Wisconsin Foodie

>> In this episode of Wisconsin Foodie, we visit the award-winning New Glarus Brewing Company in New Glarus, Wisconsin. Co-owner and brewmaster Dan Carey gives us a step-by-step tour of the brewery, from the kettles to the bottles, and everything in between. We also meet James Altwies from Gorst Valley Hops, as he and his team are preparing to install the beginnings of a hop farm at the brewery. Our final stop is at the Carey household, where we get a behind-the-scenes look on how Dan tests varieties of hops on his kitchen stove. We see how and why brews like Spotted Cow, Fat Squirrel and Moon Man have become staples in refrigerators across the state, making this brewery the unofficial beer of Wisconsin. All of that and more in this episode of Wisconsin Foodie. Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following major underwriters for their support. Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, representing the dairy farm families of Wisconsin, who fostered a proud history, with generations of family-owned dairy farms, working to sustain the state's economy through job growth and providing acclaimed cheeses and other dairy products. For more information on Wisconsin dairy,

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eatwisconsincheese.com >> I'm not standing in a small Swiss village, or in quintessential German brew town. I'm standing in front of New Glarus Brewery, in New Glarus, Wisconsin, where master brewer Dan Carey and his wife Deb started something in a garage, essentially, that has grown to be the 21st largest craft brewery in the country. They did that by embracing their Wisconsin-ness, and only being distributed within the state of Wisconsin. They did that by creating incredible tasting beers named after Spotted Cows, and Fat Squirrels, and Black Sludge, and the Back 40. It's basically part of the flavor of Wisconsin. It's a great story. And I'm here to meet Dan Carey and find out a little bit more about this great beer. Hello, Dan. >> Hey, Kyle, welcome. >> Thank you. >> Thanks for coming by. >> Already one of my favorite brewery gift shops, because you have tappers right here at the register. >> Nothing wrong with a gift shop that's got beer. >> You do really great beer, but I was hoping to do more than drink it today. Are you going to give me a tour? >> Let's go on a tour, then! >> Let's go. >> Dan, I've got to tell you that this has got to be one of the most finely appointed, attractive breweries. It's gorgeous. >> Thanks. >> That I've ever seen. >> Thank you. I have a personal philosophy that people want to believe that their food comes from a good place. So we try to make the brewery comfortable, look nice, and clean. Brewing is a batch process. This is the kitchen of the brewery. This is a mash tun, where we mix barley malt in hot water. We make something that looks like mush, and it naturally breaks down, from the enzymes in the barley. It's a very old process. It's been done the same for thousands of years. It's never really changed. So, after we do an extraction where we dissolve the barley into water, we move it into this vessel. This is called a lauter tun. It's basically like a big coffee strainer. So if you look in there, you can see the mash is pumping over into this vessel. The insoluble material will be held back by the false bottom, and we're going to strain out the liquid, what we call wort, which is the base, the root of the beer. It's a lot like making coffee. Then the next stage is boiling. This is where we're boiling the liquid, or boiling the wort. It's sterilizes the wort. That's why in medieval times, people drank beer and not water. The water would be contaminated. >> It kept them alive. >> Exactly, so without beer, there would be no modern society, I would imagine. After we separate out the tea, the base, the wort, we put it in this vessel, and we boil it for one hour. And hops are a spice, so we don't use a lot of hops in beer. For example, we make 3,000 gallons at a time. We use 5,000 pounds of barley malt, but we may only use 50 pounds of hops. >> It's like saffron, a little bit goes a long way. >> Exactly, that's 100% correct. If you have a restaurant, you can buy your stock off the truck. Or you can go out to the market and choose for yourself, and know your supplier, know your farmer. I want to know my farmer by name. It makes a subtle, but significant difference. >> The real stuff growing on the vine is a thousand times better than the synthesized stuff. >> That's right. >> That you would just dump in. >> All right, this is the last vessel. This is called the whirlpool, and for obvious reasons. >> That's right. >> This is the last stage of the hot process. So now we've boiled the liquid. We have the hop material, the leaf material that doesn't dissolve into the beer. We've precipitated protein in the process of boiling. Now we want to settle it out. We do it naturally using gravity. This whirlpool effect is what Einstein