So you want to work in a brewery...

People often seem to have the idea that working in a brewery is all fun.  Well, it can be.  The people are great and there's beer everywhere!  This is an industry completely focused on making people happy.  If you don't mind hard physical work, often monotonous tasks, or being constantly aware of potentially dangerous situations, then this may be for you.

I am a teacher during the school years and work in breweries during my summers.  Although I will often intentionally avoid  specifying the origin brewery of particular thoughts, I have worked at Craggie Brewing Company (Asheville, NC - no longer operating), Asheville Brewing Company (Asheville, NC) and am now at the Carolina Brewery (Pittsboro, NC).  

How I got into the breweries:  

Yeah, kegs.

    My first summer I contacted several breweries in the Asheville area with no responses.  I then sent them all emails with the subject line "free labor."  Craggie took me on and we called it an unpaid internship.  I worked hard and regularly got growlers of beer as payment.  

    As I approached Craggie about the following summer, I was nudged toward the next door brewery as Craggie was in bad business shape.  The head brewer of Craggie took me over to the Asheville Brewing Company and got me summer work with them.  Halfway through the summer they decided to pay me as I was working 40 hour weeks.  

    After working hard and learning a lot at Asheville Brewing, I learned that the following summer I'd be in Durham.  Around the holidays I made a few brewery visits, filled out applications, and drank a few beers.  Shortly before the summer I made more phone calls and The head brewer at Carolina Brewery invited me in to talk about the summer.  We ended up having a great conversation and now I'm at the Carolina Brewery!

Here are some thoughts on working in a brewery:

--Happy People--  Working in a brewery doesn't pay a great deal.  When you couple the low pay with the physical demands of the job you end up with people who want to be there.  Many people work high-paying jobs which they do not enjoy and this is the opposite of that.

--Mashing Out--  This is the process of taking the spent grains out of the mash tun and cleaning out the mash tun by getting into it.  Every brewery has a setup by which to take the grains to an area from which a farmer usually takes them.  This process varies widely as it is a relatively simple task, but is never at the top of the list of fun jobs at a brewery.  After removing all of the grain through the use of a hoe and a flat rake-like tool, the next part is to get into the mash tun with a water hose and scrubby pad.  In this small area in which you have to crouch as you move around you have to lift up the false bottom panels one by one and spray them out, which can be tricky in such close quarters.  I enjoy that, during this job, time flies.  

--Physical Acclimation--  I teach during the year, so I don't have a physically demanding job.  Therefore, when I begin work in June each summer I have a period of a couple of weeks during which my body as to acclimate to the job.  The first week is usually pretty bad, with a lot of sore muscles.  The second week isn't usually as bad.  By the third week, I'm back into it with the occasional aches.  These first two weeks are usually pretty rough, but it gets better shortly thereafter.

--Milling--  The grains for brewing (mostly barley) usually arrive unmilled.  The goal of milling is to "crack" the outer covering of the grain just enough to allow the hot water of the mash to penetrate all of its contents while still leaving large enough parts of it intact to act as a natural filter for small sediment at the end of the mash.  Producing 15 barrels of an average strength beer requires somewhere in the ballpark of 850 lbs. of grain.  This translates to 16 or 17 bags of grain which must be brought to the mill, opened, and poured into the mill one at a time.  Some breweries require the milled grain to be hefted up to the opening of the mash tun and poured in manually, while some breweries have auger and pipe system which delivers it directly to the mash tun.

Filling kegs off a CO2 Tank (the main tank
was empty) while mashing out.

--Kegs are Heavy--  An empty keg weighs just shy of 30 lbs. whereas beer is about 8.43 lbs./gallon (8.43 lbs./gallon is for water, but it's close).  A standard 1/2 barrel keg holds 15.5 gallons of beer.  30 + (8.43*15.5) = roughly 160 lbs.  On my first day at Craggie we moved approximately 60 of these kegs into a small walk-in cooler and stacked them three high.  It should be noted that my wife found me at the Thirsty Monk after a few Belgians as that was a hard first day.  (160*60= 4.8 tons)

--Filling Kegs--  There's not really much to it, actually.  Most breweries fill them manually which first consists of hooking up a line with a tap valve on it to a bright tank or serving tank.  While filling, what is usually the gas input to the keg is actually an output for the carbon dioxide in the keg.  The only real skill in filling a keg comes in regulating the output so that the keg fills quickly, but not so quickly that the beer foams too much.  There has to be head pressure if this process is to work smoothly.

