I haven't brewed privately, but worked in a small local brewery for a while. Lots of lifting and carrying heavy bags and sooo much cleaning, but fun and interesting to try.
Yeast is making two kinds of beer right now. They're fermenting in the living room. I just added extra hops during the ferment of an IPA before watching this video. It was cool to see beer made with proper equipment. 😅
Matt, you've never driven a forklift until you've driven one with 72 inch forks trying to lift standard pallets... and put the blades through the wall on the other side. At an old job, my boss got tired of us forking the walls between us and the neighbors and chewed us out one day. Not five minutes later, he hops on the forklift to pick up a skid in order to place it on a delivery truck... and forked the walls. We all got one free stab at the walls after that.
I gotta say some things about Ben. Firstly he;s a pretty good teacher, dude was patient as hell and was able to explain it all very clearly and concisely while allowing you to actively do things as you learn, and he sounds like Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe).
I had lots of neat little aha! moments in here. “But if they use the same water for sterilizing and brewing won’t that mean the chemicals end up in the beer” … “Ohhhh it’s sterilized via temperature not chemicals!”
As a food scientist, i really appreciate episodes like this where you can see the importance of hygiene and knowing your process and product. I love how you caught on on how well controlled everything is, and that there's a lot of science behind making a consistently good beer. If you do get a chance to see a bottling plant at work, make sure to check it out because it looks really impressive. Yes, this is where the product gets made, but you can't see much happening, during filling and labelling you see a lot of incredibly finely choreographed movement.
I've got to say that even more than the rest of the series, this one really shows off how good you are at summarising knowledge. The number of times I was "I think I understand what he's saying...." only for you to clarify it perfectly was really noticeable. Great work conveying what's going on to the layman as it were. 😀
Those hoses looking new is no accident, they have to be replaced regularly, as they also get sterilised in boiling water, so they do degrade. That is why every part is stainless steel, and you strip it all apart so that all the dead spaces get cleaned as well, so as to not trap anything that might contaminate the beer.
We need a follow up episode where you taste the beer and Ben tells us more about low alcohol beer and how that is different (significantly so I would imagine) from stronger beer that has been converted to lower (or no) alcohol. I have a weird taste in beers, I like the really strong Belgian type AND then some low to ultra-low alcohol. Alcohol free is seldom that good, but 0.5 to 2-3 % can be lovely. I fear the hype about alcohol free is killing many nice brews :-(.
Is alcohol free this much of an hype in some places? There is like two big bear maker who makes them and all the other just store brand ones. I have yet to see any small brewer make/sell anything alcohol free.
I really can't imagine a video more comprehensively answering every question I had about beer. This entire series has been great, but Matt as interviewer was especially spot on - and credit to Ben for explaining things well. Nailed it.
Ben is great. Extremely knowledgeable and passionate about his craft. Love to see young people keeping old crafts alive. But I’m a bit disappointed you didn’t try the beer you made. I know that would have meant to wait a few weeks but it would have been a great ending to the video.
I used to sub contract (IT) to a very large Brewery company in Burton. It was really interesting to see all of the equipment being used by Small Beer is literally smaller versions of the equipment said larger brewer uses in their breweries (with the exception of the kettles, which were beautiful copper kettles). I am thoroughly looking forward to the future video titled "Matt Gray is Trying a Pint of His Small Beer."
As a German, I can say: there's a lot of choices for beer, and Kölsch has to be my least favorite. But opinions are different, Flens was even worse. :D
So glad you've made another one of these! Its one of my favorite series right now! Really hoping it goes big so you can keep making them! You deserve to.
Great stuff, this is the best explanation of beer making that I have seen. What makes you so good at this kind of thing Matt, is that you are genuinely interested, you're not afraid to ask the 'stupid' questions, and you will keep asking things until you understand fully.
Being a brewer looks like a fun job. Apart from all the physical labour and valve turning involved in the big industrial process, there are a lot of things in there that I as a chemistry student am very familiar with.
We damn well better get at least a short on you tasting the pint of beer you helped make! :) I absolutely love the show, like others said, there's something inherently magical about seeing a grown man channel his inner child, AND inner nerd. Especially when you clearly share that energy with the craftsmen you visit, though that just might be the simple fact of working with people who Love what they do. :)
ohh, I'd also thought malts were totally different from "other grains", but they're just processed! The part about the hops was also really interesting, they're almost like tea leaves... I thought I don't like beers that are "hoppy" because they're bitter, but maybe now I can look for ones that have more of the hops added to the cooled concoction and see if they suit me better. Floral and citrusy are adjectives right up my alley 😄
Find out the IBU, International Bitterness Units, of the beers. High IBU will have more boiled hops, a low IBU "dry hopped" beer will have less bitterness but more of the hop flavors.
Great video Matt! I look forward to catching up on the series. Ps it was great seeing you today at makers Central, thank you so much for giving us the time and being so kind. Cheers J
I love this guys explanation of what beer is and how it’s made. He made it super accurate and simple. A kolsch is basically a German style that’s like a lager as an ale. 😮
This one probably ticked off a couple of series items, I would think that driving a forklift would have been a thing Matt would have done an episode for all on its own.
