The first step in the process is called malting. The malting process consists of
sprouting raw barley and then kilning it slightly to dry out. This does two things:
it softens the hard starches inside the grain, making them soluble, and it causes enzymes
to be produced inside the kernel. Very few breweries do their own malting.
We obtain our malted barley from suppliers in Alberta and Great Britain.
Our brew day begins by measuring out the malted barley and
milling it to expose the starchy material inside the husks. The cracked grain is
then mixed with hot water in the “mash turn”. The resulting thick slurry of grain,
called the “mash”, is held at about 65 degrees celsius for over an hour. The result
of this process is the creation of sugar for the yeast to consume.
The mash will be given various infusions and rests during this process.
Since yeast has a very limited diet great care must be taken in order to ensure the
correct type of sugars are created. This is a direct result of mash time and temperature.
The higher the temperature the more dextrins are produced. Once the proper mixture has been
obtained we will begin “sparging” the mash.
During this step we begin transferring the sweet liquid to the
brew kettle. In order to extract all of the sugar out of the grain we rinse the mash with
hot water. This mixture of sweet liquid and hot water, called “wort” (pronounced wert) is
pumped into the brew kettle.
Once in the brew kettle, we use a heat transfer process to bring
the water to a vigorous boil. Hops are added at several specific times throughout the boil.
Boiling the wort does several things - it percipitates out unwanted proteins, sterilizes the
wort and extracts the bittter acids from the hops which give the beer its characteristic flavour.
After the boil the wort is chilled to about 26 degrees celsius by
passing it through a wort chiller. The wort is then transferred into one of our temperature
contolled fermentation vessels. Shortly after we begin chilling the wort the yeast is added
to the solution and the week long fermentation process begins.
Once the yeast has completed its cycle and the desired specific
gravity has been obtained the beer is chilled and transferred to a maturation vessel.
In maturation it is stored at one to four degrees celcius for four to five weeks. This
period of conditioning allows many of the fine particles of yeast time to settle out.
The final process, before it is dispensed is filtering and carbonation.
All of our beers are filtered using a plate and frame filter. We pass the beer through fifteen
micron filter pads to remove any remaining particles. After filteration, the beer is touched up
with carbonation and sent to the dispensing towers.
