Beercast Twelve

Hey there, this is Steve Fisher from BeerCastBrew, and this week is the first of our trips on

the road for BeerCastBrew.

We promised to bring you some road trips in 2006, and this is the first week of them.

We found ourselves down in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

We went to the Hog House Brewing Company, and there we spoke with Chris Milam, who is

their brewmeister.

He is the man in charge of all the beer at that fine establishment.

So we caught up with Chris on a, I think it was a Friday afternoon before things got really

busy for the weekend.

As always, our show is brought to you by the fine folks over at All About Beer.

You can check them out over at allaboutbeer.com, and we welcome your feedback.

We have a phone in line, and that number is...

So give us a call and let us know what you think about the show.

Let us know what you'd like to hear more of, and if you have a place that we're going to

be near, then we'll absolutely try and make it over to you.

So here we are on the road in 2006.

Hope you enjoy the interview with Chris, and we'll see you next go-round.

Well, good afternoon.

We're with Chris Milam here at the Hog House Brewing Company, and Chris is the brewmeister,

as it were, here in Fayetteville.

Fayetteville, which is up in northwest Arkansas.

So Chris, welcome to our show this afternoon, and I wanted to start by just asking you a

little bit about the current lineup here, and what the brews are that you have going,

what the ones are on tap, and what's coming down the pike here in the next week or two.

Absolutely.

We have several beers on tap right now.

There's a handful.

There's always between six and eight.

And our star sellers are Woodstock.

It's made with the Trappist yeast, so it's a little special.

They're very few.

There's only a few Trappist yeasts in the world, and we have one of the six.

So it's a very unique flavor.

Tell me a little bit about the Trappist yeast.

We've had several brewers, actually, from Adam Avery from Avery Brewing Company in Colorado.

He actually came in and really liked our wheat beer that we were making.

But that yeast, back in the day, like 500 years ago, if you were traveling across Europe,

you wouldn't really have a Hilton Hotel.

You wouldn't really have a hotel to go stay in, so you would stay at a monastery.

And some of those monasteries just happened to brew beer, and the yeast that they would use is the Trappist yeast.

And I think there were pretty much six prevalent Trappist breweries that would use the Trappist yeast.

And we managed to get our hands on one of them, and that's what we're using.

Very nice, very nice flavors coming from that yeast in the beer.

It's excellent beer, actually, if we ever wanted to.

Versatile, I should say, if we ever wanted to make a barley beer.

Make a barley wine or any sort of Belgian beer, a nice clove flavor that would come out of that would be very pleasant.

What else do we make?

We have the Ruby Red, I would say, would be the next big seller.

That's just an American amber, a nice red color, nice red hue to it, a nice hint of the Kent hops that we use.

Very well balanced.

Let's see, we have Mega Curly Tail.

Which is a very light ale, it's very refreshing on the hot summer days, but not too hot right now.

But nonetheless, it is still a great beer to drink.

We also have a, other than that, we have, let's see, I'll go through my list here.

We have the Pale Ale, which we call the Pale Rider.

It's a Pale Ale, it's an English style Pale Ale.

We sort of went away from the American style Pale Ale, went with the English.

A little more multi-characteristic.

It's got a nice character to it, not quite the hop head as a huge cascade hop edition at the very end,

which would be very pleasant and tasty, but it's more typical in the American Pale Ale.

We make a, let's see, another.

We have a Piper Pilsner, which is a European lager.

It's got that nice multi-character to it, low sulfur notes, very pleasant Pilsner.

It didn't go over.

It tastes great, but it's an acquired taste, I think, amongst lager drinkers.

Dealing here in northwest Arkansas, it was a hard pitch, but it did take on.

We do have some faithful followers here who actually drink it, but they actually,

it went a little slower, but picked up in October, November, and sort of slowed down

during December and January, and we'll come back out with it.

Probably April, April, May, when the weather starts to warm up and people are looking for a nice

lager beer.

What else did we make?

Coming in the pipeline, we've got some very interesting works.

We have an ESB.

Oh, sorry.

Coming down the pipeline, we have the ESB beer.

It's an extra special bitter.

Of course, it's an English-style beer, and it wouldn't be an ESB without our Fogel Hop, so we're

definitely going to throw in a whole bunch of that Fogel Hop to give it that nice aroma that's

unique to those, to a nice ESB.

We have an IPA that should come up next week, actually.

