The “Perfect” Brewery - A Thought By Raul

Hmm? I am not sure why you don't think a talented brewer/brewery could not brew high quality beers across a breadth of styles.

Shaun Hill (Hill Farmstead) produces outstanding beers of varying styles. My guess is that many folks mostly discuss their hoppy beers (e.g., Edward, Abner, Ephraim,...) but every Saison/Farmhouse beer (e.g., Arthur, Ann,...) I have had has been excellent as well. My favorite Robust Porter is Everett. I have only had the chance to drink Mary which I think is a very good - excellent German Pilsner but they also produce other brands of German Pilsner which are very highly regarded. And I could go on about other beer styles they produce.

Another example is Tired Hands who are well regarded for their Juicy/Hazy IPAs (including their Milkshake series of beers) but they also produce lagers which are excellent (Helles, German Pilsner, Schwarbier, etc.) and I also very much enjoy the variety of Saison/Farmhouse beers they produce. And a large variety of other beer styles as well.

I could discuss other breweries too but...

Are Hill Farmstead & Tired Hands "Perfect"? Maybe!?!

Cheers!

 

See, this could be Firestone Walker if they could figure out how to keep fresh beers in their distribution pipeline. It’s a major problem that keeps them pretty far from perfect. Fresh Double Jack at the source can hold its own against Pliny, for example, but it’s literally never fresh in the wild. Otherwise, they have nailed nearly every style they’ve attempted.

 

It took me a while (over 5-6 years) but I have resolved myself to thinking that Firestone Walker doesn't care enough to make having fresh beer on retailers' shelves a priority. It seems to me their priorities are:

1. Sell their 805 brand beers BIG - "Let's make lots of money".
2. Under the Firestone Walker banner produce Juicy/Hazy beers.
3. etc.

Cheers!

 

I have a feeling that this thread will turn into numerous examples of breweries that are "perfect" but how many are out there, I don't know. Regardless of whether you buy your beer from one perfect brewery or create a 'perfect' purchase from multiple breweries, the fridge is full of perfectness either way.

I have to go off topic a little bit to ask Jack if a brewery really can have more than one German-style pilsner? How can that style vary enough in significant taste and ingredients to have more than one pilsner and stay within the 'German' definition?

 

Three breweries that come to mind, Comrade Brewing, TRVE, and Dry Dock brewing. Never had a disappointment from them and they run the gamut of styles.

 

Deschutes does well at everything.

 

I throw love to my favorite local brewery Tonewood Brewing as a perfect brewery. Aside from the people, their taste in music (FUEGO is their flagship ipa, and LAWN BOI their pils is also available right now ) and overall atmosphere I say it because...

They brew everything and they brew everything well, not only that their prices are so reasonable. Sure they brew hop juice to pay some of the bills but it is far from always, they also can multiple styles of lager, have a small foeder/wood program going on. Heck they even can their english mild and bitter. They're current to go list is two pilsners, english mild, foeder lager, smoked foeder lager, 4% session stout, numerous wood mixed culture beers, and well a few 5-6 hazy ipas.

I hope that every town has a brewery like this someday, hopefully this will happen over time. I will say Tonewood is not in my town but about 10 miles away, but they distro almost all their offerings.

 

I will address that topic in a two pronged approach: my brewing experience and Hill Farmstead.

Brewing a German Pilsner

I am confident that you are aware of the four basic ingredients for producing a beer like a German Pilsner: malt, hops, yeast and water.

Malt

A brewer could choose to use a variety of malts to produce a German Pilsner but for simplicity let’s just consider the case of 100% Pilsner Malt. Even in this simplistic scenario there is plenty of variety since there are a multitude of Malting Companies and brands of Pilsner Malt within a given Malting Company. A German Malting Company that is popular with homebrewers is Weyermann (but this is a small producer of base malts for the German beer industry) and Weyermann produces a variety of Pilsner Malts. A few examples:

· Weyermann Extra Pale Premium Pilsner Malt

· Weyermann Pilsner Malt

· Weyermann Barke® Pilsner Malt

· And a number of others

Each of these malt products will yield varying malt flavor profiles and needless to say the Pilsner Malts from other German (and non-German) Malting Companies will vary as well.

Hops

The four noble hops are Spalt, Tettnanger, Saaz and Hallertauer Mittelfruh. These four hops will provide varying flavor characteristics. Plus there are many other varieties of hops which could be used to produce a German Pilsner vs. just these four.

Yeast

There are many different lager yeast strains which could be used to ferment a German Pilsner and each strain will yield differing sensory aspects to the resulting German Pilsner.

