Brew Team Confidential

A day in the life of our brewers…

Ever been in the middle of something and suddenly thought, ‘I wonder what the BrewDog brew team are up to right now?’

Don’t worry; we’ve all been there which is why today is your lucky day - we’ve dedicated this entire blog post to finding out exactly what our crack team of brewers have been up to!

Cue brew team…

Franz: “Today I’ve been manhandling the lauter tun – the piece of machinery that’s responsible for separating the grain from the liquid. We didn’t have this in Fraserburgh so it’s great to have it here. Then again, it also means it’s one more thing for me to clean which is what I’ve been doing all day.”

George: “I’m taking Paradox out of Jura whisky barrels and putting the beer into the tanks for filtering and bottling. Getting the beer out of the barrel can be quite tricky because we have to create a syphon, which means lifting the barrel to head height using the forklift. Things can get messy.”

John: “I'm transferring I Hardcore You from its tank to the filtration vessels, ready for re-dry hopping. We do this with a massive hose. Yay! All in all, we’ll move 6,000 litres of Hardcore into the same volume of I Beat You which are both brewed separately. We dry hop them individually, then blend them together, then re-dry hop. All these shenanigans take about 6 weeks to complete."

Charlotte: "I’m checking the Original Gravity (OG) at the end of the boil on a batch of Hardcore. We need to make sure that we’re consistently producing wort at the correct gravity, to ensure the ABV of our beers remain the same. So we regularly check the progress of the brew using hydrometers."

Stewart: "I'm checking on a batch of Cocoa Psycho in one of our 100HL conditioning tanks. Taste testing is really important at every stage, from brewing through to fermenting and conditioning. Here I am checking that the right aroma and depth of flavour are present in the beer, and also checking to ensure that the flavours have married together in the best way. I have to say, this batch of Cocoa is tasting awesome!"

Omar: “Today I’m managing the yeast, specifically trying to increase the biomass. I’ve added a small amount of yeast to some wort (unfermented beer). We then give the yeast sugar to get it to an optimal condition. Ideally we need 10 hectolitres of biomass for the next beer we want to brew. During this process I need to check on things like the PH levels and cell count to make sure we have healthy yeast, otherwise no beer!”

Stephen: “I’ve been doing a rather glamorous job of removing dead, sedimented yeast and spent hops from the bottom of the tanks. When we dry hop, the matter settles and this needs to be removed before the liquid goes into the centrifuge. Today I’ve been working with Cocoa Psycho which contains oak chips, coffee beans and cacao - all make the beer taste amazing but are difficuly to clean out of the tank afterwards!"

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Got any questions for our brewers? This lot will be keeping an eye on the blog comments today and will do their best to sate your brewhouse curiousity.