Quality

With picking now underway in the Pacific Northwest, there are three debutants at the harvest ball. What might Dolcita, Vera, and HQG4 add to your brewery’s portfolio?

Quality isn’t only about flavor and freshness—testing for color is important for making sure your beer is consistently meeting the drinker’s expectations. Here’s what to know.

Adding a quality lab can seem daunting to a small brewery, but it’s not so bad when you know what equipment you need and which tests are appropriate for your scale. Here, we outline exactly what you should need.

Many smaller breweries lack the resources to perform regular cell counts on their yeast pitches or slurries. Luckily, yeast share some of their secrets with us via pH values, and that can be an easy way to check on their health. Here’s what to know.

There’s a hop surplus now and a flush spot market, but that won’t always be true. What do hop merchants say brewers should be asking, to ensure quality and spend wisely?

Researchers and yeast labs are looking closer at whether yeast-killing yeast—such as those that snuff out diastatic strains, preventing cross-contamination—may have broader applications in brewing.

In hard seltzers and other FMBs, sulfur as an off-flavor can be an even smellier obstacle than it is in beer. Here’s how to avoid it.

By making direct connections with farmers, wherever they are, brewers can improve the quality and variety of hops they get—even at the smallest breweries.

In this clip from his video course, Breakside cofounder and brewmaster Ben Edmunds explains why ALDC is no silver bullet when it comes to hop creep—and how his team found a better way to use it while shaving off some tank time.

Looking for a way to get better yield while maximizing your equipment and hitting your targets consistently? Try mashing and brewing to a higher gravity, then adding water before fermentation. Breakside brewmaster Ben Edmunds explains.

New varieties and products on the immediate horizon range from a defiantly intriguing public hop to compounds that might emulate “sticking your head in a bag of weed.” Will you apply the eye dropper, or the sledgehammer?

Successful breweries prioritize quality, from raw materials all the way to finished, packaged product. Yet even after your beer leaves the brewery grounds, there are ways to help ensure that people are enjoying the best possible version of it.

Whether it’s an unfamiliar style, yeast, or dipping into barrel-aging and blending, Breakside brewmaster Ben Edmunds explains why it pays to know your brewery’s wheelhouse—and to carefully, thoughtfully add to those strengths.

Ben Edmunds, cofounder and brewmaster of Breakside Brewing in Portland, Oregon, shares his insights on how to build and maintain a methodical quality program that can take your brewery’s beers from consistently good to consistently excellent.

For anyone serious about quality, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as a well-thought-out binder packed with standard operating procedures. Here’s how to get started on SOPs for your brewery’s quality program.

It takes more than a skilled brewer to consistently make great beer. It takes a holistic approach that extends from the top to every employee—and even to the drinkers themselves.

Brewers don’t typically lose sleep over Bacillus, despite it being ubiquitous throughout the brewery. Being aware of it and knowing when it can cause problems can help ensure better, more consistent beer.

Widely available programs such as Excel or Google Sheets can be simple yet powerful tools for your brewing business, helping you achieve more consistent fermentations and a more predictable brewing schedule.

No brewery is too small or too short-handed to get a sensory panel going, and the education and expertise gained can be invaluable to the business. Here’s how to get your panel off the ground.

Happy yeast make better beer and a stronger brewing business. Here are some tips from the yeast whisperers to maximize your fermentations and lock in greater consistency.