I'm Weedy Weidenthal, Brewmaster at Tombstone Brewing Company. Ask Me Anything!

Discussion in 'Ask Me Anything' started by honkey, Aug 24, 2018.

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  1. honkey

    honkey Maven (1,326) Aug 28, 2010 Arizona
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    Hey Beer Advocates! I'm looking forward to answering any questions you may have.

    My background: I began homebrewing in college and quickly realized that I had a greater passion for brewing than I did for Music Education. When I was 21, I was hired as an assistant at Blue Pants Brewery in Madison, Alabama. Shortly after I started working at Blue Pants, I began studying at the World Brewing Academy and I graduated with an International Diploma in Brewing Technology in 2014. In 2016, I moved to Arizona to accept the head brewer position at Tombstone Brewing Company. Since we opened in October of 2016, we have brewed a wide array of styles with a large part of our focus being on Hazy IPA's, Barrel Aged Stouts, Traditional German Lagers, and Funky/Sour beers.

    To get an idea of what we brew and my brewing philosophies, please feel free to check out the Brewer's Blog on our website: http://tombstone.beer/blog/

    [​IMG]
     
  2. That_One_Guy

    That_One_Guy Initiate (0) Nov 1, 2014 Arizona

    Hey Weedy,
    After the "summer of sours" and the "haze craze" what do you see being the next "big thing" in craft beer?
     
  3. honkey

    honkey Maven (1,326) Aug 28, 2010 Arizona
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    This is a question I get almost every time I do an interview and I think I answer it differently every time these days. I used to say "lagers" and while I still think that's a possibility, I don't really see it happening any time soon. We brew them in Tombstone because we love them and we can sell them well in our taproom, but through distribution it's a bit of a crap shoot. We're still in the middle of the haze craze. I think Brett beers also have a chance to take off, particularly beers fermented 100% with Brett, but that's also going to take some customer education and it will take breweries that are willing to risk brewing with Brett to make it happen.

    What I actually think will happen is that a lot of classic styles will basically disappear... Not many brown ales are exciting people these days for example and that the current trends will get more extreme. Hazy beers will continue to get more hoppy and hazy, sour beers will get more sour, stouts will get more boozy and brewers will begin using even more flavorings than we currently see. I also think that customers will gradually shift towards demanding a higher level of quality than the current average quality we see and that brewers will have to either do a better job or face the reality of being unable to compete as the rest of the brewing industry passes them by.
     
  4. thebeers

    thebeers Grand Pooh-Bah (5,393) Sep 10, 2014 Pennsylvania
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    What's the story with your avatar? :beers:
     
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  5. honkey

    honkey Maven (1,326) Aug 28, 2010 Arizona
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    I was a drum major for a drum and bugle corps (Madison Scouts from Wisconsin). That's a picture of me in uniform coming off the field after our final performance in 2010.
     
  6. WolfmanChi

    WolfmanChi Initiate (0) Aug 17, 2015 Illinois

    Is it possible to make a really good home brew with a recipe that involves malt extract, or is all grain mandatory? Any other light bulb moments you discovered as a home brewer that took your beer to the next level?
     
  7. EvenMoreJesus

    EvenMoreJesus Initiate (0) Jun 8, 2017 Pennsylvania

    Hey, dude! Awesome that you're doing this. Kind of a multi-part question for you. What beers do you most like brewing? Which ones do you most like drinking? Where's the overlap in the Venn diagram?
     
  8. EvenMoreJesus

    EvenMoreJesus Initiate (0) Jun 8, 2017 Pennsylvania

    I, unfortunately, agree with you.

    This'd be a tough sell. POF+ beers are challenging, even if done very well. Just look at how polarizing Orval is.

    I think this depends on the level of education of consumers, in general, and the level of interest of those same consumers. These things could be very successful in a niche type of way. For instance, bottled brown ales might not be very exciting but put them in a firkin and serve them as Real Ales and your boring Brown Ale might be seen in a very different light.

    :slight_frown:

    I would love to see this.
     
  9. rgordon

    rgordon Pooh-Bah (2,677) Apr 26, 2012 North Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Society

    I knew a fellow named Weedy Huffman, never knew why, what's with Weedy/ I like it!
     
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  10. Buck89

    Buck89 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,718) Feb 7, 2015 Tennessee
    Pooh-Bah Society Trader

    Weedy, thanks for doing this! I enjoyed your brews at Blue Pants and have also enjoyed your informative posts on the BA homebrewing threads. I'd love to hear about your approach to decide what beers to brew commercially. Specifically, how do you balance what you want to brew with your local market demands (i.e. hoppy/fruited/pastry, etc). Thanks.
     
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  11. honkey

    honkey Maven (1,326) Aug 28, 2010 Arizona
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    This question made me smile as it brought back memories of @Homebrew42 and his posts back in 2009 or so in the homebrewing forums. He frequently posted his guide to brewing great extract beers and he had really good advice. You can brew world class beers using extract. I recommend using Dry Malt Extract instead of liquid, only use light, extra light, or wheat DME (or munich extract, rye extract... just nothing that has caramel malts or raosted malts in it to make it dark). Extract is frequently high in unfermentable sugars, so substituting a .5-1 lb of the DME for table sugar or dextrose can help. Full wort boils are good (although, some studies suggest that partial boils are more acceptable than a lot of us once thought).

