By: Jamie Fulton, Head Brewer
My journey to becoming a brewmaster began in the summer of 2002 with my friend Dustin. I had just finished a summer course at Le Cordon Bleu covering some basics of French culinary arts. We were presently in Amsterdam – our third stop across Europe – when we decided to visit the Heineken Experience Museum, which once housed the Heineken Brewery. Now it’s strictly a tourist attraction, but they serve great beer in this museum!
No, it wasn’t the first time I tasted beer; I’d tasted many craft beers by this point. Rather, it was the first time I experienced what every brewer knows: the synergy of raw ingredients combined to make the flavors we know as beer. One of the first “rooms” you enter in the museum isn’t a room per se; it’s an old malt silo. In the corner, poured out onto the concrete was a large pile of fresh barley malt.
“Go ahead, taste it if you like,” the guide told us.
I immediately walked over, grabbed a handful and chewed and ate it like it was breakfast (probably was). “Man that’s pretty tasty,” I remember thinking. It’s a wholesome, slightly sweet, grainy flavor that brought nostalgia of things I’ve eaten/drank: beer, Grape Nuts, granola, etc.
The next room was a lesson on hops and what they contribute to beer. As with the barley, the guide encouraged us to “experience” the hops. I grabbed a handful of the not-so-glamorous looking green pellets and rubbed them between my palms, smelling the fruity/spicy/hoppy aromas burst out. “Wow! That’s what I’ve been tasting…”
The next room put it all together for you. You enter and they pour you the most refreshing Heineken you’ve ever tasted. It was at this point that it all clicked for me: the taste of the barley malt, the perfectly balanced, subtle hop character. I just finished “experiencing” these flavors and aromas in the previous rooms, now here they were for me infused into this tasty beverage. I was very intrigued.
You might think, “So you became a brewer because you tasted some fresh Heineken?!” Or, “I hate Heineken, that beer’s for posers.”
No, and I disagree.
There is beauty in the simplicity and subtlety of European lagers. There are few beers that showcase the raw flavors of malted barley and noble hops, and do so with balance and elegance. The trick with most of these beers – for those not fortunate enough to live near one of the breweries – is getting them fresh! That’s what clicked for me. Usually Heineken is skunky or oxidized when I had tasted it, it was definitely never inspiring! Yet that’s how fresh and delicious it was at the museum. I was inspired.
As we proceeded across the continent, we shared many great beers together, most notably in Munich, of course, and also in Prague and Interlaken. At one point near the end of our adventure I said, “Dustin when we get home, I’m gonna brew some beer. It’s just all so fresh over here!”
The idea was planted; the journey began. Moral of the story: Drink fresh, local beer!
