Saturday, 10/29/16
A full story delivered five times a week.
Subscribe / Renew | Give a Gift | Forward to Friend
Brewing With: Rob Mullin
How an overworked campaign manager escaped the
political machine to become the celebrated head brewer
at Grand Teton Brewing Co., Idaho's largest brewery.
By: Chris Guest / Issue 24 What drew you to craft beer and brewing?
In another life I worked in politics as a campaign manager. That was
stressful work; I’d lie awake every night thinking about the thousand
things I didn’t get done that day. One fateful day in 1986, my
girlfriend at the time gave me a homebrewing kit. I stopped by the
local homebrew shop and bought Byron Burch’s book (Brewing
Quality Beers) and the ingredients for an extract stout. Luckily, I also
got the shop owner’s home phone number. When I finally had the
time to brew, it was magical. For eight hours I thought only about
brewing, not the campaign. It was a Sunday, and I called the shop
owner eight or ten times and asked lots of questions: ‘Is it supposed to
look like this? What happens next? How do I know I’m doing it right?’
Those were the days before caller ID or cell phones, but I give him a
ton of credit. He picked up every time I called, and answered every
panicky question with patience and humor.
My last job in politics was as a Capitol Hill staffer to Congressman
Jamie Clarke from Western North Carolina. I did his Interior
Committee work, and successfully passed a bill to protect a beautiful
stretch of water near Asheville. I helped get another bill through the
House to protect a pristine forest from logging, but it was blocked at
the eleventh hour by an anonymous “hold” in the Senate.
That experience drove home for me the disconnect found in so many
professions between hard work and success. I saw terribly-managed
campaigns win and wonderfully-run campaigns get swept up in
national trends and lose. I saw on Capitol Hill how one anonymous
Senator can destroy years of work by dozens of people. I was burnt out
on politics and spent a few months working as an assistant to a
carpenter, mostly building decks in the suburbs of DC. There I learned
the importance of “measure twice, cut once,” and the satisfaction of
seeing the result of hard work at the end of a long day.
seeing the result of hard work at the end of a long day.
While I was learning carpentry my sister Kim, who worked for
Greenpeace, had a conversation with John Mallet (now at Bell’s) at a
party, and Kim told him I was a homebrewer. John was looking for an
assistant at Old Dominion Brewing Company, so Kim put us together.
John hired me to scrub floors and drive the delivery truck, and my
professional career was born. My years at Old Dominion were
amazing, as I learned how to brew from John and also from Ron
Barchet (founder of Victory Brewing), two of the best brewers I know.
It’s the connection between good, hard work and its results that has
kept me brewing. I take satisfaction every day in being able to enjoy
the product of our labor at the end of each shift.
"I take satisfaction every day in being able to enjoy the
product of our labor at the end of each shift." ­ Rob Mullin Photo Credit: Grand Teton Brewing How did you end up at Grand Teton Brewing Co.?
How did you end up at Grand Teton Brewing Co.?
After Old Dominion, I worked at Trap Rock Restaurant and Brewery
in Berkeley Heights, NJ – a beautiful restaurant – like an English
country inn complete with garden, then with a chef the New York
Times had called the best in the state. That’s where I learned to love
beer and food. We went from three or four permanent house beers to
nine at a time on tap, all constantly changing to complement the chef’s
seasonal menus. I worked with the wait staff to educate our guests
about beer and food pairing, and we had wildly successful monthly
beer dinners. I loved it!
Then 9/11 happened. I watched it unfold on the TV at Trap Rock, then
went home and saw the smoke from our house. My bride, Constance,
and I had been trying to buy a house in suburban New Jersey, but that
became impossible on a brewer’s salary as nervous New Yorkers fled
the city. It seemed like a good time to leave the metropolis behind.
I had been in touch with Charlie Otto, brewer of one of the first
“microbrews” I’d ever enjoyed, Moose Juice Stout. I’d spent the
summer of 1990, between political jobs, in Grand Teton National Park
and fell in love with the mountains. I brought a group of DC friends
here to ski in early ’91, and we bought beer from Charlie’s growler
station (the first of its kind) at The Liquor Store in Jackson. In 2002
Charlie was looking for a new head brewer, and Constance and I were
ready to head west. We drove cross-country with our three young
children and built a house on five acres at the base of the Tetons.
