Student Daze

We've had a young brewing student, Liam, from Edinburgh's Heriot-Watt University, over the last two months learning about brewing at the coal face, far away from the Hallowed Groves of Academe and the Search for Enlightenment.

He has been accompanied by young Czech brewing student Alesh Potesil, below, from Pivovarsky Dum in Prague, for the past three weeks, in learning the ropes in a production brewery specialising in ale, unlike the pilsner beers he knows well.

Chez Inveralmond, the daily quest for wisdom is relatively simple, yet complex: for example - how to get the young beer from fermenter into conditioning tanks and with which hoses and pumps and which bit goes where without having a beer fountain (much more fun and funnier than that of chocolate - if it's someone else's doing) or getting the wrong hoses connected to the wrong tank, thus leading to very grim-faced head brewer and an ashen-faced student.

Therefore the motto here is similar to that of carpenters, measure twice, cut once. In our case, check route of beer twice, then open valve. Liam has been doing a grand job and is discovering that practical brewing, as opposed to higher level microbiology, is very much rooted in common sense and maintaining high standards of physical awareness - e.g., where will that cask roll off the pallet and on to whose foot; how best to bang in cask tap with a mallet without the afore-mentioned beer fountain; holding a heavy beer-filled hose with left hand and connecting hose nut on to valve thread with right hand; listening to the cooling pumps to check all is in order; etc etc.

Alesh, in his turn, has been discovering the joys of infusion mashing with fully-modified malt (without the typical decoctions and multi-temperature mashes with under-modified czech malt) together with our crazy (in his eyes) temperatures for fermenting the wort (18.5 instead of 8 degrees C) and maturation of one week for ale unlike the two months he's used to.

It's vital in the brewery to have an understanding of the science of brewing, but equally it's essential to have an understanding of how beer works, as a beverage, as a social relaxant and convivial accompaniment as well as how the art of making beer enhances our lives and does its small bit in improving the human condition - in addition to getting the process right!

Having the opportunity to take on a student every year is great for us and them as they can learn more practical brewing and management skills in 2 weeks with us than 2 years of textbook study. And we can learn about the latest trends in music, how an ipod works and which nightclubs to avoid...or not!

Slainte, Ken