Grains in Beer Land!

Today, I am grateful. I have been given so much and so many opportunities in life and as such I feel it is my duty to give back. As a woman, a mother, a biochemist and a brewer, things are busy. Sometimes things are moving so quickly, it’s all we can do to keep up! This can make it difficult to give back. At times, this busy-ness is a good thing. Taking action heals and prevents trauma. Other times we need to take a quiet moment to just breathe. To heal. To restore ourselves.

These moments, in both styles, can be transformational if we let them.

As brewers, we provide for our people. We take their suggestions into consideration. We listen to their concerns. You like pumpkin ales? We personally hate them, but years later, we will be happy to make one for you. And it will be awesome. Because it shouldn’t be about us and what we want. It’s about fulfilling the needs of others. It’s about living a life of brewery service.

I may not care for pumpkin ales but I’m not going to make one poorly because of that fact. I can’t speak for anyone else but I can say for myself that I am a woman of integrity. Pumpkin beers, totally not my thing. But I care about your perspective. Do you like spices also? Is texture important? How does your best pumpkin beer look in your mindseye?

As brewers, what do we need to do to achieve that? We use intention. We buy the best ingredients. We do the math. We adjust the water. We mill the grains. We smell the hops. We grow the yeast. We clean the fermenter. We work out the schedule. We design the packaging. We do all of this and so much more before we ever even brew the beer.

Perhaps after this journey, you’ll come to appreciate pumpkin beers no matter how you felt about them before. Perhaps. Hopefully. Allison are you a therapist? Gosh no, ha! I’m a work in progress and you are in Beer Land!