Why I Brew With Briess
Alec Mull, Founders Brewing Co.
I wake up having had dreams while I was sleeping about brewing, quite honestly. So, it is literally a dream come true. I wake up every day, like I said, I make beer with my best friends, and I really believe that that’s part of my DNA.
I’ve been fortunate to be making beer for a long, long time. And I have a personal relationship with all my ingredients. And I’m kind of a hop fanatic. I really, really enjoy hops. I’m very passionate about hops. But malt’s the soul of beer. I mean, let’s face it. You know, hopped wort is not delicious, right? People don’t drink IBUs. They drink the fermented malt, really. And that experience is really pivotal on the malt quality, the malt character. That fermentation is really why we drink beer. So as much as I love hops, I really understand how critical those malts are to that beer and that customer’s experience.
Well, Briess has been a part of my career for its entirety. And it’s been in so many beers that I’ve made over my career, especially here at Founders.
“I think Briess is in every single one of the beers that we make here at Founders. Briess has just a tremendous portfolio of specialty malts and ones that you just can’t find anywhere else.”
There is so much opportunity as a brewer to lend so many different flavors and aromas and mouthfeel, head retention, to your beer. With the palette that you have at Briess, it’s hard to go wrong.
I look at all the impactful moments in my career and all of the different folks I’ve got to work with, all the friends, the colleagues, my mentors. I look to Briess as one of those important resources, one of those important partners. My relationship with Briess, my relationship with Penny, for example, has been instrumental, and really, really helped develop me as a brewer, as a person. And we make mistakes…you know, we forget to order a truck or something like that.
“Briess is always there for us. No questions asked. We have a partner in this business together, at Founders and Briess.”
Well, as brewers, we’re really at the mercy of mother nature. The malt supply, it’s really important that we have high-quality malt. In Wyoming, in particular, is this little microclimate, and domestically here, this last year has been really challenging. The 2021 crop, for example, I think that Wyoming barley was probably the best barley we saw domestically here. And really important for us that quality stays high.
The consumer doesn’t know that we had a bad crop year. It’s really, really important that we really just have the highest quality beer from a day-to-day perspective so that that consumer, when they grab that pint of beer, it is exactly what they expect. And we know that we can get that from the malt coming out of Wyoming.
Jeremy Kosmicki, our world-class brewmaster, does a lot of R&D innovation, is always thinking about new batches of beer. He knows the Briess portfolio like the back of his hand. And he has those thoughts and images in his mind of what he wants that beer to be, and Briess is a part of all those.
“I have so many favorite malts, quite honestly. It’s really hard [to choose]. It’s like asking which is your favorite kid. The portfolio you have at Briess is really second to none, especially domestically”
Personally, it’s hard to pick. I’m a big fan of the flaked corn that we use from Briess. Second to none, fantastic…it really adds a lot to our beer. I’ve been using it since the ’90s, honestly.
But Carapils® is in every single one of the beers we make here at Founders because you have so many great ones. Bonlander® is fantastic, your chocolates, your roasted, your blacks…all add so much depth to beer. I’m actually kind of thirsty.