    The most important part of brewing is good fermentation. If you can't control your temperature of fermentation well, stick to yeast strains that can ferment at your ambient temperature without giving off flavors. Kveik yeast strains are great for hot places, lagers are great for cold basements. Always pitch an appropriate amount of yeast and you'll be off to a great start in your homebrewing journey.
     
  12. honkey

    honkey Maven (1,326) Aug 28, 2010 Arizona
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    My production schedule and what I like to drink kind of go hand in hand. I like to brew and drink German Pilseners frequently, but I'm as much of a fan of intense hop flavors and aromas as anyone, so super hoppy, hopbursted IPA's are right up my alley. That said, if I thought that we could pull off being a Brett/Funky brewery only and that our demand would be there, I would be pushing hard for us to go that route as I would have a blast with that. Brett fermented IPA's, fruited sours, and even brett fermented "stouts" could hold my interest for many years before I'd get tired of doing that.
     
  13. honkey

    honkey Maven (1,326) Aug 28, 2010 Arizona
    Trader

    Fortunately, I do like to brew hazy IPA's and no matter how much we brew right now, it's never enough for our customers, so if I'm not churning out a new idea on the days I sit down to work out a production schedule, I look at what IPA's we haven't brewed in a while. In general, if I really want to brew something, I just put it on the schedule. Occasionally, I'll brew something and think "This is going to be a hard sell." but we haven't yet brewed something that we just couldn't sell, just some beers move slowly. In all honesty, that works out pretty well for us since the IPA's and Pilseners move so quickly, having something that's a bit slower to sell helps us keep our onsite inventory stocked for keeping a full tap list. I try to always have at least one or two hoppy beers on tap, a pilsener, an amber ale or dunkel, and then we fill out our tap list with barrel aged beers and brett beers.
     
  14. honkey

    honkey Maven (1,326) Aug 28, 2010 Arizona
    Trader

    That's where I think the consumer education comes into play. The brett blend I use for most of our Brett beers is clausenii and drie. Early on, there is really not much funk, but rather an awesome fruitiness. The funk develops over the course of a year and it makes it fun to see the evolution of the beer if you buy multiple bottles and try them every few months. The hard part is getting people to try them. Our Brett IPA's seem to be very popular with the people that have tried them and they're very popular with our Tombstone tourists that don't even know that Brett is, but getting people to try them outside of the taproom is hard.
     
  15. EvenMoreJesus

    EvenMoreJesus Initiate (0) Jun 8, 2017 Pennsylvania

    Definitely applaud your efforts with this. Wish more people were doing it and doing it consistently instead of just doing one-offs.
     
  16. cjgiant

    cjgiant Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,560) Jul 13, 2013 District of Columbia
    Pooh-Bah Society

    Thanks for joining in the fray (although I know you doonthe regular anyhow).

    Channeling my inner-@EvenMoreJesus (agree with most of what he said).

    I agree that some classic styles are fading into oblivion. I just heard Old Chub was likely to become taproom only. Brown ales are odd, and I like a more robust, nutty version but I don’t see many others asking for them.

    Do you foresee these fading styles ever making a comeback? Will the “more and more extreme” eventually play out? I agree that it’s going to get worse as a mature market requires differentiation, but can being “normal” (old school) be that thing? You mention Pilsners and better quality. Are some of these extremes we keep pushing masking that quality that you think will be slowly required?
     
  17. honkey

    honkey Maven (1,326) Aug 28, 2010 Arizona
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    I'm skeptical that many classic styles like brown ales, esb's, milds, dry stouts, etc. will make a comeback in the USA at least. I think there will always be interest from some brewers that will want to brew them in part for personal satisfaction or as manner of keeping traditions alive, but I don't see any time in the near future when classic styles like those are in high demand with consumers. Eventually the extreme thing will play out and something else will come in, but we've got a ways to go. Interestingly, almost every brewery that I have talked to about this type of thing has said that having accessible beers like amber ales, pilseners, or cream ales on tap always results in those being best sellers. It's hard to get people to buy cans or bottles of those styles though and that's where you run into problems with getting higher volume sales.
     
  18. mingo

    mingo Initiate (0) Mar 24, 2013 Arizona

    when can we expect a pants inspired beer? perhaps a collab with eviltwin? no mas pantalones jesus?
     
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  19. honkey

    honkey Maven (1,326) Aug 28, 2010 Arizona
    Trader

    Lol! Are we Facebook friends?

    To give a bit of background... I recently started making jeans at home.

    I will not be producing any pants inspired beers again... 5 years of that at Blue Pants was fun, but I don’t want people thinking I’m stealing ideas or riding off of old branding ideas. Funnily enough, my new hobby and my old brewery are completely unrelated.
     
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  20. Brewday

    Brewday Initiate (0) Dec 25, 2015 New York

    There's close to 7k Brewery's out there. It seems like it's the easiest Business to open but i know it's a lot money and work to run one. Do you think a lot of them will have trouble staying profitable and eventually close.
     
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