Acetaldehyde in Beer Land!

The next morning, after an ample night's rest and another lovely English breakfast, we left for the brewery in the countryside. I was riding on the back of a motor scooter driven by a young fella named Na. Mike had Khoai Tay and the Nanny on his bike with him. We rode in a caravan to the outskirts of the city to the ferry crossing. The barge was docked, and a handful of people were milling around a palm hut with a small concession stand inside. We rode the bikes onto the ferry.

“Let's stop and grab a beer before the boat leaves” Mike said, and we headed over to the stand. We got the beers and some drinks for the others and walked back. As we waited, more bikes arrived and parked. Women wore full on shield like sun protection smocks. Men wore button up shirts and slacks with flip flops. Little kids were smashed between their parents on the back of bikes and seemed just fine with it.

The day was a bit more overcast than the one before and the breeze off the river felt nice in the mid-morning sun. The evening before had been lovely. I had a pleasant dinner meeting Brook the investor and Josh, the other partner of the brewery.

During dinner at the taproom the night before, I had noticed how the street had changed again from the daytime. It was easy to see from the open-air front of the taproom. The vendors had gone, and the clubs opened up. Girls in shiny tight dresses and plastic high heels spilled out into the street. That same weird techno dance music blared from loudspeakers. There were more people, more bikes and more cabs congesting the road. Girls with baskets of souvenirs for sale snaked slowly along and approached people dining in cafes that lined the street.

Mai was right. Brook was a nice man. He was established and handsome in a preppy yet down to earth sort of way. He seemed reasonable and logical and told me to come to him if I needed anything at all. I told him that this was all very new and different and would take some adjusting however I was confident that once I got in the brewery and began making beer, I would feel at home.

Josh, the other partner, was a young American guy. He had moved to Ho Chi Minh and had been a teacher but also had some tech interests and some engineering experience. He had home-brewed along with Mike in the early days and was there for the expansion of the brewery. He was a bit younger, short with a large red beard. His voice and laugh were husky, and his smile was warm and genuine.

“I hear you're the Brewstress!” he said when I met him. I guess this was a thing now. He would be joining us later at the brewery.

I sat on a bench that lined the edge of the ferry and when the boat was nearly half full, a whistle blew, and the rumble of an engine began. The boat slowly left the shore and began to make its way across the river. There were smaller fishing boats in the brown water, headed out to the South China Sea. Most left at sunrise and came in at sunset.

We didn't have far to travel to cross to the other side, maybe a quarter of a mile. A woman came around and collected fares from everyone. After about ten minutes, we reached the other shore.

I hopped back on the back of Na's bike, and we slowly drove off the boat. Can Gio was definitely different that Saigon. It much more rural with small houses and palm structures that were surrounded by open land. It smelled better than Saigon also. There was a large brown bull with a sagging back and giant horns being prodded by a hundred-year-old woman as she walked it down the dirt road. People sat on their porches in the shade and waved as we passed.

We wound our way through the countryside for a bit longer until we reached a row of solid looking homes that lined the river. We slowed to a stop outside a chain link and barbed wire fence.

“We're here” Mike said with a smile as a heard of dogs rushed to the other side of the fence to greet him. A boy ran to the fence from the inside and opened the gate and we drove into the complex. The main “house” structure was L shaped. The brewery sat to the left of the house. It had a palm exterior and was built on a concrete slab. The two buildings were connected with a palm hut breezeway in the middle. In the breezeway was a large and had an outdoor kitchen with tile floors and was enclosed in mosquito netting. There was also a small walk-in cooler. Hammocks were tied to all the support beams along the cooler.

Through the breeze way, in the back yard, were gardens. Raised soil beds were constructed from repurposed plastic drums cut lengthwise. Mike showed me the hydroponic garden he built from old industrial plastic totes. He was growing some woody looking plant that was supposed to naturally help with depression, he said. There were banana trees and all sorts of plants and greens both edible and not. There were vines and bushes with flowers, some of them I knew, some I did not. It was really very beautiful.

He led me further back through the property. There was another structure in the very back. It was a square concrete enclosure under a palm hut. This was where the chicken fighting happened, Mike said. (Chicken fighting?) Chicken fighting doesn't happen any longer he said. Now the pen was used to hold livestock from time to time.

He led me all the way to the back of the property. There was more chain linked fence and barbed wire but beyond that was a small dome shaped concrete bunker that sat in the Mangrove trees along the river's edge. It was left over from the war. Machine guns were mounted to the top and aimed at the boats of people fleeing Saigon on the river, Mike said. Now, the guns were gone and all that remained was every odd flip flop thrown away in Saigon, tangled in the mangrove roots along the bank.

The brewery was clearly a work in progress, however given the longitude and the latitude of the situation, it was remarkably impressive. The equipment was designed by a German fella named Gert who was living in Saigon. I have no idea what his background or experience was, but the equipment seemed well made.

There was a 500L mash tun. It was simple and effective. Constructed from the highest quality stainless steel one can get in Vietnam (which is actually pretty good, if you're not getting scammed.) It had a removable false bottom and a lid. There weren't any agitators, it was a paddle mash. There was a silicone tube (set on top of the mash paddle for diffusion) used to recirculate and lauter. The runoff was transferred to electric kettle through an external pump. The kettle had no lid or ventilation (so hot, so hot.)

There were 4 500L fermentors with the 1000L's on the way, Mike said. He told me how he had initially designed the cooling unit himself. It used an old chest freezer and methanol but with the brewery expansion and legitimization, it was probably best to move to glycol. Because methanol is explosive. And not food grade. But once again, there are few regulations for such things in Vietnam and resourcefulness is king.

In that spirit, there was an RO system to filter the water. Vietnam has notoriously bad water that is impotable out of the tap. RO water was not a luxury, rather a requirement. With this though, comes a lot of waste effluent. Two liters for every one of clean water. This waste water was collected and stored in a CLT which was then used in the counter chiller during knock out. Doing this also reduced the load on the fragile glycol chiller which was then used to chill the fermentors. There weren't any brite tanks and carbonation and kegging happened directly in the fermentors. It was a larger expression of a small home-brew set up essentially.

Well, I had never been a home-brewer but as a professional brewer, I was certain I could work with this.