--Chemicals--  The cleaning chemical used by all breweries I've seen is an alkaline caustic cleaner.  Craft breweries usually have a barrel of concentrated caustic which is really nasty stuff.  I noticed on the Anheuser-Busch tour that they have a large reservoir of it which has dedicated lines leading it through the brewing vessels directly between brews.  The usual protocol is to put on gloves and carefully pump it from the barrel into a container which has a spring to keep it closed when not intentionally open.  I heard a story of a woman who was trying her hand in the brewhouse, and doing a great job, and reached into a bucket bare-handed to retrieve a fitting, just to discover the bucket was full of caustic.  Luckily, an experienced brewer was nearby and quickly sprayed off her arm with beer from a fermenter which neutralizes caustic.

--Music--  While working in a brewery you will be introduced to new music.  Many jobs have music constantly playing to spare you from the monotony present in various tasks.  A few examples of monotonous tasks in a brewhouse include cleaning kegs, scrubbing the floor, wiping down fermenting vessels, and filling growlers.  Most anything else in the brewery could break without disastrous results, but if the stereo was to explode I feel the brewery might stop!

--Young'uns--  The brewhouse is a place for young men.  I mean no offense to women, but my observations do not include the extended stays of any women.  Also, I have only had the pleasure of working with one brewhouse employee over the age of 32 (56, but he's an interesting case).  I just turned 28 years old yesterday and asked the other guys their ages at Carolina Brewery.  Several of the guys are 24 and couple of them are 28 or 29.  For the most part, once you hit the realm of 30 years old it's time to either shift the mode of your employment or become a head brewer who spends more time making decisions, crunching numbers, and delegating tasks.

--Odd Tasks--  I theorize that as a short term employee who has been added to the usual clockwork team I am often tasked with jobs which usually sit on the back-burner.  One brewery dealt with a problem where mice were getting into the grain storage resulting in a loss of entire bags of grain.  A couple of us stationed ourselves in the warehouse with pellet guns and waited.  Just the other day I spent a morning on a tall ladder with an extending duster doing battle with the cobwebs which had built up.  One task, which unexpectedly took an entire day, was insulating the bottom of a glycol tank.  The tank is very cold and condenses a large volume of water on the outside, running to the bottom to which I was fitting and gluing sheets of insulation.  Although it felt like a futile task, due to the excessive condensation, it now looks excellent and is well insulated.

"Beer Culture," by Matthew Kelley, 2007

In 2007, Ferguson, the Ampersand, and I released a beer newsletter entitled "The Beer Guys."  This was the introduction:


"Volume 1, Issue 1" of "The Beer Guys"

       "Beer is the oldest beverage in the history of humanity.  Yeah, people drank from streams and squeezed udders before beer existed, but beer was the first liquid drink that was created by man specifically to quench thirst and be enjoyed.  It came as a byproduct of making bread, which any history teacher will tell you was essential for the establishment of permanent human settlements.  Large numbers of people were staying in one place, and they all had to do something after toiling all day at mundane specialized jobs.  In addition to being a relatively clean beverage that provided nutrients lost in a sedentary diet, beer was a vehicle to building campfire relationships during all-too-necessary periods of relaxation.  Common experiences, concerns, and jokes were shared, and this bound men together for the inevitable trials of inter-urban warfare.  Campfire stories laid the foundations for all of human literature, with direct descendants found in the Greek epic, or the Viking saga.  Consuming beer brought men together in a manner that facilitated the development of human organization and culture.  So, when you sip your beer in a friendly and comfortable environment, surrounded by all good people who understand you, remember that you are taking part in one of the oldest aspects of civilization; so much so that calling it a tradition would be an understatement.  Flee the noisy frat house and the dingy, lonely watering hole for a place where you can share your cares, feelings, and joys with your fellow man and receive the same.  Beer always allows room for those who are open to understanding its mystique.  As long as you are telling stories and bonding together with a grain brew in your hands, your spirits are but one breath away from the cornerstone of what makes us truly human."

