Briess Field Trip and Hops

On Monday, we spent the entire day learning about hops. The lecture got pretty technical and had  a focus on extracts. I still have a lot of modern practical questions, which will have to get answered in the practical portion of the course. We did a "hop rub" where we crushed hops between our hands to release the aroma of the fresh hops. There were some delicious examples like Simcoe and Mosaic, along with one old sample that smelled cheesy and oxidized.

I made dinner for the roommates before we hunkered down and got some review done...

 Today we took a trip to Briess Malts in Chilton, WI. Despite being in my home state, I had never been to Briess. It was great to see a lot of the information we learned last week in action. We also got some short lectures from the Briess staff on specialty malts and a quick sampling of worts featuring different malts. The bus ride back featured coolers of cold beer, lots of laughter and even some harmonica lead karaoke. 

 It has been a long day and tomorrow we are covering adjuncts and brewing calculations!