The Beer Diaries

A lovely set of taps at Hops and Grain!

The interview with Josh over at Hops and Grain represented the second phase of shooting for the Beer Diaries.  Between our initial Summer 2012 shoots we had a weekend to contemplate our prior work and to consider how we were going to push to doing two sets of interviews per day.  Mike and the team had been honing their set up and tear down methods and we’d started turning around the entire on-site requirement to under three hours, so it was certainly feasible.  Additionally we also got a better grasp on the structure of an actual episode and were not shooting some regular scenes that would solidify our format.  The actual duration for the complete brewery discussion and interview with the brewmasters was shaping up to be about 30 minutes which suited our purposes pretty well.

A nice view of the brewery; a lot going on there!

Hops and Grain is located in East Austin, a part of town undergoing fairly serious gentrification and transforming into one of the cooler parts of Austin.  The brewery is located in a warehouse space was completely transformed into bunch of art and design studios as well as a great brewery!  Every time we go to a new location we really have no idea what to expect in terms of physical layout and size; we’ve seen a ton of different sizes and shapes of breweries in our brief travels, from idyllic farm-style locations to nano-breweries in 900 square foot storage lockers!  Hops and Grain fit somewhat in the middle of this range, and looked more or less you would expect from a smaller to mid-size operation.  One particularly amazing thing they do right now is hand-can all of their beer; both of the operations we’ve seen that can their beer so far have a defining feature of giant pallets of cans stacked around the operation, and Hops and Grain was no different. [Since filming they've since installed and are using an automated canning line.]

The interview with Josh, the Brewer and Owner of Hops and Grain was solid; like basically all of the other people I’ve spoken to he had an interesting background (former science teacher) and had a passion for brewing that he was now fulfilling.  One of the really impressive things about what he’s accomplished in a very short time was winning the Altbier category at the 2012 World Beer Cup.  That’s a really nice way to break into the scene!  Another thing he was doing that was pretty cool was converting his “used” grain to dog biscuits; I didn’t try one (regrettable, in retrospect), but by all accounts, and testing from his own dog, they’re pretty good!

Hand canning delicious Alt-eration.

As I mentioned in the prior blog on Jester King, I had started taking more meticulous tasting notes after realizing that I wanted to pass along some written thoughts on the beers I’d tried, and that do to so after having a bunch of beers it was pretty important to actually write it down!  This was particularly important when I discovered that Hops and Grain has a number of interesting and creative beers on tap in their tasting room that haven’t yet made it out of the brewery to the rest of the world.  Josh runs a program he calls the Greenhouse, where he tries out creative recipes on a smaller batch brewing system set up along side his main brewhouse; its always a nice surprise showing up at the tasting room to discover a number of new and creative beers to check out.

The current two year-round beers from Hops and Grain are Pale Dog Pale Ale and Alt-eration.  The Pale Dog is a very nicely balanced Pale Ale with a floral hops nose and overall light body.  It’s got some nice citrus tones, light enduring bitterness throughout the taste experience and finishes nice and clean.  It’s a very solid warm weather bear.  I’d say it’s a little more hoppy than your average Pale, but still less so than an IPA.  I’d already mentioned that the Alt-eration is an award-winning beer, and when you get a chance to try it you’ll see why.  It strikes an amazing balance between nice malty, roastiness and balanced bitterness.  Unlike a lot of brown ales it’s got a solid hop profile, but it never dominates the malty, roasty quality at its core, and turn in the finish the hops keep any residual sweetness in check.  In short, it’s really tasty and probably quite different from any brown ale you’ve had before.  I even got a bit of smoke and chocolate in my initial whiff of this beer, which is pretty amazing considering it’s still got a fairly light body.

Kegs full of delicious beer!

Cans, cans and more cans. Are they full? Are they empty? That is the question

From the Greenhouse program Josh had a couple interesting selections.  One very special one I got a chance to try was a barrel-aged Pale Dog he had been experimenting with; while it’s general characteristics were similar to the regular Pale Dog it had a slight funkiness and tartness to it that added a huge dimension to the beer.  Definitely watch for this one if it gets released.  They had two IPAs on tap: a Double IPA is called Hop Dog and one called IPA 3, denoting the 3rd batch he’s worked on.  Comparing between the two the IPA 3 was pretty consistent with a West Coast-style IPA with lots of fruit and resinous hops, but with also a hint of vegetal/grassy quality.  The Hop Dog was a big lemony IPA but also with a nice malt backbone and lots of malt follow through.  If I was going to pick a favorite between these two I’d go with the Hop Dog as it was really nicely balanced.  The last Greenhouse beer being worked on was a Hefeweizen.  It was hard to pull a comparison on this one since all of the other stuff I was drinking was quite different, but overall this seemed like a solid Hef with more banana on the nose than clove, a fluffy body and nice light finish.  Probably a perfect warm weather beer.