called the teacup effect. If you put tea leaves into a tea cup and you spin it, they'll all come to the center. >> This must look like a galaxy, if you could be up above it in a spaceship, spinning around, looking down on the Milky Way. >> Well, there is a whole universe in brewing. Brewing is extremely complex. People don't really realize how much-- It's relatively easy to make good beer, but to make great beer, or world class beer is many lifetimes of effort. So you're right, that's exactly what I see when I look down. There's a whole universe of questions. >> All right, I'm just going to stare for a minute, and feel this. So where's the beer, or maybe it's not beer yet, go from here? >> Well, the next stage is fermentation, the cold end of brewing. This is really where the magic happens, because this plant extract that sort of tastes like Grape Nuts is turned into beer. >> So Robert Frost was right. Some say the world is made of fire, some say it's made of ice. >> That's right. >> Beer is made of both. >> That's exactly right. Brewing is definitely about fire and ice. >> Wow, look at this! This is so amazing, Dan. >> This is the fermentation cellar. These big, tall tanks are fermenters. >> Holy! >> We take our wort that we produce in the copper vessels, and we pump it into these tanks. We add yeast. Yeast is really the star of the show. Brewers are caretakers of yeast. We build our process around yeast. We're a little bit different than most breweries. Most breweries use one strain of yeast. It's easier that way. But we own about a dozen yeast strains. In a given year, we might use six different yeasts. >> You're not making the same beer with every batch. >> That's exactly right. We want the yeast to be completely different. That's why a beer like our light lager, Totally Naked, tastes different than Spotted Cow, that tastes different than Dancing Man Wheat Beer, that tastes different than our Golden Ale. The flavors that yeast produce are what beer is all about. Fruity flavors, spicy flavors, cinnamon-like characteristics. All of these flavors come from different types of yeast. >> Ooh, this is behind the curtain. I love this part. Oh, come on! Now I feel like I'm on a submarine!

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>> Dive! Dive! >> Beneath my feet stands a lot of beer. Oh, Dan, this is so cool. I have been to the top of the Statue of Liberty and looked through the crown. But this is even better. >> Yeah. >> I've got to say. >> This is the top of the mountain for beer. >> Yeah. So every one of these huge tanks have got a delicious, fantastic, amazing New Glarus beer? >> That's right. When we first started, we started out with old dairy tanks. It was me and my wife, and that was it. >> Some people are from Wisconsin, and they don't like to talk about it in the rest of the country. But you guys said, no, we rock! I know this, but not everybody even that brews beer here realizes that. >> Deb always says that Wisconsin's a special place. >> It's the center of the world, actually. >> It is the center of the world. And the reason our winters are so hard is it keeps the whiners out.

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Very important. But you know, you say that we're part of the Wisconsin identity. And what instantly comes into my mind is a sense of obligation. Because if we are part of the Wisconsin identity, we own allegiance, we exist solely on the good graces of our customers. >> You're not sold outside of the state. >> No, that's right. So, it's a scary sense of obligation to always try to do better, as each day goes by to be better and better, and to be a good representative of our state. That's an obligation. >> So this can't be the end of the tour. >> Nope, the beer sits here, going through its fermentation and aging process. Once that's done, we run it through a centrifuge to clarify it, and then we put it into bottles. >> All these tubes around us are basically hustling these amazing fluids into these things. >> Or out, that's right. There's about three miles of pipes here, stainless steel pipe. >> This is where the most relevant stuff, for some people who like to drink beer, happens, correct? >> That's right. >> It goes into something you can put in your hand and put to your mouth. >> It's a hard step, actually, to put all that beer into little, tiny bottles. >> I would imagine. Yeah, I've tried to frost cookies before, and I'm horrible at that.

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>> Well, this is what we call the packaging hall. >> Wow. >> Half of our business is in bottle, and half of our business is in keg. This is the keg line, and over here is the bottling line. Today, we're bottling Back 40. >> This looks like one big automated stainless steel Santa's workshop. >> That's a great way of describing it. You're a poet. You're a brewery poet. I don't know about that, but I want to go around and start turning things on and off and see what happens.

