It seems like posts are getting fewer and far between but I’d like to give an update on intern life at Steamworks and Phillips. I am pretty happy that I chose to do both of these internships because I was able to see two great and different breweries and work with lots of great people at both of them. I touched a bit on Steamworks last post; great crew, excellent and positive work environment and everyone knows everyone. I really liked the community at the brewery and even though times were busy and problems needed solving no one seemed stressed and everyone really seems to enjoy their job. My kind of place! Change is in the air at Steamworks with brewmaster Caolan heading back to Australia, I am told to start his own thing back home. I didn’t get to meet Caolan by the time I started but he did a great job designing the brewery just off of Boundary Rd and his lineup of great beers (Pils, Pale, White IPA, Jasmine IPA, Imperial Red were a few that we brewed while I was there) is still in full production with very ample brewers taking care of things. The new brewmaster, Julia, was scheduled to start but unfortunately not until after my internship ended so I did not get to meet her. She comes with tons of experience including several years looking after all aspects of brewing and production at Molson. She will bring with her a high standard of quality, consistency and efficiency that is priceless for a rapidly expanding brewery. The brewers I did get to work with were great. Lots of good ideas, experience and knowledge being shared all the time and it was really nice to feel like I could contribute to these conversations with what I had been learning in Davis. I really felt like a member of the team by the end of the two weeks. Steamworks facilities are tucked in an old tile factory/showroom building with great natural light and big square footage. They’ve got a 50 hl brewhouse, 11 or so fermenters of about 100 hl, and some conditioning and bright tanks. I was able to move around from the brewhouse to the cellar to their KHS bottling line depending on where I could help out most but I was able to spend a decent amount of time learning in all of these areas.

I moved on to Phillips in Victoria for the second internship. Phillips produces an amazing amount (both in number of varieties and amount of beer produced annually) of high quality beer. I was blown away by the amount they are able to produce on a brewhouse that produces somewhere around 30 hl per brew. They have 50 fermenters now, ranging from about 30 hl to over 200 hl and they are brewing very efficiently to fill them. They have a product development team that brews on a pilot system, a dedicated quality assurance/quality control person, a great brewing/cellar team, a fast paced packaging team as well as maintenance, folks who run the tasting room, a distiller and probably lots more that I didn’t even get to see. I was very impressed by the quality control programs and instrumentation they had at the brewery. Many of the techniques, like using PCR for microbial identification, are ahead of the game in terms of craft brewing (I think), but it makes sense when you think of how much they are producing and how quickly they are releasing new products. The brew house at Phillips was really interesting to get to see in action, it is a mash filter/press system, which we have learned about in Davis but I had never seen in person before. Having even just a tiny bit of experience on this really solidified what I had been studying about the system. A few of the other exciting things at Phillips included a CO2 recapture system, an operating distillery (where I was able to hang out with the distiller and learn more than I ever knew about distilling in about an hour and a half), and they are actually planning to do their own malting there, so I was able to at least see a large steeping tank (too bad the kiln was not installed yet, that would have been sweet to see!).

My time in Van seemed pretty quick and there were many nights of social activity with all of my friends around. My time in Vic was a little more relaxed and I was able to catch up a bit on studying which made coming back down to Davis a bit easier. I rolled in to Davis last week just in time to catch the last packaging review session and luckily made it to a micro/sensory lab on campus with Jim Brown. Tomorrow the fun starts and we start the final review sessions (first is engineering/packaging). I had a few beers with some of my classmates this weekend and that was awesome. But those nights will be pretty much nonexistent for the next 4 weeks or so until we sit the IBD exams. I’m feeling pretty good about things as they stand but definitely have lots of practice to do. Can’t wait to get to work and really can’t wait to get the exams written and over with.

Oh, one more really cool thing happened while I was gone. I was offered a brewer’s position at Steamworks and I am happy to say I have accepted it. Looks like Vancouver will once again soon be our home and I will be working at a great brewery at an exciting time. I honestly couldn’t be happier!