So that was the trip to Hops and Grain.  I really liked the location and the folks there were really nice and accommodating.  As you might imagine I think this brewery has some really great things ahead of it given the great start and I can’t wait to try their future beers!

[All photos by Mike Patitucci of Lassen Photo]

Barrels… likely of beer… aging to perfection.

Jim and Greg inspecting the camera.

I have no other way to describe the Twisted X interviews than as a very jolly time!  (Yes, jolly!)  Shane and Jim were a lot of fun to interview and hang out with.  The brewery itself was pretty amazing, and it helped to answer the question of why it can be difficult to find Twisted X beer around Austin.  The current brewery location is northwest of Austin in a neighboring city called Cedar Park.  It’s a bit of a haul from the center of action and after a GPS fail on my part I had to call Shane to try and find their place.  It turned out I was just across the street from the brewery.  I was a bit surprised to find the guys in a 900 square foot space with a 3 barrel brewing system as they’d already established a reputation for their quality beers, but it turns they’re already slated for expansion and by the time you read this they may already be building their new location.  I’ll keep that quiet for now, but suffice to say they’re going from a small system in a little storage garage to a big system on a dedicated piece of land.

A lovely lineup of beers.

We set up at their tasting bar, which was about 5 feet from the brewery, and fortunately we left the big bay door open so the Texas heat didn’t have a big impact on the shoot.  Said another way, this time I was neither sweating profusely nor delirious during the interview.  I did have a few beers though!  But, given my new special pacing methods I kept it all together.  I was particularly careful as we had another interview set up later that day, and I needed to keep my wits about me!  We used a lot of natural light for the shoot so I’m hoping it’s got a nice natural look; or at least I won’t look too ghoulish on camera.

La Chusa keeping an eye out for trouble.

We talked to Shane first largely about the various beers Twisted X currently makes.  They also had a few new beers and experimental beers available, and I was pretty excited with what they were working on, but I promised to keep it a secret, so no special disclosures from me!  We had a good chat with Shane before his interview and caught him doing some brewing, giving us a chance to shoot some b-roll.  I teased him a bit that he’s technically the head of marketing and sales for Twisted X, but since there’s just him and Jim working in the brewery right now they each have to wear multiple hats, and he was wearing the brewers hat when we first got there.  Jim arrived shortly after we spoke to Shane so we decided to do the full interview with him first (and it ended up with Jim presenting the beers) and then followed up with Shane for his full interview.  The guys were great on camera and were awesome straight-shooting dudes.

We covered the usual range of topics as well as discussing their goal of creating the first TexMex beers.  When I get down to talking about the beers you’ll see that they’re really nailing this goal with some really interesting beers including the Fuego (a jalapeno-infused Pilsner) and Senior Viejo (an Imperial Black Lager aged in Tequila barrels, the first of it’s type, I think).  Like the other brewers around town they’ve been working feverishly around the clock to meet the demand for their beers, and given the small size of their brewhouse relative to the demand this was more than a full time endeavor.  We had some fun playing catch with the prickly pears they’d harvested themselves for their batch of Siesta (a lager with concentrated prickly pear juice) that serves as their summer seasonal.  The guys got some great shots of the pears, but missed Jim commenting on the fact that he got some spines in his hand after warning us about how prickly they were.

Prickly pears on display.

Twisted X for me epitomized the rebellious nature of the start-up breweries in Austin.  Jim and Shane were both shifting careers from tech into brewing because of a passion to brew great beer.  Always great to hear that story and I hope it translates well in the interview.

The beers of our future.

Mike Mann shooting the episode, and drinking a beer.

The beers themselves were pretty interesting; they generally made lagers, but made one IPA.  They had another style on tap that they were experimenting with that was really, really interesting; it was a great session beer and we’re keeping the details under wraps until it’s actually released.  Suffice to say this one will be a great session beer for all kinds of people.  The one regular rotation beer that they I didn’t have a chance to try during the shoot was their Twisted X: Premium Tex Mex Lager, but I was able to sample all of the others.  In addition to the mystery session beer, the main beer I drank during the shoot was their Cow Creek, a Vienna-style dark lager.  It was a delicious beer with a nice balance of sweet caramel and light earthy/grassy hops, and finished really juicy with smooth carbonation and slight bitterness.  It was a very easy drinking beer.  I’d had their Fuego a couple times before, so I knew what I was getting, but for a new drinker the inherent surprise of the initial solid pilsner experience (bready malt with light citrus hops with a slight cutting bitterness) transforming into a gentle heat at the back of the throat that subtly builds to be fairly significant but ends with a light bready malt finish is pretty impressive.  I think the guys achieved their goal of making a beer that doesn’t act simply like an chili pepper explosion but instead is a really solid beer that brings a bit of the heat to the equation.  It would be really interesting to pair this with some spicy food.

