Beer

Recreating George Washington's Porter

Anonymous — Sat, 01 Dec 2018 21:45:00 +0000

Recreating George Washington's Porter Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/01/2018 - 14:45

Daniel Strain

America’s first president brewed his own beer. Travis Rupp wants you to be able to taste it.

For anyone who’s ever wanted to share a cold one with George Washington, Travis Rupp (MClass’10) has you covered. Or will soon, anyway.

Rupp, who sports a short beard and a laid-back vibe, represents a uniquely Boulder double threat: The ��񱦵� classics lecturer is also the official “beer archaeologist” for a local brewer, Avery Brewing Company.

In this second role, Rupp draws on his training as a historian steeped in classical Greek and Roman culture to bring ancient beers back to life. He’s researched and recreated the favorite drink of an Akkadian king who ruled around 1750 B.C. The result is Avery’s Beersheba, a light beer flavored with pomegranate.

He also brewed Ragnarsdrapa, a darker ale associated with the Vikings.

Now Rupp has set his sights on reproducing a concoction that, for him, is practically modern history: The porter that America’s first president brewed at Mount Vernon, his Virginia estate.

The project has sent Rupp east to pore through the founding father’s journals and to explore the central role beer played in Colonial America.

Rupp, who expects the project to take months, readily admits he has no idea how it will turn out.

“People still to this day ask me, ‘Do you know what your new beer is going to taste like?’” he said. “Of course, I don’t. These ancient beers had weird stuff in them.”

Still, he said, even an approximation offers a vivid sense of our shared past.

Silver Pint Cup

In the early United States, beer was the drink of rich and poor alike. In Washington’s heyday, ale was everywhere — made mostly in the home, but also in big-city breweries in New York and Philadelphia.

Beer was such an important part of American life, Rupp said, that it may have contributed to James Madison’s 1777 loss in his first campaign to be a Virginia House delegate. The future father of the Constitution refused to give free alcohol to would-be voters. His opponent — coincidentally named Charles Porter — had no such scruples: “Porter handed out porter,” Rupp said.

Washington himself likely brewed two beers on his estate, Rupp said: A porter, which may have been dark and a bit sour, and a lighter ale called a “small beer.”

"These ancient beers had weird stuff in them."

One guest at Washington’s presidential dinners reported that he kept a “silver pint cup or mug of beer” next to his plate at dinner.

To refill that cup, Rupp has become a detective.

Judging from Washington’s diligent notes, he said, the founding father’s porter was likely made from dark malts, whole-cone hops and molasses.

“But he doesn’t give quantities for his recipes,” Rupp said. “Often, he’ll write something like ‘fill the sieve basket with hops.’ Well, how much hops does the sieve basket hold? How big is it?”

So, Rupp is examining a wide range of documents from the Mount Vernon library and elsewhere in the Mid-Atlantic. Purchasing records, for example, could indicate ingredient ratios. He’ll also take a close look at the equipment used by colonial brewers.

Rupp knows his porter (or small beer, if he starts with that) will never perfectly match Washington’s. But he hopes he’ll get close enough for modern Americans to gain a better appreciation of Washington as a person.

“What Travis is doing is a sort of experiment of what the ancient world could have been like,” said ��񱦵� classics professor Dimitri Nakassis, referring to Rupp’s broader project. “We have to do that kind of stuff if we want to understand these people and the richness of their lives.”

Whether you’re George Washington or a 21st-century Boulderite, Rupp said, one time-honored way to connect with other people is to share a pint.

“It turns us into social beings,” he said. “It makes us human.”

Comment? Email editor@colorado.edu.

Illustration by Roxy Torres

America’s first president brewed his own beer. Travis Rupp wants you to be able to taste it.

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From Beer, A Better Battery?

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 09:00:00 +0000

From Beer, A Better Battery? Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 03/01/2017 - 02:00

Trent Knoss

The brewers are happy to give away dirty water. The PhDs are happy to take it.

The plan came together — where else? — at the bar.

Last April, over pints at Backcountry Pizza in Boulder, Tyler Huggins (PhDCivEngr’16) and Justin Whiteley (PhDMechEngr’16) were honing their idea for “growing” a battery from beer — specifically, from the wastewater discharged by breweries. If successful, their invention would offer a new model for clean energy storage while reducing beer makers’ costs.