Advertisement
What are some of your favorite beers you've brewed while at
Grand Teton?
Grand Teton?
The sentimental favorite has to be Bitch Creek ESB. Charlie knew I
had brewed a well-received English-style ESB in Manhattan, and Red
Hook ESB was popular then, so Charlie asked me to brew something
like those. Honestly, I had no interest in brewing a British-style beer. I
had just moved to the Pacific Northwest, and I only wanted to brew
big, American beers with Pacific Northwest hops.
Charlie had been treating the water to mimic English brew water and
using British hops to make good, British-style ales. The first thing I
did when I got here was end our water treatment. Then I replaced the
hops. The resulting dark beer was very Pacific Northwest: a big,
earthy, American-style Brown Ale with huge piney/citrusy hop flavors
and aromas. It won a couple of medals and was our best seller for a
long time. All these years later it’s still our number-three seller, and
probably our best-known beer.
Another really fun beer was Bacon-infused Sheep Eater Scotch Ale.
One of our brewers had been a pastry chef before changing careers,
and he taught us how to infuse bacon flavor into the beer without
killing its head. We use some peat-smoked malt in the Sheep Eater,
and that worked wonders with the bacon.
Finally, I should mention Barrel-Aged Huckleberry Sour. It was our
first (intentionally) sour beer, and kind of a problem child. I’d
convinced the new owners to spend a few thousand dollars on fresh
huckleberries to add to chardonnay barrels of Imperial Witbier dosed
with lactobacillus and Brettanomyces. After a year in the barrels, none
of us were happy with the beer. A second year brought minor
improvement, but the owners were really starting to look at me
sideways. Finally, after three years, the beer just turned. It was great,
everyone loved it, and that started us down the road with sours, one of
everyone loved it, and that started us down the road with sours, one of
our current strengths. We’ve grown from 20 wood barrels two years
ago to 130 now, all thanks to that darn huckleberry beer!
Mullin's first brewery job was as a delivery truck driver for
Old Dominion Brewing Co. in Delaware. Photo Credit: Freya M.
Boughton
What's the beer scene like in Idaho?
I’m lucky enough to serve on the board of Idaho Brewers United, our
state guild, so I can tell you with some authority that our beer scene is
tremendous. Last I looked we had 57 breweries operating in the state,
tremendous. Last I looked we had 57 breweries operating in the state,
with several more set to open this year. Last year Grand Teton was the
biggest brewer in the state at 10,000 barrels. There are a couple set to
pass us soon, but we’re unlikely to produce any truly large craft
breweries. Idaho is big enough to fuel innovation and excitement
around craft beer, but small enough that our fellow brewers are also
our friends. We support each other and share our successes. Idaho
consumers are embracing craft beer at a fantastic rate. Sales in our
home state doubled last year, and show no signs of slowing down.
What's a common misconception people have about your
state?
We’re a whole lot more than potatoes! This is an absolutely beautiful
state, with mountains and lakes in the north, the stunning Snake River
cutting through the middle, and Yellowstone and the Tetons in the
south. If you like the outdoors, you’ll love Idaho. No matter your
passion – fishing, skiing, mountain-biking, hiking – you’ll be hardpressed to find a better place to recreate than right here. It’s a great
place to brew and enjoy beer; Idaho grows the best malting barley in
the world and some of the best hops, and our water’s as clean and
tasty as it comes.
"Idaho is an absolutely beautiful state, with mountains and
lakes in the north, the stunning Snake River cutting
through the middle, and Yellowstone and the Tetons in the
south." ­ Rob Mullin Photo Credit: Grand Teton Brewing
Speaking of that, does the Teton Range provide terrific water
for brewing?
Teton Valley is blessed with the best water in the world. It’s Teton
Mountain glacial runoff, filtered over the course of 300 - 500 years
through Teton granite and limestone before coming to the surface a halfmile from the brewery. It’s clean, pure, slightly sweet and almost perfect
for brewing. I say “almost perfect” because it’s not ideal for every beer
style. Like all water, it has a distinctive mineral makeup that favors
certain styles of brewing. Ours is most similar to Munich’s water, so it’s
great for malty Bavarian-style beers like Double Vision.
We’re committed to creating Teton Valley beer, so our water is left
unmolested, able to shine through in all its sweet glory. That’s been a
challenge when we’ve brewed hoppy styles. The water just makes it
tougher to extract the bitter flavors in most hop varietals.
