After work yesterday, I decided to stop and have a Guinness with a buddy. After the Guiness I tried a pale ale from a new craft brewery that just opened. Wow, it was great. After one or two, I decided that I would stop at that new brewery. It is afterall, on the same street as the bar. I didn’t expect much, but wow that guy was awesome.
The owner let me sample a bunch of his beers. He even asked me to sample his new wheat beer, straight from the secondary! I’m not a wheat beer kinda guy but it too was quite good. I ended up hanging with the owner for an hour or so talking beer. He was even quite interested in the Kolsch that i was brewing and he offered me a bunch of advice.
I was kinda expecting to be greeted with a, “I’m busy leave me alone”, but nope this guy was awesome. I am so glad that I stopped in. Awesome!
That can be very fun and rewarding and the story you tell is consistent with a lot of commercial brewers. I’m sure that some people have a different makeup, but most brewers love to talk beer and brewing. When I was a newbie, I somehow found a contact for a head brewer at a local brewpub and asked him if I could bring him some of my beers for analysis and if he could give me a tour of his brewery. He was so accomodating and gave my friend and I a tour of his small brewery and then sat down with us and sampled my beers. Some of them were better than others and he mentioned it. Others had a flaw of some sort and I asked him about it and he readily gave advice on what to look for and what to be careful of next time around. It can be very fun to knock stories around with an accomplished brewer and it can be a great resource too. Cheers.
That’s pretty neat, a local brewer here (tallgrass brewing company) lets us have our homebrew meetings in his tasting room every couple months. He always lets his beer flow free also.
Sounds like a good guy. I have a friend that runs a small commercial brewery and everyone is always greeted at the door with “are you thirsty?” Lots of good times have been had there.