The two engineers faced a crossroads. Their related work as ��񱦵� doctoral students was promising, but with graduation near, the job market beckoning and research yet to do, they had to decide: Could they afford to go all in on building a better battery?

“There was a lot of soul searching,” said Whiteley, who’d been considering a job offer with an established battery start-up. “We realized we had to be OK with pursuing what’s uncomfortable.” Six months earlier, Huggins had cold-called Se-Hee Lee, an associate professor in CU’s mechanical engineering department, to tell him about an idea for a new kind of electrode — the central component of any battery.

Most electrodes are made from carbon-based minerals, a finite resource. Huggins wanted to harness a better raw material, something biological and infinitely renewable.

Lee connected Huggins with Whiteley, one of his graduate students. The pair had complementary expertise — one knew biology, one knew electrical systems — and they shared an entrepreneurial sensibility. The first time they met, they talked for hours about the possibility of cultivating high-quality electrodes the way one might cultivate tomatoes.

Tyler Huggins and Justin Whiteley

The idea wasn’t outlandish. Other researchers had used biomass (fungus and timber) in experimental batteries. But biomass is pricey, and no form of it had been shown to outperform the graphite used in a typical lithium-ion AA. That’s why battery technology hadn’t changed meaningfully since the 1970s.

“A novelty has no value until it outperforms the market,” said Huggins.

With help from Lee and Zhiyong Jason Ren, Huggins’s advisor, they began tinkering with a type of fungus, Neurospora crassa, that could be grown in just 24 hours and chemically manipulated for optimal electrical conductivity. The mature fungus offered a ready-made substitute for a standard electrode.

The trick would be growing it in bulk. Enter the brewers’ wastewater.

A brewery uses seven barrels of water for every barrel of beer produced, and post-fermentation wastewater is rich in organic compounds that are difficult and expensive for brewers to filter. Municipal water treatment represents a significant business expense. But wastewater just so happens to be a perfect spot for a voracious fungus to thrive. Huggins and Whiteley knew it.

So they called two of Colorado’s leading craft brewers, Odell Brewing Co. and Avery Brewing Co., to ask for samples. The reply: “You want what?”

The idea was hardly outlandish.

Once the disbelief wore off, the brewers were happy to provide all the free wastewater the engineers could handle.

“We’re taking some cost and headache off the board for them,” said Whiteley.

From there, the battery-making process took shape: Seed the wastewater with spores, wait for the fungus to congeal into a jelly, then bake it at 1,472 degrees Fahrenheit.

The resulting charcoal-like substance is, in essence, a raw electrode compatible with existing battery designs. Better yet: the material performs just as well as graphite, and Huggins and Whiteley proved it.

By June, they’d secured a patent, turned down job offers and co-founded a company, Emergy Labs, to perfect their prototype.

They won’t try to duke it out with Duracell in the consumer battery market. But if all goes well, they’ll adapt the technology for business use, allowing companies to store, say, wind and solar energy more efficiently — while putting breweries’ dirty water to work.

An eco-friendly win-win for beer lovers and energy consumers alike? Everyone can drink to that.

Trent Knoss last wrote for the Coloradan about 3D printing.

The brewers are happy to give away dirty water. The PhDs are happy to take it.

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At Homecoming 2016, a Bevy of Buffalo Brewers

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Sep 2016 17:30:00 +0000

At Homecoming 2016, a Bevy of Buffalo Brewers Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 09/01/2016 - 11:30

Christie Sounart

Alumni beer makers to pour their favorites

After surviving melanoma and thyroid cancers in her early 30s, Karen Hertz (Psych’99; MBA’05) adopted a gluten-free diet as part of her treatment plan. That meant a lot of beers were off the menu.

“Beer is meant for certain occasions,” said Hertz, who worked for Miller-Coors for a decade. “Being a social person, I felt there just weren’t many gluten-free options.”

So she started making her own, and earlier this year founded Colorado’s first gluten-free brewery, Holidaily Brewing Co., in Golden.

