How far removed from the initial idea is the final product we all now commonly drink?
At a brewery this size, the initial idea often comes from anywhere but the brewery. We’re pretty darn busy making beer. We have a large sales team that pitches ideas for beers they’d like to sell. The marketing folks have ideas for beers they think will enhance the brand. Our job is to work with them and nail down what it is they’re after and develop the recipe. For example, we actually had someone in the company come to us once and ask us to brew a beer in the style of a competitor, but with “more attitude.” Well, as you know, attitude is not yet available in malted or pelletized form. So, in that case the final product was very far removed from the initial idea. We had to have a long talk about what was really wanted, in beer terms. Other ideas are more straightforward like our Oktober Weizen we released this year. We set out to brew a wheat-based Oktoberfest. We specialize in wheat beers but we have successfully brewed oktoberfests in the past, so we didn’t have far to go in getting