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You probably won't let me do that? >> No. It's not an easy thing to do, like I said, putting thousands of gallons of beer into 12-ounce bottles is a little bit of a crazy thing. >> You guys have to take something handcrafted, even though it's on a big scale, and then bring it into a completely automated environment, and still have those subtleties, flavors, nuances, freshness. Well, I have drank an imprudent amount of your beer, and I have yet to have an off one. >> Well, thank you. >> Which leads me to my next question, looking at all these bottles going around. When do I get one? >> I have a deal for ya. Let's go by my house. I need to run some tests with hops from this year's crop. We'll have a beer there. And on the way, we'll stop and we'll take a look at our new hop field that's going in for next year. >> It sounds good to me. >> Okay, let's go. Kyle, this is our hop project. We're putting in 20 acres of hops. >> This is very cool. Tell me about this project, because most breweries, I don't think, have these. >> Hops are a perennial vine, like growing peas. They have a tendency to climb. So what we're going to do here is run wires across, and then they'll be strings coming down. There's going to be about 220 plants, rhizomes, planted along each of these rows. They'll climb clockwise up each of the strings to the top of the pole. We've teamed with Gorst Valley Farms. James from Gorst Valley designed this for us, and helped us a lot. >> How are ya? >> Fine, thank you. >> The hop guru, nice to meet you. How long from a chilly fall day and what we're seeing where it's just this super-structure of poles to vines all the way up? >> As soon as we get plants in the ground, early spring, two weeks after that, they should start popping. And depending on the variety, some of them will reach the top of the wire, you know, 18 feet, by the end of June, beginning of July. >> Theoretically, you guys will use what's growing there. >> Most definitely. >> To make some of your great beer. >> Most definitely. >> As cool as this field is that will be hops, do I get to see some up close today? >> Well, you know it's fall, and the 2012 harvest has come in, so we're going to be making some benchtop test brews with this year's crop to see how they perform. I have hops from local farms that I've bought from James at Gorst Valley, and actually some hops that we brought back from the old country. So if you'd like, we can go make some test brews. >> Gorst Valley, New Glarus. It's a good day. It's a lot of "G"s. Let's get inside. So this is the house of New Glarus. >> This is the house that Spotted Cow built. >> "This is the house that Spotted Cow built," I like that. >> Welcome. >> Thanks. This is pretty huge, when someone lets you into their home. >> That's right. All right, so we've got six burners, so I can run six tests at once. >> This is so cool that it's happening in your kitchen. >> Yeah. >> Basically, you define part of what Wisconsin tastes like in a liquid form, and you're still brewing the next great New Glarus beer, right here on your kitchen burners. >> This is where Moon Man was invented, right here. >> I can feel the joie de moon standing around me! >> Okay, so we're going to make six brews. Everything will be the same. The yeast is the same. The wort is the same. The only thing I will change is the hop. We go to Germany, to Willamette Valley of Oregon, to the Yakima Valley of Washington, and even here in Wisconsin, looking for the best hops we can find. We can look at the appearance of the hops. We can smell them and get a sense of their quality. But really, the only way to know if it's a good hop is to actually brew with it. So we have 75 different varieties and we're going to test them all. What we can do with a hop, is pick up a handful of them, hold them in your hands. Inside of these cones are glands. These glands are aromatic. If you rub the hops together, it makes a little bit of a mess. >> It's like a party! >> Yeah, and then smell them. >> I can smell it, wow! >> It's like lemon, and resin. >> Yeah, there's a little-- When you said lemon, I went to melon right away. >> That's right. >> Sort of a honeysuckle. >> Exactly. That's right, I hadn't thought of honeysuckle, but you're right. This was grown in Wisconsin. >> If that heavily processed potpourri that they try and sell in grocery stores smelled like this, I might actually buy it. Wow! >> So this is an old world hop, grown in the -- area. >> I'll give it a rub. Am I doing okay here? >> The problem is that when you rub the hops, you get a sense for the aroma. The aroma is really important, but hops also contribute bitterness. We want to know how that bitterness translates into the beer. The only way you know that is to brew with it. It's easier to do it in a beaker than it is to say, make 100 barrels of it, and God knows what you're going to have. You can learn a lot by doing this. If you really want to be 100% safe, you've got to brew with them. We're testing a lot of experimental varieties, so hop farmers will grow single plants. So I have hops where there's only one plant in the world, and the farmers will give me samples off this one vine and say, brew with it and see what you think. If it's successful, we like it, we can contract for it, and they'll propagate it and grow some acres for us. But it's a good way to constantly be looking into the future and see what's new, what's interesting. >> Hopefully, in about a year, I'm going to be drinking a New Glarus beer and say, you know, I was in the kitchen when that was getting made. >> That's right, I hope so, too. >> This is how cool my life is at Wisconsin Foodie. I've made cheese with master cheesemakers. I've been to Guatemala and found some of the best coffee in the world, and now I'm