Widmer was kind enough to host the OBC again for our July meeting. This is usually a really cool event at its face: we get to talk shop briefly and then brewers from Widmer take interested members on tours of the brewery.
This time, however, there was some extra cool stuff in store for us.
First, they let us sample their three specialty beers: An imperial stout, an imperial stout with raspberries and a hibiscus ale (I think.) They were all delicious but unfortunately I wasn’t in a position to get much in the way of details about the beers. I just got to try them (the raspberryberry one was my favorite but all of them were good) and then step aside for the next lucky taster.
I did get a picture!
The other cool thing I got to do was talk to an employee named Jacob who convinced Widmer to purchase a homebrewing system for…Widmer. (I also briefly spoke with Kevin, who, I’m told, built it.) Take a look at this beauty:
The obvious question is: Why does a brewery need a system of this scale? Which is what I asked Jacob. He told me that, in addition to this being a way for Widmer to appear at homebrewing events, generating excitement about brewing and by extension, Widmer, it was also a way for employees to brew and have fun.
“There are ideas we have,” he said, “that we don’t want to make ten barrels of, but ten gallons? Totally doable. Then we can try things out, send them to the lab for analysis and maybe decide if a batch should be kicked up to the next level (of production.)”
Which is just such a simple and amazing idea I can’t believe it isn’t being done everywhere. (Which it probably is I just only know about this one.)
A pint for Dionysus 
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