well, wine can be astringent but it can't be bitter. And an astringent generally is undesirable anyway, but bitterness is a desired flavor in beer. For instance, like a pilsner it's very, very desirable. And with an IPA it's mandatory. But the other beauty of bitterness is that in order to perceive it, it has to pass the back of the tongue. Which means if you're sampling you can't spit it out. But with wine you can spit it out. And maybe rightfully so, but when it comes to beer you must consume it.
G&A: That's really interesting. Okay, so you're looking for a pilsner, an IPA, a dark porter, what else would you do?
Steve: A hefeweizen. It's a German or Bavarian style wheat beer.
G&A: Meaning wheat is a component in the beer and not in these others?
Steve: Yes. Weiss, I've heard two different theories. It can be either 'wheat' or also mean 'white'.
G&A: Yeah, that's what I thought it was, like a white beer.
Steve: White. Yeah. In Belgium they make what's called a white beer. But it is an ale, but like we discussed, it's the yeast that's producing all the flavor in
it and it's generally consumed around breakfast time with weisswurst.
G&A: Okay. We can have beer in the morning.
Steve: I've worked with a German brewer at Live Oak (in Austin) and he got some authentic weisswurst, and we had Meals-On-Wheels right next door. Right across the street actually. And he took it over there and had them boil it up. And he had some fresh pretzel and some sweet mustard. And we had this hefeweizen in these great big glasses, hefeweizen glasses. And at 10:00 in the morning he goes, "Now this is a traditional German breakfast!"