making beer with probably the most popular and well-loved beer in Wisconsin. I don't know how I get out of bed every day. >> So, we're going to start them boiling. Basically, my intent is to end up with a bottle of beer out of each of these flasks. This is the brew kettle. The next stage will be the whirlpool, where we'll let it settle. Then we'll transfer it to a fermenter. Then we'll take it back to the brewery, we'll add yeast. We'll ferment it. Then we'll bottle it, and in three weeks, we'll taste it. So I have an early hop at the beginning of the boil, and one at the end of the boil. This is lot number one, lot number two, lot number three, all the way through 24. Smell this hop. This is an experimental hop from Germany. That'll knock your socks off. >> Yeah, I was just going to say, that's some sort of cigar. >> Oh, you're right, it smells like cigars! >> Woof, off, some kind of-- Whoa. >> You never know, though. You know, you don't want to kick it out, because when it's finished and in the beer, it might be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Brewing is all about trying to control chaos. Like farming, it's the same type of thing. Or it's like a poker game. You get your cards dealt and you have to react. >> Right. >> The idea is to react in such a way that you can try to keep the beer consistent. You're fighting the natural chaos of the system to try to get consistency. Now the hops are, of course, just sitting on top, so I'm going to try to mix that all in, because I'd like to get them mixed in before it comes to a boil. As they get closer to a boil, I'll shut them off and try to bring them to a nice simmering boil. Otherwise, they'll foam over on me. Boiling wort has a tendency to foam. >> Boy, the aroma of wort in this kitchen has just risen by about 20-fold. >> Yeah, if you've just walked in here and you haven't been acclimated to it, it would be very, very strong. >> It's about to go. It's about to blow! >> Yeah, it is. >> You got it just in time. >> It's not very nice when it does boil over. >> I can only imagine! >> It's sort of like throwing a party and having to cook six things at once. As they come to a boil, I'll boil them for 20 minutes. >> Is there anything you look for right now, what the hops are doing, or the color of the wort, or anything like that? Or is it just doing what it does and you stay out of the way. >> I do pay attention to that. The main thing that I'm trying to accomplish is to make the boils even, so that the test is relatively consistent. >> Sure. >> I don't want, obviously, as I said, one to boil over. I'm also trying to make certain that I get the hops not to stick to the walls of the flask and into the beer. >> Sure, it changes everything. >> Have everything taste different. We buy hops from the Czech Republic, from north of Prague, in an area called Zatec, which in German is Saaz. So these hops, from the town of Saaz, are called Saazer hops. They're used in brewing the beer in Pilsen. And the beer from Pilsen is called Pilsner beer. So that Hometown Blarney you have contains Saaz hops from the Saaz area. These are what's called a land race. They're just a hops that was selected for that area by farmers. >> You touched on an important thing. At one point, Wisconsin was the nation's largest hops producer. >> That's right. >> So, we've proven we can do it. We can grow them here, and we can have that industry. >> We're also growing barley here. Up in central Wisconsin, we've started to grow barley again. Barley hasn't really been grown for brewing purposes in a long, long time, ever since corn came here. So we're working with Malteurop, a malt house in Milwaukee. So we're supporting them and we're using that barley in Spotted Cow. We'll use Wisconsin hops in Spotted Cow. So we're real excited at the idea of a locally sustainable agriculture. >> This is a huge moment for beer geeks, beer aficionados, beer connoisseurs, because there are people, and I know this for a fact, that would spend a huge amount of money to be sharing a beer in the brewmaster's kitchen of New Glarus, to be sharing a beer with you, Dan. >> I think it's a huge honor to be on Wisconsin Foodie, one of my favorite television shows. >> You're just saying that, and that's nice of you, but-- >> Cheers. >> Here's to mud in your eye. So, Dan, I so hope that the next awesome New Glarus beer comes out of this kitchen while I'm here. But I also don't want me to be the reason that the next dud comes out of this kitchen, so I'm going to get out of your hair and let you be the brewmaster. I'm probably just going to go drink some more of your beer. >> Well, it was a pleasure spending the day with you, and I'm glad you got to see a glimpse of what we're up to. >> I don't know about all that, but thanks for being a Wisconsin treasure. >> Cheers. >> Cheers. >> Wisconsin Foodie is made possible by underwriting support from the following companies. The Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board; Travel Wisconsin; Outpost Natural Foods Co-op; Wollersheim Winery; Alterra Coffee Roasters; and Something Special from Wisconsin; This episode of Wisconsin Foodie is now available on DVD through WisconsinFoodie.com There, you'll also find articles, recipes, events, and past episodes. You can also like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and watch other content through YouTube and Vimeo. Wisconsin Foodie would like to thank the following major underwriters for their support. Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, representing the dairy farm families of Wisconsin, who fostered a proud history, with generations of family-owned dairy farms, working to sustain the state's economy through job growth and providing acclaimed cheeses and other dairy products. For more information on Wisconsin dairy, eatwisconsincheese.com