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BEER

How Fort Collins breweries keep your beer tasting the way it should

Jacob Laxen
The Coloradoan
Charlie Hoxmeier poses for a photo in the lab at Gilded Goat Brewing Co. in Fort Collins on Wednesday, December 13, 2017. The brewery has invested in quality control through various testing methods in the brewing process.

Tucked into a corner of Gilded Goat Brewing is a science lab stocked with a microscope, beakers, test tubes and secondhand chemistry lab equipment.

The tight space includes a refrigerator full of various beer samples and living yeast caged in Petri dishes.

Gilded Goat head brewer Charlie Hoxmeier — who has a doctorate in microbiology from Colorado State University — has used the lab to personally test the 800 barrels the small brewery has produced since opening in February.

“The art and science of brewing are not mutually exclusive,” Hoxmeier said. “They are different sides of the same coin.”

An in-house testing lab is rare for a craft brewery of Gilded Goat’s size, but quality assurance and control are topics increasingly prioritized throughout the industry that now includes more than 6,000 active U.S. breweries and an estimated 2,000 more in development.

“Quality is one of the biggest challenges in our industry right now,” said New Belgium's chemistry lab manager Dana Sedin, who is also the president-elect of the American Society of Brewing Chemists. “When there’s bad quality beer out there, it doesn't just affect that brewery — it impacts all of us as an industry.” 

Charlie Hoxmeier takes a sample of fermenting beer for testing at Gilded Goat Brewing Co. in Fort Collins on Wednesday, December 13, 2017. The brewery has invested in quality control through various testing methods in the brewing process.

Anheuser-Busch, New Belgium Brewing and Odell Brewing each staff teams of full-time scientists to monitor the chemistry, microbiology and sensory aspects of each batch of beer. Fort Collins’ three largest breweries are each staffed 365 days a year, have daily tasting panels and send staff to monitor hop harvests annually.

While the daily tasting panels sound fun, they are a serious measure taken by each brewery to siphon out any off-flavors.

The panels taste raw materials and beer at every stage of the brewing process. Packaged products are often retested later to determine how well they age.  

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Staff from every department are used on New Belgium's daily tasting panels. Participants have to graduate from about a year’s worth of training to be included. The brewery has a separate tasting panel that focuses solely on sour beers.

Sensory tests are conducted on every batch of beer at least 60 times before it gets to a consumer. 

“If you are not dumping beer at some point, you are releasing something you shouldn’t,” said Lindsay Barr, New Belgium's sensory specialist. “It’s not common but it is also fermentation. Wacky stuff can always happen.” 

City water, used to brew Fort Collins beer at all breweries, is regularly checked for inconsistencies in how its treated and for any unwanted natural impacts, like added smokiness from an area fire. Hops are largely examined by aroma.

A variety of chemistry tests are conducted to catch any flaws and make sure beers are reproduced as identically as possible. 

Charlie Hoxmeier adds a solution to test yeast contents in a sample of beer at Gilded Goat Brewing Co. in Fort Collins on Wednesday, December 13, 2017. The brewery has invested in quality control through various testing methods in the brewing process.

An important chemistry test at breweries specifically measures the amount of a yeast byproduct called diacetyl — too much of which produces an unwanted butterscotch off-flavor.

Yeast cultures can be reused multiple times, with tests determining when to retire a specific strain.

“There’s so many variables to making beer,” said Ton Rau, Odell’s lab lead. “Beer is a living product ... and quality is king.”

At the Fort Collins Anheuser-Busch brewery, the production scale increases significantly. The facility produces about 10 million barrels a year, more than 10 times any other Fort Collins brewery.

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The site staffs 31 full-time employees in its quality department. The brewery has a daily afternoon taste panel to test beer at all stages of the brewing process.

The main task is making Budweiser products that taste exactly the same as beer made at the company’s other dozen U.S. breweries. Samples are regularly sent to the St. Louis headquarters for comparison with the beer made at other facilities.

"It's a dramatic challenge to maintain consistency when brewing at more than one location," said Tim Seitz, Fort Collins Budweiser's brewmaster. "Our motto is 'Safety first, quality always.'"

Senior food science and nutrition major Kinsey Riley checks the pH on the wort from a batch there class is brewing, Friday, Sept. 8, 2017, during a Brewing Science and Technology class at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo.

Smaller breweries without their own on-site labs have increasingly turned to lab services in the area.

Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau-certified facilities Kathinka Labs and Beyers Analytical both opened in Fort Collins in 2016, offering a number of quality control chemistry test services. Both labs also work closely with the kombucha industry.

"Consumers are more educated than ever and demand a high quality product," said Mary Burge, manager at Kathinka Labs.

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The Colorado State University fermentation science program also offers a number of lab testing services for breweries and fermented food companies. The operation is managed by alumnus and former Oskar Blues lab manager Katie Fromuth.

But the future of the brewing industry could include more on-site testing, even in smaller craft breweries like Gilded Goat.

"These are all things we need to make high quality beer every day," Hoxmeier said.

Follow Jacob Laxen on Twitter and Instagram @jacoblaxen.

Senior fermentation science major John Wilson documents details of the beer being brewed, Friday, Sept. 8, 2017, during a Brewing Science and Technology class at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colo.