WE FINALLY JUST GET TO JAM - Firestone Walker Brewing Company

"WE FINALLY JUST
GET TO JAM..."
Brewmaster Matt Brynildson on how the hop revolution is
driving Firestone Walker’s next beer, Luponic Distortion.
Matt Brynildson and hops go way back. His
first job out of college was as a hop chemist.
Today, he is an international consultant for
the Hop Growers of America. In between,
he has become known as the brewmaster
at Firestone Walker Brewing Company,
where he has developed a number of notable
hop-driven beers. But it is only now—with
the advent of Luponic Distortion, a new
rotating beer to launch in early 2016—that
he and his team have been turned loose to go
off script and plunder the many marvels of the
emerging hop revolution, with the freedom to
break the rules with each new release. Here’s his
riff on how it came to be, and what to expect
from Luponic Distortion.
You’ve remarked that a beer like
Luponic Distortion wouldn’t have even
been possible a year or two ago. What
do you mean by that?
A lot of the hops we’re using weren’t available
until recently. We’re in this perfect window now,
where all of these experimental hop cultivars
that breeders and growers have been working on
for so many years are starting to come on line.
Back in the day, the big brewers were the ones
making the decisions, and there wasn’t a lot of
incentive for the hop breeders to get too creative
or push the limits. Then craft brewers came
along and said, “Wait a sec…” That was the
feedback mechanism that changed everything,
where craft brewers like ourselves would go into
the fields and interact with the growers and say,
“Hey, about we try something like this or that.”
Suddenly there was a market developing for
something different. But it couldn’t happen
overnight—it’s a minimum eight-year process
just to get a single new experimental hop off
the ground from breeding through commercial
planting.
So it’s sort of a dawning moment in the
hop world?
Exactly. It’s been steadily building, but now it
feels like the door is being blown wide open. The
real indicator is how hard it’s getting to keep
up with everything that’s coming out. Now,
whenever I’m talking with brewers like Rodger
[Davis] from Faction, or Tom Nielsen [hop
chemist at Sierra Nevada], I’m always grabbing
my notebook, saying, “Hey, what was that hop
you were just talking about?”
These hops are by no means citrus bombs like
Citra, Simcoe or Mosaic. The lead hop in the
first release of Luponic has this pineapple aroma,
while the other is more of a peach stone fruit
aroma—both really appealed to us as we were
walking through the experimental plots. There’s
another with this crazy coconut, bourbon barrellike aroma that is really interesting as well.
When I was working as a hop chemist back in the
early 90s, Cascade was this racy hop that was like,
“Whoah!” It’s what made Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
so different. When we first made Union Jack ten
years ago, Simcoe and Amarillo were the racy
new hard-to-get hops.
In the last couple of years it just blew up, and
Luponic is our opportunity to plug into it.
So yeah, it’s hard to keep up, but that’s great,
because there’s all of this mindblowing stuff
coming out.
Such as?
Well, we were walking through some plots in
the Northwest recently where the hops had this
explosive blueberry character. It was unexpected
and truly inspiring.
We’re currently working with a couple of hops
that still go by their experimental plot numbers.
Last November, I went to Germany and got
to taste a bunch of beers made with new
experimental hops that are coming up over there,
including one with a combination of tropical
notes unlike anything grown here in the states.
“Luponic is this beer that
can keep morphing and stay
interesting and remain out in
front of this crazy hop wave.”
It’s like being a kid in a candy store. We’re going
to be able to push flavors forward in this beer
that might make you swear there’s a fruit adjunct
in there, but we’re going to do it with pure hops.
Can you be more specific about some of
these experimental hops you’ve targeted
for Luponic Distortion?
No comment [laughs]…
For starters, I think it’s fun to cloak this beer in
a bit of mystery. It’s something we’ve never done
before. We’re one of those breweries that, up until
this time, we’ve probably shared too much. In
fact, we just recently shared the recipes for every
one of our beers with a homebrewing magazine.
Sometimes, though, it bites us in the ass. For
example, Mandarina [the lead German hop in
Firestone Walker’s Easy Jack] has become a bit
of problem for us. We broadcast that out there
and told everybody what was going on, and
now a lot of people are going after Mandarina
– which is great, they are supporting the heck out
of this new hop and the farmers who grow it – but
it’s also making it more difficult to source the
hops we want.
