Though located in Anheuser-Busch’s St. Louis headquarters, A-B’s Research Pilot Brewery probably has more in common with a small craft outfit than it does with Anheuser-Busch’s flagship brewery next door. The small-scale facility enables A-B to experiment with a vast array of ingredients and new brewing techniques, along the way creating eccentric beers such as a Mexican molé, an imperial stout or Shock Top Twisted Pretzel Wheat Ale.
Brewer Rob Naylor has the privilege of managing this brewing playground every workday. A St. Louis native, Naylor has been with A-B for over a dozen years, working in both Innovation and Maintenance departments before stepping into the brewmaster role at the Pilot Brewery this past winter.
But Naylor also has a long history of brewing on a much smaller scale. As he explains, “When I first started working at A-B, my girlfriend at the time got me a Mr. Beer Kit — that was my very first homebrewing experience.” Later, he would homebrew at Washington University while obtaining a chemical engineering degree, and he still brews a handful of batches for fun each year at home.
Thankfully, his many years of brewing successes and mistakes has brought with it a range of lessons about brewing at any scale. Drawing these experiences, Naylor shared with us his top five tips for beginner-through-advanced homebrewers: 1) Don’t Rush 2) Experiment With Variables By preparing the maximum amount of wort possible, a brewer can play with different variables to achieve the best product possible and learn for the future. Yeast, for example, can play a enormous role in determining the flavor of a beer, as Naylor learned first hand: “A couple of years ago, I brewed a batch large enough to split into two fermenters — pitching a Belgian Ale yeast in one, and an English Ale yeast in the other. I bottled the beers and had family and friends try the two side by side during the holidays. No one believed that the only difference between the beers was the yeast!” 3) Pamper Your Yeast 4) “Build” Your Water The most experienced homebrewer should research the types of water traditionally used to make each style of beer. For example, a Czech pilsner should be brewed with water free of calcium, magnesium, and other minerals to mirror the notoriously soft water indigenous to the region in which it is brewed. Meanwhile, the incredibly hard water of particular regions in the UK help produce the unique flavor profile of certain English pale ales. Naylor suggests buying distilled water (or distilling your own) before adding whatever supplemental minerals are necessary. 5) Keep It Clean! Finally, Naylor says that by far, most important to homebrewing – and often most challenging – is ensuring that all equipment is spotlessly clean. “I know that cleaning isn’t the most fun part of homebrewing,” he admits, “but not prioritizing it can have the most negative impact.”
Making good beer takes time – cutting corners will only end in disaster! Naylor recalls one particular experience from his own homebrewing days in college: “I spent five to six hours cleaning, grinding, mashing, and boiling my wort. I had to be somewhere in an hour, so I tried to hurry cooling the wort by using hot, and then warm water. Everything went according to plan…until the glass carboy broke due to the rapid fluctuation in temperature. My entire beer ended up down the drain.” For those wishing to speed things up, Naylor recommends the use of a wort chiller, which will safely cool your beer to the proper temperature as efficiently as possible.
More advanced homebrewers should focus a bit more on yeast health and aeration. Although each homebrewer has his or her own method of aerating their wort, Naylor suggests purchasing an aerating stone from a pet store or any shop that sells aquarium supplies. By doing so, he explains, “the homebrewer can easily reach oxygen saturation by aerating the wort for a few hours.”
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