Jeffers Richardson

The best speakers we've had so far came to class this afternoon. Jeffers Richardson is the creator of the Firestone Union system that has become an integral part of how California's fourth largest brewery makes beer. He joined Firestone walker in 1995 after he was tapped to be the companies first brewmaster, tasked with figuring out a way to make beer in wine barrels. What he came up with was something similar to how beer was made in the 1800's in Burton upon Trent in the UK. Basically it consists of a bunch of barrels vented to allow for the collection of yeast. After establishing the brewery, Jeffers left (because of a lady friend) and worked at Sierra Nevada as well as dabbling in the olive oil industry for a while before returning to Firestone Walker a few years ago. The brewery had another challenge for him. Like the first time it was focused on barrels. So for the past few years Jeffers has been setting up a wild beer barrel program and a spirits barrel program.

The spirit barrel program uses wet barrels (mostly Kentucky bourbon) and matures high gravity beers in them for about a year. The beers pick up flavor from the wood and the spirits as well as a significant boost in alcohol. Today we tried Parabola, a 14 %ABV, 82 IBU Russian Imperial Stout that had been matured in Kentucky Bourbon barrels for 12 months. It was fantastic. You could really feel this beer in your mouth. Flavors of molasses, toasted marshmallow, bittersweet chocolate, and subtle notes of ripe banana blended with vanilla and oak from the barrel. Definitely something I wish were available out in New York.

While the spirits barrel program is purely about maturation, the wild barrel program is all about bugs. Mostly used wine barrels and retired Firestone Union barrels come into the program. Wort is made in the original Firestone brewery 86 miles away and delivered to the Barrelworks brewery and pumped into the barrels. These are then inoculated with various mixtures of yeast and bacteria cultures and fermented and aged for between 12-36 months depending on the beer and the barrel. Jeffers told us that unlike classical brewing where you can tell withing a day or so when a beer is done, with barrel programs, the beer and the barrel tell you when it is done. This is mostly done by taste. Currently, the program has over 500 barrels...that's a lot of tasting. Once barrels are matured to the point that Jeffers and his colleagues believe it is ready for serving the process of blending begins. Jeffers and blending master Jim Crooks sample barrels and take notes. They compare these notes and then move on to preliminary blending trials. Once they have something they like they introduce it to Adam Firestone and David Walker to see if they approve. If it is a go, they rack the barrels to a stainless steel tank for blending and then bottle it on the old bottling line from Russian River that Vinnie Cilurzo gave them...for free. Jeffers uses wine yeast to condition the beer in the bottle and in about 10 weeks the beer is carbonated and diacetyl free. This Feral One is the first release from the Barrelworks program and it is the best sour beer I have ever tasted.

The new goal before I leave California is to make it to Firestone Walker for a visit. Although I didn't describe it above, that IPA second from the right was hands down one of the best I've ever had. It was 9.5 %ABV and 100 IBU and went down with frightening smoothness. These guys know how to make balanced beer in an innovative way without worrying too much about what other people think beer should be. I think I have a new favorite California brewery.