Hertz will be one of at least half-a-dozen CU brewers serving samples at Homecoming Weekend 2016. She’ll join alumni from Sanitas, West Flanders, Fate, Ratio Beerworks, Upslope and Bootstrap at Buffs on Tap, a beer tasting by and for alumni in the Koenig Alumni Center’s backyard. The Oct. 14 event includes a barbecue meal and costs $15.

The event is one of many festivities scheduled for the Oct. 13-15 reunion weekend. Others include the Buffs Bash at the Lazy Dog and the annual parade and pep rally on Pearl Street. On game-day, the free, family-friendly Ralphie’s Corral tailgate will take place three hours before the CU versus Arizona State matchup at Folsom Field.

In all, 17 reunions are planned, including those of the 50-Year and Golden Anniversary Club and the Silver Buffaloes Alumni Band. For Hertz, participating in Buffs on Tap will be a reunion of its own: She attended last year, just as she was getting started.

A year later, she’s in business, offering seven beers in her Golden taproom, including Holidaily’s flagship Favorite Blonde Ale.

“Buffs on Tap was the first time I really served a beer to somebody,” she said. “It’s where I feel like we started.”

Register for Buffs on Tap and other Homecoming-related events at colorado.edu/homecoming.

Photo courtesy Karen Hertz.

Alumni beer makers to pour their favorites

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Microbrewing in the Middle East

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 17:30:00 +0000

Microbrewing in the Middle East Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/01/2015 - 10:30

J.E. Podsada

In all the kingdom of Jordan, there’s one lone microbrewery. It took a CU-Boulder engineer to make it happen.

When ancient hunter-gatherers took up the plow in the Middle East thousands of years ago, they grew grains with more than bread in mind: Ancient Sumerian pictographs and poetry suggest they were after beer — and may have invented it.

That’s one scholarly theory, anyway, the one Yazan Karadsheh (ElEngr’06) and his fans like best.

“Their eyes light up when they learn that beer originated in this part of the world,” says Karadsheh, 31, who in 2013 established Carakale Brewing Co. near Amman, Jordan. It is the Middle Eastern kingdom’s first and only microbrewery.

This was no small feat: Alcohol is legal in Jordan, but consumption of it can be a sensitive matter in the largely Muslim nation. Only Jordan’s roughly 3 percent Christian minority may brew beer.

Fortunately for Karadsheh, he’s a member of the 3 percent. And he’s on a mission, he says, to “bring beer back to its birthplace.”

Today Carakale, which employs about a dozen workers, produces about 40,000 bottles of craft beer monthly, including a straw-gold blonde ale; a copper-colored pale ale; a mocha stout; a whiskey ale whose caramel and butterscotch notes mingle with the aroma of ripe bananas; and, around Christmas, a winter ale.

If it weren’t for Karadsheh’s years in Colorado, Jordan might still be microbrewery-free.

“I was never a beer lover growing up in Jordan,” says Karadsheh, who followed his brother to Colorado for school (but chose CU instead of CSU, his brother’s alma mater). “…I discovered what beer could taste like — versatile and complex.”

Karadsheh started brewing beer as a hobby.

After graduating with a degree in electrical engineering, he was hired by Halliburton, the energy services giant, to work in a Wyoming oil field. It was a brief stint, six weeks, and one he didn’t care for.

“I felt like I sold my soul,” he says.

He quit, returned to Boulder and made his way to a home-brewing supply store. He offered to work for free “as long as I learned how to brew beer.”

There Karadsheh learned about the 18-week Master Brewers Program at the University of California Davis Extension. He moved to California and enrolled.

The very first lesson was about beer’s origins in the Middle East, which seemed a sign of destiny.

“I was on a life quest,” he says. “A very religious feeling came over me.”

Surrounded by people who adored beer and wanted to push the boundaries of brewing, Karadsheh could hardly wait to start each day.

“I felt like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” he says.

Returning again to Boulder, he eventually joined Upslope Brewing Company as a head brewer. As he deepened his knowledge of brewing, fermenting and packaging, his confidence grew and he began to conceive of his own brewing operation in his own land.

Building a microbrewery in Jordan? You're by yourself.