Mike Mann doing some directing!

I’d also had the Chupahopra before, and as noted above it’s their only ale.  When I asked they guys why they make it (in the context of everything else being lagers) they said, “we love IPAs!”  Good reason in my book, and frankly nice to hear from a consumer perspective.  This is an Amarillo dry-hopped IPA with a big, bold lemon/resinous/juniper hops profile.  Like the other IPAs I’ve been having around Austin they brew this one to still have a lighter body (even though it’s a 7.5% ABV beer) for maximum thirst quenching power in the Texas heat.  Chupahopra also had a nice malt backbone with just enough sweetness to maintain a great balance.  The final beer of the session, and the star of the show (plus my favorite of the beers they make) was the Senor Viejo.  This was a delightfully complex beer in that it is an imperial Black Lager (Schwartzbeir) which is then aged in Republic Tequila barrels.  There were lots of interesting layers in this beer with smoke and vanilla on the nose, lots of delicious dark roasty and chocolate malts and then an absolutely amazing finish (thanks to Tequila barrels).  There were definitely some oaky notes in the finish but the thing that blew me away was a subtle sweetness intertwined with booziness; almost like some slipped a touch of tequila into the beer.  Beers like this are often a big risk; some just don’t work, but Senior Viejo does, and it’s really delicious.  Definitely my favorite of the session.  The only other beer we didn’t get to try was the Siesta, their local prickly pear infused Lager.  The guys pick the prickly pears for this themselves, by hand!  This is a summer seasonal for them and they were in the process of getting ready to brew it, so we’d have to wait a short time to give it a try.

So, that’s the whole session with the guys from Twisted X.  It was a whole load of fun, and I got a good appreciation of what a true nano-brewery looks like, and how to convert a passion to brewing great beer can be converted into a viable, growing business.  Cheers!

Relaxing after the shoot in the Austin heat!

Greg Zeschuk, host of The Beer Diaries, visits the Twisted X Brewing Company for an in-depth interview with founders Jim Sampson and Shane Bordeau. Watch Greg get the low-down on this cool brewery, their Tex-Mex inspired beers and get some insight on the flourishing Austin craft beer scene.

This is the first of many episodes from The Beer Diaries, a project to celebrate and promote craft beer around the world. Subscribe to us on YouTube, follow us on Twitter and visit our Facebook Page for more information.

Cheers!

Hey folks, we’re back again at the Alamo Drafthouse for another set of episode premieres. We’ll be at the Alamo Drafthouse Village, in Austin, Texas on February 11th with episodes and beers from: Adelbert’s Brewery, Jester King Craft Brewery and Austin Beerworks.

Visit the Alamo Drafthouse site here for details and tickets!

Hey folks, here’s a little trailer we put together to show you what we’re up to on The Beer Diaries. These are some of our favorite scenes from our first season of The Beer Diaries. Let us know what you think!

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here and watch for regular updates; they’re going to be coming fast and furious!

Yes folks, it’s true, The Beer Diaries is about to be revealed! We have partnered with the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema to show three episodes of The Beer Diaries @7pm on January 30th. Click here for the Alamo Drafthouse show page, and here to go right to the ticket purchase page.

Don’t worry if your favorite breweries aren’t there; this is the first in a series of special presentations of The Beer Diaries at the Alamo Drafthouse where we’ll running episodes on ALL of the breweries/brewpubs in Austin.

The brewers featured in the episodes (Thirsty Planet and Twisted X) will be there, and they are bringing some interesting beers for you to taste.

Here are some shots from the episodes:

Our very first shoot was at Thirsty Planet Brewing Company. Jake and Brian were incredibly accommodating as we went about learning to ropes and tried our first behind the scenes interview!

Greg talking to Jake Maddux of Thirsty Planet.

Greg talking to Aaron Franklin of Franklin Barbecue.

From this scene at Franklin Barbecue you might wonder how fine, Texas barbecue relates to beer and during this interview with Aaron Franklin you’ll discover that secret. Perhaps it has something to do with Franklin Smoked Porter? (That’s not Aaron in the picture, but instead Dan, one of our camera operators.)

Our final episode takes place at Twisted X Brewing Company. We hang out with Jim and Shane and discuss tequila (and beer)! They’re building a new, larger brewery so this interview will be a nice installment in, “where they started,” and we’ll visit them in their new brewery at some point in the future for a follow-up.

That’s the summary of this first event. Come join, share a few beers, and enjoy watching The Beer Diaries!