That would be the next, very next item coming up.

Very, very tasty IPA.

That's our first IPA that I think the Hog House has had.

It's definitely the first since I've been here, but the former brewer might have made

one, but I'm not aware of it.

So.

All right.

Let me ask you, let me carry on the conversation a little bit just by asking you,

inquiring a little bit about your history.

Where did you learn to brew?

Where are you from?

Are you from around here?

And did you learn to brew around here?

Or tell me what your, sort of what the seeds are of your brewing history, if you would.

Absolutely.

The roots of me.

Well, it all started in Oklahoma.

That's where I was born and raised.

And then I went to Texas and Dallas, went to school at SMU.

And I took some science there, but I ended up getting a

master's degree in accounting, sort of went away from the science route.

And it was always, you know, that little itch.

I couldn't, couldn't give it up.

And I worked as a CPA for a while.

I actually passed and did all that.

And I spent more time, I think, drinking after work and wishing I was making beers and

actually wanting to do accounting work.

So I decided to go back to school and I went to the university, or I studied with the

University of California, Davis and got my basics out of the way and my foundation certificate.

And then I went to the University of California, Texas for brewing and, you know, pretty much

learned everything that goes on in a brewery on a large scale, from bird's eye view.

And then I took a course with the American Brewers Guild and that actually gave me a

hands-on craft brewers experience of brewing and really enjoyed it.

I learned a lot.

Without my science background, you know, it would have been very, very difficult, but

the chemistry and biology would have just gone right over my head.

But.

They did a very good job of explaining it and learning.

And we actually have several brewers that, you know, all the time you hear, oh, yeah,

I went to your school.

You know, you're meeting alum and it's kind of cool.

So that was my brewing experience.

I came here.

It's been about a little almost a year that I've been brewing here.

It's a great experience.

Well, actually, yeah, I went I worked at Otter Creek Brewing Company as an apprentice

and there it was great.

You know, we brewed five times a day.

It was 30,000 barrels a year.

You know, it was huge.

Massive scale brewing in terms of micro brewing.

It's actually a regional brewery.

And I enjoyed it.

And just it's so cold in Vermont.

You know, I said it was cold here and it's February, but I prefer the warmth.

So I migrated south and I've enjoyed it here.

I was lucky.

I have family in the area and they they actually found out about the opening here.

And I said, hey, I'm up north.

I want to come warm up.

They said, we'll have you.

So that's how I ended up here.

Well, let me let me carry on in terms of asking.

You mentioned quantity from the Otter Creek folks.

Tell me a little bit about that quantity and then stepping into this role and the quantity

you're doing here.

Also, I understood from talking to one of your coworkers here last night that you guys

are getting your product out into some into the marketplace.

I don't think you've gone the route of bottling and canning yet, but you are getting kegs sold

to the various restaurants around.

So talk to me a little bit about your approach to the quantity here.

And what how you might vary your product in getting it out to the market.

Excellent.

Well, coming from Otter Creek, we had, like I mentioned earlier, 30,000 barrels a year

was the sales volume, which is which is a lot, especially when you move into the brew

pub environment and you're making maybe 500 barrels a year.

Right now, I think we're sitting at 450 for the last year.

But as things pick up, I'm sure we'll have an ongoing basis year after year.

Of approximately five to 600 barrels.

I'm the only brewer here at Otter Creek.

There were some 30 to 50 employees.

So it was there's a lot of work to go around at Otter Creek.

And here it all goes to me.

So I do everything from, you know, unloading the malt truck to plating bacteria to making

the beer to, you know, testing my yeast.

So that's that I think is the biggest benefit just from experience wise of being able to

to do everything and to learn everything all at once.

Luckily, my schooling, as I mentioned earlier, it actually prepared me to be able to do that.

So I'm very comfortable in this environment just coming from a place that is so large

with just a brewing responsibility and now with the whole brewery responsibility.

Actually, then a very exciting thing is that we actually are kegging our beer now.

We've been kegging it for, I don't know, about six months now for just the general

public.

If you wanted to, if you're having a party or you have a kegerator at home and you want

to come in and pick up a keg, then anybody could do so.

And now we're actually, we have an account with a brewery down the road.

They've got about, it's a beer bar.

You know, they have about 60, 70 taps and two of them are ours.

So we're very happy about that.

