Our homebrew club, Yakima Brewers spent the evening with club from the Tri-cities, the Mid-Columbia Zymurlogical assoc. The 2 clubs toured the pelletizing and extract facilities at Yakima Chief in Sunnyside WA. It was great to get to see the machines that package our pellets, and the level of engineering that has gone into making products to make better beer. They extract various high alpha varieties, and most of the alpha extract they produce tastes pretty similiar. It is the beta acids that have a lot more varietal differences and they also capture these. Most of these beta extracts get sent to asia where the hops don’t store well and aroma additions are not well utilized.
I was drinking some nice IPA while touring so I probably didn’t absorb as much as I could have, on top of the fact that the extraction plant runs 24-7 and is pretty loud.
It was a great night that ended with hombrews being shared in the brewery at Snipes Mt Brewery also in Sunnyside.