                                                                               ~Matt Kelley
             
                                                                                The Ampersand in
                                                                                "Gudger & Ferguson's"

Sunrise in St. Louis with a Cigar

My wife and I are in St. Louis for a couple of days to celebrate three years of being together.  This morning I woke up early from a dream and couldn't get back to sleep.  I usually have the ability to sleep late, but it just wasn't working.  I then recalled a Cigar Aficionado interview with the owner of one of the famous cigar families who said he enjoyed his morning cigar the most.  In the morning, the palate is a blank slate and perfect to enjoy a tasty cigar.

I could hear the ocean like sound of the constant traffic and it was still dark outside.  I decided to read a book until the sun started to reveal itself and illuminate the reflective surface of the arch.  At 6:30 AM I lit my Oliva V Belicoso on the balcony and watched the sun slide up over the horizon.  It was a fantastic forty five minutes of watching the morning greet St. Louis with one of my favorite cigars.  The temperature was only in the upper thirties, though, so it was definitely a crisp period of meditation.

Louisville's Bambi Walk (In Progress)

There are great beer treks to be found all around the world.  Louisville, Kentucky has the Bambi Walk.  This walk has traditionally taken place in late August, but has waned in recent years.  In this journey participants have a beer at each bar between and including the Bambi Bar and Baxter Station.  The total distance is 3.3 miles and includes just over 20 destinations on Bardstown Rd and Baxter Avenue.

We are currently compiling a list of bars which we feel should be included and will be walking the route soon to add a few of the newer bars.  If you have any suggestions about bars which should or should not be included or if you have some historical insight into this great event, please email us at: gudgerandferguson@gmail.com.

The current working map can be found here:

Gudger & Ferguson's Working Bambi Walk

The sheer number of views of this post has prompted me to get back on it!  Updates coming shortly.

St Patrick's Day Dinner

What is best for St. Patrick's day?  Brewing and partying.  This year, however, St. Patrick's day fell on a Sunday and it was raining.  We still had a grand Irish dinner, though!

I would have taken a better picture, but I was salivating at the time and incapable of caring beyond the first shot.  My wife put a corned beef, carrots, potatoes and cabbage in the crock pot and set it to stew all day long.  In the afternoon she baked Irish soda bread to tide us over until dinner.  The brew is a stout which I recently tapped.  Although it sates your appetite it entices you to keep eating, because it is scrumtrilescent (Thank You Will Ferrell).  Holidays are about food and I believe this is a tradition which will remain in our household.  I look forward to preparing brew/food combinations for future holidays!

Cigar Culture and Weddings

My wife and I got married four days ago and are now moving on from all the tedious work of planning and executing that wonderful event.  We had an absolutely wonderful time and were reminded of how great our friends and family really are.

During the preparations for the wedding I saw firsthand how much more expensive services become when wedding is attached to the product.  A cake is inexpensive.  A wedding cake, even if exactly the same, can be extremely overpriced.  This phenomenon is true across the board, except with cigars.  

I recently visited J Shepherd's cigar shop on Bardstown Road here in Louisville to purchase the gifts for the groomsmen.  Each of them received a Padron serie 1926, an Oliva V Belicoso, matches, and a double-bladed cutter.  They took twenty percent off the whole purchase, reduced the price of the cutters, provided bags and matches for each of the groomsmen to keep things neat, AND threw in a Padron Family Reserva which is an expensive and delicious cigar.  The culture of cigars is to embrace occasions and celebrate them, not gouge them like wedding vendors often do.  Cheers to you J. Shepherd and cheers to cigar culture everywhere!