“That’s when my dad called and asked me, ‘Are you ready to go back home?'” Karadsheh says.

Back in Jordan, he discovered the endeavor would be more complicated than he thought. An application to the authorities for permits went ignored for months.

“Licensing a brewery in Jordan is close to impossible,” he says.

Meanwhile, he built a two-and-a-half barrel brewery in the yard of his parents’ Amman home, giving away beer to friends. More than a year passed.

Then a family friend dropped by and caught a whiff and a glimpse of the backyard operation. Impressed, the man, a lawyer, promised to get him a license — “tomorrow.”

“The next day I went to my dad’s office and there was the license,” says Karadsheh.

A search for a suitable location led to a hill above a Greek Orthodox village overlooking a “blue valley” in the town of Fuheis, about 12 miles northwest of Amman.

“I saw it and got goose bumps all over,” he says.

It was a beautiful location, and Fuheis, a Christian village, was willing to lease the property to him. Muslim communities and landlords had rebuffed him.

With financial backing from his father, an industrial engineer,

Karadsheh began the task of building a 50-barrel-capacity brewery, a $3 million investment that took nearly three years to complete.

During construction, national and local officials — from the country’s internal police to town fathers — peppered him with requests for additional paperwork. Ultimately he needed permission from no less than a dozen government agencies. Roads, waterlines, phone lines, electricity and plumbing had to be built from scratch. Karadsheh and his father designed and built the brewery with help from friends, relying on YouTube videos and books for guidance.

“My electrical engineering degree came in handy…But building a microbrewery in Jordan?” he says. “You’re by yourself.”

The 13,000-square-foot brewery opened in 2013. Karadsheh named it after the region’s endangered desert cat, the Caracal, with its tall, dark ear tufts. He added a “k” for emphasis and an “e” to the name, so it spelled “ale.”

“When people think of Jordan,” says Yazan Karadsheh, founder of the country's only microbrewery, “I want them to think exceptional craft beer.”

Karadsheh imports hops from Germany and from the Yakima Valley in Washington state. Malt comes from Germany.

“At the end of the day you have to be a chef,” he says. “Brewing beer is all about the raw ingredients.”

So far, most of Carakale’s sales are to foreigners living in Jordan.

His main customers are four- and five-star hotels, upscale bars, restaurants and embassies.

Karadsheh is still cultivating a native clientele, slowly nudging locals outside their comfort zones.

“To them, beer is yellow-gold in color, super-carbonated and drunk ice-cold — flavoring, aromas are completely foreign to them,” he says.

But like any good businessman, he has an ear for the customer.

“We did a blonde beer….a cross between a commercial and a craft beer,” he says. “It has a slight hint of caramel and some highlights of bitter, but I had to hold myself back a bit.”

Success with foreigners in Jordan has bolstered his resolve to introduce Jordan’s only craft beer to the rest of the world, a mission aided by the fact that exporting beer is duty-free, exempt from Jordan’s alcohol tax of nearly $20 a gallon. (Also, domestic earnings are taxed at 65 percent.)

Karadsheh has been working with a distributor in Virginia, and in September he came to the U.S. to apply for import permits. His goal is to begin distributing Carakale to the East and West Coasts by year’s end and — of course — to Colorado.

“When people think of Jordan,” he says, “I want them to think exceptional craft beer.”

Photography by Cory Eldridge

In all the kingdom of Jordan, there’s one lone microbrewery. It took a CU-Boulder engineer to make it happen.

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Head to the Hills

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 07:00:00 +0000

Head to the Hills Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/01/2013 - 00:00

Clay Evans

CU alumni play a large role in Boulder's microbrewing mecca.

After Steve Kaczeus (MechEngr ’82) took a buyout from a corporate engineering job, he and his wife Leslie faced a fork in the road.

“We had decided either to start a brewery or move to the Caribbean,” says Kaczeus, who had been an enthusiastic homebrewer since 1993.

After he completed a seven-month online course through the American Brewers Guild and an internship at Hoppy Brewing in Sacramento, Calif., the allure of kicking back on a sugar-white beach lost out to the draw of making great beer.