One of the best videos I've seen for a very long time (possibly helped by drinking a beer whilst watching how they make beer!) so thank you Matt! Matt's super inquisitive nature and Ben's outstanding ability to explain something complicated in simple terms (seriously, I cannot understate how good Ben was in this video!) made this a real treat to watch, thanks again.
oooh, I think this might be the first video you've done that is a topic I actually know about! Brewing beer is fun. Designing beers is also fun. Many years ago I designed a Hefeweizen called Badger. We used locally sourced honey in the boil and ferment to give it a little extra. Was super proud of that brew. Got a lot of comments from neighbors and friends who tried it. Biggest batch I ever made was 5 gallons. For a time my room mate and I were looking into opening a microbrewery, but unfortunately that didn't ever go anywhere :(
> It's like when you're at the zoo... And you see the animals taking care of their motions. > It is animal feed. > I was meaning it looks like poo. @ 16:40 Oh god I haven't laughed this much in quite some time!
Some fun facts about brewing raw materials- Barley is really well suited for malting due to the structure and enzyme content allowing for starches to be quickly broken down to fermentable sugars, the husk material is also really useful for filtration. This is one of the reasons why malted barley tends to make up the lion's share of grist composition. Cereal grains like malt barley also provide other nutrients for yeast like amino acids and phosphates, and flavour compounds such as maillard reaction products from malting and boiling. Some other cereal grains used in brewing include wheat, rye, maize, rice and sorghum. Ale yeast "Saccharomyces cerevisiae" is the same yeast used in baking and winemaking (as well as sake, cider, mead etc.), although a different assortment of strains with behaviours and characteristics more favourable to their applications are used for other activities. In some vessel shapes, ale yeast will rise to the top in fermentation, as opposed to sink to the bottom which lager yeast would do- nowadays cylindroconical vessels are widely used in which both yeasts drop to the bottom. Lager yeast "Saccharomyces pastorianus" is a different species from ale yeast, as it is a hybrid of ale yeast and another species. One of the different characteristics of lager yeast is it prefers lower temperatures. Water profile in brewing is important, amongst other things the content can impact pH, enzyme and yeast performance, different ratios of ions/minerals- sulphate to chloride for example can heavily impact beer flavour. Several historic places for brewing have distinct water profiles, which were preferable for certain beer styles. Today we can replicate those water profiles anywhere. Hop cones are actually fruits, and the hop plant is in the same phylogenetic family as Cannabis. Female plants are the only ones to bear fruit, and hop bines for harvest are widely grown from root cuttings. Hops provide an antibacterial effect in addition to their flavour/aroma and bittering properties. Before hops were used widely, a mixture of herbs and spices called gruit was used which included things like mugwort and sweet gale.
I knew how to, (theoretically), make beer, but i heaven't seen it in action yet! This video learned me a lot about the process. Thank you Matt, (and your team), for producing, and Ben and 'Small beer' for sharing your knowledge!
Love your videos, Matt. Perhaps as many, I've discovered you through Tom Scott (first, by seeing his videos a couple of years back, then viewing some (actually, quite a lot of the) Park Bench episodes, listening in to Tech Difficulties... Best of luck with what you do and wish to see more. All the best & greetings from LT. P.S. NordVPN/NordSecurity / Surfshark & others should definitely sponsor your content more frequently. You deserve viewership of millions! :)
21:39 Holy crap I have never seen a White Labs yeast pouch so big! They make some fantastic yeast strains. Their tasting rooms in Asheville and San Diego are great, they will do the same beer with 3 different yeasts to show off the flavor differences. Also they have some of the best pizza I have ever had. :)
The quality of everything I've just seen is outstanding! And your excitement is contagious, with every minute watched I got more excited for the next steps!
Here for the beer content! And the Matt Grey enthusiasm for the subject. Nicely explained process. Hope there is a follow up video tasting the beer made. Cheers and enjoy the beer #Disco
Ha! They really make small beer! I actually did start drinking mostly low alcohol beer, as a colleague and I found ourselves being close to being drunks (alcoholics have more money and maybe style). So we investigated alternatives. We still enjoy a drink or five on occasion.
Just a little appreciation note for the editing/music/animation in this video! All makes for a very nice watch, never mind the subject content and very charismatic people on-screen! :3
This was lovely to see, thanks :) Hope to see a follow-up sample session! FYI: the subtitles talk of 'molting' rather than 'malting', which (I thought) are two different things. ;)
11:00 It's very fun to watch a professional switch from "showing you my job" to "hold on doing my job now" mode. One of Destin's Coast Guard videos also comes to mind, obviously a lot more abrupt. 12:30 Insert "you're not very good at negotiating are you" clip from National Treasure 😂
this should be a publically funded show helping kids pick a career (theres something similar in switzerland, but not with an unexperienced person trying to do the job)
Wow, I think this is the best one yet, Matt. Loved all the details shared by Ben; not only does he have all this knowledge he was able to communicated it really well. I knew everyone used to drink beer because it was safer but hadn't heard the term "Small beer" before.
I'm always wary about assuming someone's online persona lines up with how they really are off-camera, but either Matt is a surprisingly convincing actor or they're just genuinely one of the most delightful people I've seen ...now if only I could maintain anything close to that level of bubbly enthusiasm 😅
Small beer is interesting. In Oklahoma we used to have really strict liquor laws making it so most beer was 3.2% alcohol or below. You could get higher percentages but you had to buy it at liquor stores. And I think bars also had it but the majority was still 3.2%. when I started drinking beer in my late 20's I quickly got a tolerance so it would take 2-3 beers before I felt any sort of intoxicated. I went to Vegas a year or so after I started casually drinking. I sat down at a ot machine and was given a free bud lite. Drank it and nothing. They gave me another one and then a third. After I finished that one I decided it was time to walk back to my hotel. As soon as I stood up it hit me. I had forgotten that I was basically drinking twice as much as normal. That walk back was interesting.
