JOHN HOLL: A round with Matt Brynildson

As one of the most recognized, awarded and respected brewers in America today, Matt Brynildson has done quite a lot in a short period of time. He has worked at, and participated in, a number of breweries, including a spell as the head brewer for Goose Island Brewing Co. in Chicago. Today, he hangs his hat at Firestone Walker Brewery in Paso Robles, California, where he is the brewmaster.

John Holl:The brewery has won numerous awards at prestigious competitions like the World Beer Cup and the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). Has there been a particular philosophy you’ve followed to achieve that success?

Matt Brynildson: There really isn’t any particular strategy or special approach that we employ when it comes to competition. If anything, we use competitions as an opportunity to sit down as a group and taste our beers through the prism of the competition style guidelines and spend a moment considering how our beers stack up relative to all the wonderful beers available today.

Some of our beers fit nicely into the standard style guidelines and some just don’t have a home in the competitions. If I had to pick one thing that I believe is responsible for our success over the years, it would be our philosophy that no beer is perfect and that all things can be improved.

Our brewing team is quality focused and constantly looking to improve the way we make our beers. We don’t wake up a couple of weeks before a competition and say “lets really make this one count.” Making a better beer is a daily part of how we approach our work.

JH:Many of your beers are hop forward and you’ve been able to coax a lot of different flavors into a lot of different styles. What’s the fun and the challenges in making exceptionally hoppy beers?

MB: I have always been fascinated with hops, maybe obsessed is a better word. One of my favorite parts of being a brewer is raw material sourcing and searching for quality hops.

You find out that most hop growers are just like brewers, they are passionate about being hop farmers and geek out on it as much as we do about our trade. They will tell you, just like many brewers will, that hops get into your blood. The craft brewing movement has breathed new life into the hop-growing world.

This is one of the most exciting times in recorded history relative to innovation and development in the hop growing and research world. I do my best to stay up with it and understand the developments and apply them to our program.

Even after you have found the best hops and created wonderful flavors with them, hoppy beer is very unforgiving. How you manage the process relative to yeast health, oxygen control, gentle transfers and good packaging makes the real difference between good hoppy beer and great hoppy beer.

Our distribution and retail partners are waking up to this fact as well. The better we can manage inventories, rotation and cold storage of our hard work out in the trade, the better our beers will to taste to the people who love them.

JH:Can you share some of the background on your barrel-aging program?

MB: I had the wonderful fortune of learning how to brew with Greg Hall at Goose Island — one of the original craft brewers to use Bourbon barrels and who went on to create an amazing barrel-aging program.

Although I didn’t have a lot to do with that program at the time, I certainly learned what barrel aging could do to transform beer flavor and create complexity.

Like hops, you can really dive deep into the world of barrels and the flavors that can be derived through their use. Our barrel program began as a small project creating our 10th anniversary beer and grew to be a significant part of our beer portfolio.

We have been fermenting beer in barrels since the brewery began back in 1996, so working with barrels is something that we have always been familiar with.

We have developed two distinct aging programs. At the brewery in Paso Robles, we have a spirits barrel cellar that is focused on clean beer flavors showcasing American oak, predominantly through the use of Bourbon barrels.

We opened a second facility, Barrelworks, down the road in Buellton, California, that is dedicated to secondary fermentation and sour beer production, focusing on the use of wine barrels from our region, large format barrels from Europe and other interesting sources.

JH:You’re based in a particularly wine savvy part of California. Have there been challenges to educating wine-minded people on beer?

MB: Not really. I think that a lot of our initial success was due to the local wine-influenced community being receptive to better beer and understanding it through a common fermentation science link and love for better food and drink in general. A brewery fits very well into the fabric of a winemaking community.

I think the key is connecting with the community and making sure that you understand where their tastes lie. We have been focused first and foremost on providing beers that fit the Central Coast.

JH:What’s coming up for Firestone Walker?

MB: There is a lot going on these days. We had a successful first summer of Easy Jack IPA, which incorporates some very interesting German flavor hops like Mandarina and Melon. We are set to release our seasonal Oaktoberfest, marking the first time we’ve bottled that beer.

There will be a few special releases coming out of our Paso Brewery, as well as Barrelworks in Buellton.

We continue to expand our brewery, and I really feel that we are doing it the right way.

The place is really turning into a brewery that folks will enjoy visiting, and of course I feel the beers are tasting better than ever.

Our brewing team continues to grow and really shine. I’m so proud of this group.

John Holl is the author of the American Craft Beer Cookbook and editor of All About Beer Magazine.