“Leslie came out to California, looked at me and said, ‘Oh my goodness, we’re starting a brewery, aren’t we?’ ” he says.

The couple bought used brewing equipment from Eddyline Brewing in Buena Vista, Colo., located a space just across the street from their home in Niwot and launched Bootstrap Brewing in June 2012. A year and a half later, business is booming with Bootstrap “bombers” — 22-ounce bottles — sold in local liquor stores, kegs rolling out the door on a consistent basis and steady crowds at the taproom.

“Canning is the next step,” Kaczeus says. “But right now, we are loving how the local community supports us.”

In a state that boasts some 160 microbreweries, from historic Boulder Beer to newcomer Gravity Brewing, alums play key roles in many. Perhaps that’s no surprise, with Boulder recognized as a genuine microbrewing mecca.

“Just being in Boulder, where even 10 and 20 years ago there was a craft-beer market, is awesome,” says John Frazee (CivEngr’01).

In September 2012 Frazee opened the Gravity taproom in Louisville, Colo., with co-owners Ryan Bowers (MechEngr’00) and pioneering American brewmaster Julius Hummer, whose father co-founded Boulder Beer in 1979. For now Gravity is focused on the day-to-day perfectionism required — constant cleaning, perfectly calibrated ingredients, carefully monitored temperatures — to make consistently excellent beer.

“Going to engineering school gives you the almost obsessive attention-to-detail mindset you need,” Frazee says.

But some brewing Buffs found their way into the business by happenstance.

Jeff Mendel (Econ’83), part owner and board member at Longmont’s legendary Left Hand Brewing Co., arrived at CU-Boulder with no idea of what he wanted to study. After earning an MBA at the University of Arkansas, he returned to Boulder. In 1987 he answered an ad in the Daily Camera for a job responding to letters and questions about microbrewing for the American Homebrewers Association. The job paid $5 an hour.

“They put me on a two-line rotary phone and said, ‘Go to work.’ I answered the phone and called breweries to see what they were doing,” he says.

He went on to found the association’s microbrewing institute and produce an annual conference and trade show for craft brewers.

“We struggled to get 300 or 400 people,” Mendel recalls. “This year in Washington, D.C., we had 6,000 people and almost 600 exhibitors.”

In 1993 he co-founded Denver’s Tabernash Brewing, which later merged with Longmont-based Left Hand. Left Hand sold nearly 50,000 barrels of beer in 2012 — Black Jack Porter and Sawtooth are among its favorites — with gross revenues up by more than 40 percent, making it the fourth largest microbrewer in Colorado and among the 50 largest in the country.

Mendel is retired from day-to-day operations at Left Hand but retains part ownership and serves on the board. He considers himself “a preacher of the craft beer gospel,” teaching beer appreciation classes and co-hosting beer-and-chocolate events with Boulder business Piece, Love and Chocolate on Pearl Street.

“Half my life has been spent in the industry, but I’m not a brewer,” he says, laughing. “I’m just a schmoozer and a boozer.”

But the hopped-up Boulder craft-brewing market that emerged in 1979 isn’t the only reason CU grads found their way into the business. Some like Alyssa Lundgren (Bus’08), brand strategy manager and part owner of Fate Brewing Co., say Boulder’s entrepreneurial and collaborative environment is perfect for a business like microbrewing.

“There are a lot of really smart people in this town who are highly accepting of new and different ideas,” she says.

Lundgren learned the ropes of beer as a manager at Boulder’s West End Tavern, working for Mike Lewinsky. Years later, he tracked her down while she was working at a marketing firm and asked her to become a partner in Fate. In February Fate opened a brewpub and restaurant with 15 house beers on tap, complete with both 10-barrel and three-barrel brewing systems.

Plunging into the brewpub business — Fate also is a restaurant — requires a willingness to work long hours and do absolutely anything that needs to be done, from cleaning tanks to managing a staff of 80 people.

But plenty of people are jumping in. The craft-brewing industry grew 15 percent by volume and 17 percent in revenue from 2011 to 2012, with a national retail value of $10.2 billion, up from $8.7 billion in 2011, according to the Boulder-based Brewers Association.