I don’t want that to sound arrogant, like we can
move the needle on any given hop like that. It’s rare.
But there have been a few instances where sharing
everything has backfired a bit. So with Luponic
Distortion, we’re going to be cagey for once.
Luponic Distortion is beer that will rotate
every 90 days or so—how much will it
change from one release to the next?
The base beer will always remain the same, but
the hops will change. Each release will push a
different experimental hop to the forefront, with
a supporting cast of other hops. So with this first
release, we’ve turned up the volume on one hop,
and then we’ll do that with another one in the
next release. And the supporting cast will evolve
as well.
So yeah, each release will represent a turn in the
road, but they won’t be sharp turns, in the way
that you go, “Hey, I don’t even recognize this
beer compared to the last one.” There will be a
common thread.
“I always go back to music. The best bands to
see live may play their greatest hits, but they
always pull out at least one song that they morph
and jam on, and it’s never the same, and that’s
what brings you back time and time again.”
It will be interesting to see how consumers react.
Some guy came to me the other day and said he
loved Luponic, but that it kind of bummed him
out. I said “What do you mean?” and he said,
“Well you’ll be changing it in three months,” and
I was like, “Yeah but it’s only going to get better,
man. We won’t let you down!”
The dry hopping of this first Luponic
Distortion release includes six different
hops—is that unusual?
It’s a little extreme. Some brewers might say,
“Train wreck! What are you doing?” But we’re
trying to balance those hop flavors and have fun
and create something to this point unavailable,
in terms of any one hop or a few hops bringing
that type of complexity.
You’ve compared this beer to a white
wine…
Yeah, I want it to drink like a stainless steel
Sauvignon Blanc that’s really clean with a lot of
fruity characteristics.
It’s part of a progression. Take Union Jack, there’s
a lot of middle malt in it, and that was the kind
of beer that was being made at the time, sort of
like a mini double IPA. Whereas now things have
progressed in the brewer world, where the chatter
is all about creating these drier beers with higher
drinkability, with less malt and bitterness. We
took a firm step in that direction with Easy Jack,
and now we’re taking it a step further.
I don’t want to say that Luponic Distortion is
unbalanced, because I think the hops themselves
are really balanced. But stylistically, it makes me
think of a cider or white wine, more razor-like,
where we’re dropping the malt presence out from
underneath and letting the hops really pop off.
What’s the inspiration behind the name
Luponic Distortion?
Every time someone goes to drink a Pivo or Easy
Jack or other Firestone beer, it should taste the
same. DBA is the classic example. That was a
beer designed before I ever got here, it had a
certain defined malt hop profile, and our job is to
forever replicate that thing and not deviate from
the original.
That all changes with Luponic Distortion. We
can completely evolve, change and redirect this
thing as new hops come to us and as we get to
know the hops better, and we don’t have to feel
tied to strict profile. Luponic is this beer that can
keep morphing and stay interesting and remain
out in front of this crazy hop wave.
I always go back to music. The best bands to see
live may play their greatest hits, but they always
pull out at least one song that they morph and
jam on, and it’s never the same, and that’s what
brings you back time and time again. Luponic
Distortion is the culmination of this journey,
where we finally just get to jam. The name is a
nod to that.
Where do you think it’s all headed?
Hard to say, but I’m hoping what happens is
people go to the store or bar and say, “Hey, the
next Luponic is out. Sweet, I gotta stay up with
that.” That would be cool.
CREATING A CULTIVAR
Creating a new hop cultivar doesn’t happen overnight. Rather,
it’s a grueling marathon, with hundreds of candidates that are
meticulously whittled down to a very few finishers over a period
of eight or more years.
Year 1
Year 2-4
Year 5-8
Year 9-11
Make Cross
Single Hill
Nursery
Multi-hill
Nursery
2-Acre Plots
Featured in this article:
Matt Brynildson, Brewmaster
Ali Razi, Production Manager
Dustin Kral, Head Brewer
Photos & Design by:
FW In-House Creative