Seattle Press on Line - Making Beer is a Big Time Joy

Making Beer is a Big Time Joy

Brewmaster Kevin Forhan (left) and Assistant Brewer Bill Jenkins in the Big Time brewery in the University District.

Sep 20, 2000 -- Beer was undoubtedly discovered by accident. When grains of barley sprout, enzymes start turning the starch in the sugar. If some wild yeast, which floats on the summer breeze, finds the sugar and there's water present, fermentation starts. Alcohol and carbon dioxide are produced. Drink it, and you'll get a buzz. You might like the taste. If you don't like the taste, you could add some herbs, hops for example, to change the taste of the brew. You can boil it, filter it, or try roasting the barley a little more, then grind it before adding the yeast. Add some oats, add a little wheat. It's trial and error over thousands of years.

"Making beer is one of the most beautiful things imaginable," says Kevin Forhand, brewmaster at Big Time Brewery in the University District. Forhand started out making his own beer at home, then found the job of his dreams in a real brewery.

In the brewery the air is full of smells and flavors. You shovel the fragrant grain into the grinder; then it's put in a vat and heated for a day or so; the resulting sweet mash is filtered off. Yeast is added, and when the yeast has finished its work, you have a vat of beer. You cool it, separate out the yeast, barrel and bung it. Serve it in the pub.

At Big Time and other brewpubs around the city, most of the work is done in plain view of the pub patrons. The vats are stainless steel tanks. The brewers slosh around in hip waders, constantly hosing foamy waste down the gutters.

Kevin adds a little oatmeal to the mix for flavor. Sometimes coffee is added to the brew for a bitter taste. Flavorings in beer are limited only by the brewers’ imagination.

Nitrogen is injected into some of the sweet heavy stout-like beers. The nitrogen makes smaller bubbles that rise more slowly in the glass and produce a thick, creamy head.

Stone-age people brewed in clay pots. Today we use stainless steel vats and complicated plumbing. But the ingredients, the process and the joys of brewing and imbibing are unchanged though the centuries.

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Kevin Forhan	Sep 09, 2002	Winnipeg	Student
Yaa!!!! My name is Kevin Forhan... I'm going to be a Beer Brewing Master in the Future!!! YES!!!!!