5 QUESTIONS WITH…
Tyler Jones, Lord of the Liquid at Black Hog Brewing
Years Brewing: 10
Favorite Amherst Beer: “The one in my hand! Love them all. But if I had to pick one to drink all the time it would be the Easy Rye’Da IPA.”
Favorite Type of Beer: “Beer is so situational for me. What time of the year, what I am eating and what is the last beer I just drank all come into play when I am deciding what beer I want to drink.”
1. What are you drinking when you’re not drinking your own beer?
“I love trying anything locally made. If I am in other parts of the country or in my backyard it is great to see what other brewers are making out there.”
2. Does anything from your Chemical Engineering degree cross over into your brew duties?
“Only everything! Brewing is Biochemistry, Fluid Dynamics, Heat transfer, Art, and Magic all rolled up into one process. That is why I love it! It keeps both sides of my brain firing all day long.”
3. What got you into brewing?
“Finding a homebrew kit in the coat closet of my apartment in college. Then when I made my second, third, fourth batch I started to fall in love with recipe development. Then the light bulb went off in my head and found my career.”
4. What is your favorite part of the brewing process and why?
“Mashing process is my favorite part. As a Brewer, this is where you have the control over the color, ABV, mouthfeel, and flavor of the finished beer. As a Brewer, you make wort (sugar water) and the yeast make the beer. So the Mash Tun in my mind is what separates good brewers from great brewers.”
5. What caused the branch out into Mead and Sours?
“I haven’t made any straight meads at Black Hog Brewing. I did a Braggot, which was a beer and mead blend, called Brett Brown Braggot. But the sour and funky beers all come out of our Disco Pig program. Where we found a 20bbl unjacketed tank at the scrap yard. Cleaned the crap out of it and welded in some fittings and made our Disco Pig tank out of it. This gives me a dedicated tank to do one-off Brett fermentation and sour/funky/unique beers in it. All these styles are some of the oldest styles out there and are starting to slowly come back into Vogue. The Disco Pig tank gives me a clean canvas to be totally creative with the beer and try some stuff that I can’t do on my ‘clean’ tanks. “
Oct 19, 2017
