Ilan Klages-Mundt

Quality Beer Leads to Quality People

My past week in England marked the first full month that I have been overseas studying brewing cultures. The time already seems to be flying by, and I blame my full schedule of brewery tours, pub crawls and meetings with organizations for the feeling. Something I have noticed greatly throughout this past month, as well as throughout the past several years, is that when I learned to drink quality beer, I not only learned to appreciate different beers, but I learned to appreciate the quality behind many other aspects in my life. Many of these learned qualities stem from the same likes as beer, and I bet all of you have similar findings within your own lives.

Me digging out the mash tun at The Kernel Brewery.

Last Wednesday, I brewed with Evin O’Riordain, owner and brewer at The Kernel Brewery in downtown London. Evin started up the brewery only eight months ago in a large unit underneath a train bridge. The brewery is a four-barrel system and Evin mostly produces hoppy beers as well as dark porters and stouts. Within the unit with Evin is a sausage and cheese maker. Apart from seeing these fine products being made right in front of my eyes, I realized, or I should say re-realized that soon after I started to appreciate quality beer, I discovered a love for quality cheeses.

After brewing an American pale ale with Evin that day, I was able to try some of the cheese and sausage, and was completely blown away at how amazingly complex and flavorful both were. Though I know far more about brewing that I do sausage and cheese making, I still attribute my love for good, quality food to my learning about respectable beers.

Thursday, I was yet again reminded about this phenomenon when I attended the BBC Proms in East London, where I saw the BBC Symphony Orchestra perform Sibelius’s Second Symphony. Yes, I went to college for music, and yes, I played in an orchestra, but I like many different styles of music, and I attribute my love for both quality music and quality beer to one another.

Views from Bristol

Friday morning, I left London for Bristol, which is about 100 miles west of London. The hills and historic architecture in the area made for some amazing views. After a bit of site-seeing, I traveled a few miles east to Bath Ales, a brewery that I have heard many other brewers speak very highly of. Stuart Tucker, the Quality Manager at the brewery, acted as my tour guide throughout the day, giving me access to all corners of the brewery to see how they make their beer.

Stuart gave me a very long and informative tour of both the brewery and their off-premise bottling line. I learned about the brewery’s founding in 1995 and how it has grown more than 10 times in size since then. Stuart and I were able to taste many of the beers, and I was quite impressed with the level at which they were brewed. I was told that cleanliness was an important factor in their beer making, and they considered themselves to be glorified cleaners that just happened to make beer.

Stuart Tucker in front of the tasting casks at Bath Ales.

After the tour, I was able to have a few beers and a conversation with Gerry Condell, head brewery at Bath. It didn’t take long to realize that Gerry absolutely loved everything about beer and was a little jealous of my year-long trip around the world studying beer in 14 countries. Gerry was a home brewer for many years before his current gig at Bath, and sees brewing as a way to learn about the histories of cultures and brewing styles throughout the ages. He sees the brewing industry as a caring, helpful community of people that are always willing to lend a hand to one another instead of the cut-throat business tactics that take place in other industries.

So, not only are people in the brewing industry able to be better people, but many of them appreciate so many other things in life because of their love for beer. The sharing that takes place between brewers transfers into the generosity that has been shown to me at each and every brewery, brewing club, and organizational meeting that I have been to. I firmly believe that when you do one thing in your life that is great, it will lead to others, and that is why I know my year of travel was in the right field, and is the perfect year of travel that could possibly be conceived; okay, that’s opinionated.

Starting tomorrow, I will be biking to West Kent to a farm, where I will be hop picking for a week. I’ve actually never been to a hop farm before, so no matter how physical and tiring the work ahead may be, my excitement will sustain my spirits. The farm I am traveling to grows ten varieties of hops, ranging low to high alpha acids. I’ll be sure to take pictures and videos of my adventures, so don’t miss next week’s article, which will be completely devoted to my time at the farm.