Brewhouse

It doesn’t take a bespoke lager brewery to bring the subtle complexities of decoction to craft lager—but it does take some ingenuity.

Some brewhouses are forever, even if they don’t stay put—and more than a few have traveled their way around the country and even around the world. At each location, that unique set of equipment and the brewers who use it must form a connection that inevitably affects what we drink.

In this edition of Gearhead, John M. Verive zooms in on the arsenal of less specialized, more humdrum (and often more beloved) tools that brewers use every day.

A mash filter can increase brewhouse efficiency greatly, giving brewers much more room to get more creative with their recipes. Here, we sat down with Brouwerij West to learn more.

Known for pushing the envelope with intense hop and fruit flavors, Jeff Hardesty of Narrow Gauge demonstrates a safe and sanitary method for dumping a large quantity of dry hops into a still-fermenting beer.

Nobody wants to turn their brewhouse upside-down hunting for a measly clamp or gasket. In this video tip, 2nd Shift founder-brewer-handyman Steve Crider shows how they keep things sorted—and reveals a secret weapon for cleaning kegs.

John Mallett, VP of operations for Bell's, is one of the most respected technical brewers in the industry. Here, he discusses everything from sourcing and evaluating ingredients to maintaining haze in beer and engineering a brewhouse workflow.

Steve Crider, founder-brewer-handyman at 2nd Shift in St. Louis, explains the value of knowing how to fix your own broken pumps.