Over the years, we’ve adjusted our recipes and honed our technique; if
we treated our water we’d have an easier time brewing, and we’d save
money. Since we don’t treat the water, we’re forced to use a lot more
hops to get the bitterness we’re looking for. That means that for a given
level of bitterness, we have a proportionally higher amount of other hop
flavors – the citrusy, piney, spicy or tropical fruit nuances that add depth
and complexity to our brews.
Being so close to Grand Teton National Park and the Teton
Range, how does Grand Teton Brewing work towards a low
impact on its environment?
We’re in a small town in a small, rural county, and we try hard to be good
neighbors. A few years ago we installed a heat-recovery system that
significantly cut our fuel usage by using the heat generated by yeast
during fermentation to pre-heat our brewing and cleaning water. We
minimize our effect on the town’s wastewater system by diverting and
pre-treating our grey water. Our used yeast and tank bottoms (beer left
at the end of a transfer from a fermenter) are trucked to a local rancher,
who uses them to fertilize his pastures. Of course, the rancher also feeds
our spent grain to his cattle. We recycle everything possible, recently
adding a large volume of plastic pallet wrap that used to go into the
dumpster. We buy back and re-use our six- and four-packs, as they’re not
easily recycled here.
Mullin has helmed a vast array of great brews over the
years, including an experimental Huckleberry Sour Ale
aged in chardonnay barrels and dosed with lactobacillus
and Brettanomyces... that took three years to complete.
Photo Credit: Freya M. Boughton
Any expansion plans or new beers on the horizon at Grand
Teton?
We’re always brewing new beers. Out May 15 is our first Gose, which
we’re all enjoying immensely as the weather warms up here. We’ll
follow that with our third Brewers’ Series bottle release, Barrel-Aged
Farmhouse Ale. It’s the biggest beer we’ve ever released at 11.8% ABV,
but months of aging in red wine barrels have kept it scarily drinkable.
There are a few sours in wood, waiting for our Cellar Master’s word to
package. We’re close to finalizing our recipe for an IPA, which might
make us last in the country to have one, but we’ve worked hard on
getting it right, and you should see it on draft soon.
We hope to break ground this summer on an expansion that will
increase our floor space about 65%. That’ll give us fermentation space
to grow as big as we’d like to get – about 35,000 barrels a year. We’ll
more than triple our cold room, and – most fun – quadruple our wood
barrel space.
What are the keys to building a successful brewery?
Three things: Quality, Quality and Quality. It doesn’t matter how
Three things: Quality, Quality and Quality. It doesn’t matter how
small you are, if you’re not investing in the best possible quality
program, then you’ll never reach your full potential. We hired our first
full-time, dedicated Quality Manager when we were producing only
5,000 bbls/yr. Soon after that we implemented a serious “big
brewery” quality program that requires a positive sign-off by the
Quality Manager before any beer can be harvested, transferred,
packaged or shipped. We do microbiological testing at each step of the
process, and our professional panel tastes every packaged beer several
times over the course of its shelf-life. As the cost of technology has
come down, we’ve invested in faster, more accurate test equipment.
Even the smallest breweries can afford to do basic micro testing, and
there’s no excuse for not setting up a regular tasting program. With a
new brewery opening every 16 hours in this country, beer drinkers
have almost too many choices.
If we want them to come back to our beer for a second round, then the
first one had better be spot-on!
Photo Credit: Grand Teton Brewing Co.
Chris Guest Chris joined The Beer
Connoisseur in
December 2014 as an
Editorial Assistant.
Now an Editor, he is
both an astute observer
and a voracious
consumer of pop
culture and is attuned
to its vivid history as
well. When not tapping
away on his laptop’s
keyboard, he enjoys
playing guitar, crafting
poetry and writing both
serious and satirical
songs.
Read issue here.
The Beer Connoisseur makes an excellent gift!
Gift options here.
COMMUNICATIONS PREFERENCES
Daily editorial e-newsletters.
Select days, frequency, and update profile.
Unsubscribe | Forward to a friend | Message sent with MailUp
You are receiving this message because you registered an account at BeerConnoisseur.com and
agreed to receive email communications from us. Editorial Department, The Beer Connoisseur® P.O. Box 420903, Atlanta, 30342 Georgia US www.beerconnoisseur.com (404) 981­8342