Water

The largest ingredient by volume/amount to produce beer is the brewing water but for many folks this is the least regarded of the ingredients. As regards brewing a German Pilsner a brewer could choose to build up a softer (i.e., lesser amounts of minerals) water profile to produce a beer like could be brewed in Southern Germany. Or they could decide to use more minerals, particularly sulfate, to produce a beer like they do in Northern Germany.

Brewing Process decisions

The brewing of beer is not just about the ingredients but also a myriad of brewing process decision made. As any good cook knows a recipe is not just a list of ingredients but also the detailing of all of the necessary process steps needed to prepare the dish. I will just outline a few here as regards producing a German Pilsner:

· Mashing regime (e.g., step mash, decoction mash,..)

· Hop schedule (which hops varieties to use, when to add them, how much per addition,…)

· Yeast pitch rate/amount

· Fermentation temperature profile

· Lagering conditions (e.g., temperature, duration,…)

· Etc.

Needless to say but the specific decisions made to the multitude of brewing process steps will have notable impacts on the qualities of the resulting German Pilsner.

I would encourage the interested student (you?) to read my article entitled “The Family of Pilsners” for more brewing details:

https://www.morebeer.com/articles/Pilsen_Beer

Hill Farmstead German Pilsners

As I made mention the only brand of Hill Farmstead German Pilsners I had the pleasure of drinking is draft pints of Mary.

Below are other brands:

· Poetica 1 (BA Outstanding)

· Poetica 2 (BA World Class)

Perhaps some other BA who had tasted the Poetica beers and has detailed knowledge of the brewing of these beers can provide more input.

Cheers!

 

HF is probably the obvious choice here, and it's hard to dispute purely in terms of the very high quality of beers they put out across a fairly broad spectrum. (though @JackHorzempa I would disagree re: IPAs - my feeling is their IPAs are the least-discussed, or at least are the least geeked-out over, given the relative availability [kegs making their way outside VT semi-regularly, cans, etc]).

But the hypothetical "perfect" brewery would presumably have other benefits, including being very accessible (in terms of both distance traveled and then a lack of hoops to jump through [or lines to wait in] once you get there). There are probably a tiny number of BAs who live less than a half hour drive from HF. And in pre-pandemic times it was hardly a reliably walk in / walk out type of place.

I think Suarez would be up there. Similar level of execution/ethos with a lot less fuss and better accessibility. That said they focus on a narrower subset of styles, and I wouldn't go so far as to say they are super convenient to get to either.

So for me personally as far as existing breweries that are close to perfect, I would say Threes Brewing. They're maybe half a step down vs HF based purely on taste, but more than make up for it with:

• Wide range of styles, executed with a lot of care/thought
• Great location in Brooklyn for visiting other notable beer-related places, and for visiting Brooklyn in general
• Multiple secondary locations in the city and outside
• Have a split model of selling direct and distributing - i.e. not hard to get your hands on
• Great food at the location
• Guest beers to stay or go, from other breweries
• And they've done a great job with delivery/shipping - the most flexible & comprehensive I've seen - during the pandemic. And I believe they plan to continue this in the future.

 

Likely a small (handful) number.

Do you a brewery(s) in mind here?

Cheers!

 

I guess a perfect brewery would also have to follow popular tastes and brew a lot of beers that don't taste like beer.

 

I’m also as far from there as u. I’m in maple shade cherry hill area. Moving to clementon next month I’ll be closer to flying fish I’m excited.

 

What if so many breweries didn't make so many IPAs, and made some other styles? Way too many breweries' portfolios are mostly IPAs. Are they able to make other beer styles at all? Are they able to make them well?

 

variety of beer styles ≠ perfect brewery

 

Breweries make IPAs because "that's where the money is". Who is that a quote from?

 

I don't necessarily disagree with this statement. I say this because I feel strongly that Allagash is a "perfect" brewery. It's accessible. It's basement is, "Pretty good." It's ceiling is, "Okay, so this is the standard for this style." But, yet, they only make Belgian beer.

That being said, they succeed across styles. Light, dark, low ABV, high ABV, barrel-aging. And so while I agree that multiple styles doesn't necessarily denote perfect, I think being able to do the style a brewery does in multiple ways well helps.

 

Ohhh, perfect. Definitely HF, and I’d say New Glarus too, really really great beers in many styles.

 

pFriem is about as close as it comes for me, with Breakside and Reuben’s not too far behind. Perfection is unattainable, but I appreciate how they keep trying.