Some CU graduates say that microbrewing’s inherent identity with smaller, local businesses seems to fit with a growing zeitgeist.

“People want to know who’s brewing their beer, what his or her personality is, who works there, where they get their ingredients,” Kaczeus says. “It’s the opposite of corporate. You can walk in here and meet Leslie or me.”

Mendel agrees.

“There is a growing distrust of industrial producers of food and drink,” he says. “And a growing ethic of supporting businesses closer to home, a smaller carbon footprint and keeping money in the local economy to create employment opportunities for your neighbors.”

Fate Brewing Company Moirai Style India Pale Ale ABV 7.2% IBUs 70 Silver at Denver Int’l Beer Comp. Laimas Style* Kölsch Style Ale ABV 5.0% IBUs 20 Gold at Denver Int’l Beer Comp. Parcae Style* Belgian Style Pale Ale ABV 5.0% IBUs 20 *Bronze at Denver Int’l Beer Comp.	Bootstrap Brewing Worthog Stout Style Foreign Extra Stout ABV 6.0% IBUs 32 Silver at Denver Int’l Beer Comp. Insane Rush IPA Style* India Pale Ale ABV 7.0% IBUs 60 Silver at Colorado State Fair Backfire Chili Beer Style* Golden Ale ABV 4.5% IBUs 12 *Bronze at Denver Int’l Beer Comp.
Lefthand Brewing Co. Milk Stout Style Sweet Stout ABV 6.0% IBUs 25 Gold at Great American Beer Fest Sawtooth Ale Style* American Style ESB ABV 5.3% IBUs 27 Gold at Great American Beer Fest 400 Pound Monkey Style* English Style India Pale Ale ABV 6.8% IBUs A polite monkey never tells	Gravity Brewing Mendacious Style Belgian Blonde ABV 8.0% IBUs 28 Louisville Style Belgian Ale ABV 6.5% IBUs 25 Wet Hopped Regular IPA Style India Pale Ale ABV 7.5% IBUs 68

Photography ©iStock.com/kedsanee (top)/courtesy Bootstrap Brewing, Gravity Brewing, Left Hand Brewing and Fate Brewing Co. (right)/ Photos by Patrick Campbell (bottom)

CU alumni play a large role in Boulder's microbrewing mecca.

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Fate Brewing Company Moirai Style India Pale Ale ABV 7.2% IBUs 70 Silver at Denver Int’l Beer Comp. Laimas Style* Kölsch Style Ale ABV 5.0% IBUs 20 Gold at Denver Int’l Beer Comp. Parcae Style* Belgian Style Pale Ale ABV 5.0% IBUs 20 *Bronze at Denver Int’l Beer Comp.	Bootstrap Brewing Worthog Stout Style Foreign Extra Stout ABV 6.0% IBUs 32 Silver at Denver Int’l Beer Comp. Insane Rush IPA Style* India Pale Ale ABV 7.0% IBUs 60 Silver at Colorado State Fair Backfire Chili Beer Style* Golden Ale ABV 4.5% IBUs 12 *Bronze at Denver Int’l Beer Comp.
Lefthand Brewing Co. Milk Stout Style Sweet Stout ABV 6.0% IBUs 25 Gold at Great American Beer Fest Sawtooth Ale Style* American Style ESB ABV 5.3% IBUs 27 Gold at Great American Beer Fest 400 Pound Monkey Style* English Style India Pale Ale ABV 6.8% IBUs A polite monkey never tells	Gravity Brewing Mendacious Style Belgian Blonde ABV 8.0% IBUs 28 Louisville Style Belgian Ale ABV 6.5% IBUs 25 Wet Hopped Regular IPA Style India Pale Ale ABV 7.5% IBUs 68

Beer

Recreating George Washington's Porter

Silver Pint Cup

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From Beer, A Better Battery?

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At Homecoming 2016, a Bevy of Buffalo Brewers

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Microbrewing in the Middle East

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Head to the Hills

Moirai

Laimas

Parcae

Worthog Stout

Insane Rush IPA

Backfire Chili Beer

Milk Stout

Sawtooth Ale

400 Pound Monkey

Mendacious

Louisville

Wet Hopped Regular IPA

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