They actually sell our stout, which is a sweet stout and our ruby red, which I mentioned

earlier.

Very tasty beers.

They're doing very well.

Very well over there.

And we're hoping to pick up a few more accounts around town, northwest Arkansas.

We're going to stay in the area.

We're not, you know, expecting to go out of state lines or anything.

One, because of our limited capacity that we have.

So I would have been pushed to my bones otherwise.

Has there been any talk, I've talked to some other brewers in North Carolina that have

taken their product into bottles and cans.

Anything of that nature, have you guys been talking about that or have you

considered it at all?

Actually, yeah.

Well, there's three breweries in northwest Arkansas.

So, I mean, in Arkansas itself, we're the only one, only operating brewery in northwest

Arkansas.

The other two are in Little Rock, which is, I don't know, maybe 200 miles away.

And they, one of the, one's a brew pub and one's an actual micro, a micro can of bottles

and kegs.

But our capacity right now, it's just, it's not possible.

We don't have the capacity.

Don't have the space for a bottling line.

Bottling lines are expensive.

So.

Well, talk to me a little bit about the making of beer and coming up with your different,

well, your different designs, your different flavors.

How do you solicit input from the public or do you?

How do you say, okay, well, I'm going to concentrate more on the IPA or the Ruby Red.

We're going to do more of that because it's very popular.

Take me into that process a little bit as the brewmeister about how you make decision of what's

going to come on down the pike and why you might do that.

Why you might make a particular selection.

Sure.

We had, when I came on, we had probably about five recipes that were on tap and I tweaked

them in order to what I thought was what was, would taste better.

And they, the public picked them up pretty well.

And then now, you know, I'll come out from behind the scenes and the brewer will meet

and greet customers or someone asks to meet the brewer.

You know, I get to know what, what their tastes are like and we do Saturday tours, which is,

not only a great invitation for the public to come in and learn about beer,

but it's a great opportunity for me to learn about what the public wants.

And in that there's, there's a question and answer.

And then I also have questions.

So just because I give the tour, it doesn't mean I only have the answers.

So I'll, I'll ask them and I'll say, you know, what kind of beers do you like to drink?

What are you looking for in your beer and the taste?

And what would you actually like to see here on tap?

And we get, I get a good response.

Uh, people will ask and, or will state that, you know, we'd like to see an IPA.

We, we, uh, we love our IPAs, but we can't get one here.

And I said, well, we'll, we'll get you one.

So we worked on a recipe, made a, made a batch, test batch.

We liked it.

And we went with it and I did a full scale one and that's going up next week.

Uh, also your first one.

That's the very first IPA.

Absolutely.

That same way we came across the barley one.

We made a Christmas beer and, uh, there.

I knew I wanted to make a holiday beer, I should say.

Uh, and we were sort of debating what to make.

Should we make it spicy and how to go with it?

And just during those tours, I was like, would you guys rather have, and I just sort of asked

the guys who were, and they're the ones I, I guess that's sort of a target market there

because they're the ones that are interested enough to come in and do the tour and drink

my beer and be, uh, loyal customers.

So I, I, uh, I think there's value added to their response and behind it so that, you

know, I went with the barley wine instead of a spicy, spicy, uh, winter beer for the

Christmas beer.

Very tasty too.

Uh, so that's pretty much, you know, I, I get out there and I see what everybody wants.

Um, you do get, uh, sort of a response sometimes.

Um, this is very interesting.

We make a blueberry wheat.

Now, uh, there's a biker convention, uh, that comes in normally around late September, early

October, you know, big guys, uh, you know, they're driving in on, on their hogs and,

and.

Uh, you know, they're huge 1300 CC motorcycles and, you know, they're rough, pretty rough

looking and they'll come in and they'll say, give me a Miller light Bud light.

And when I had the opportunity, I would go out there and I'd say, well, you know what?

You need to taste this beer.

And I wouldn't really tell them what it is.

I was like, you know what?

You'll like it.

And some of them, I could mend some of them.

I wouldn't, but the most of who I could, most of everyone that I could convince to taste

it, they absolutely loved it.

And the interesting thing is I couldn't tell them cause they'd never

drink it.

I told them what the beer was, but it's a blueberry wheat.

If they knew they were drinking blueberries, you know, I'm not going to drink this sissy

wheat beer, but they absolutely loved it.

And I swear we sold more blueberry wheat that weekend than, than Miller light and every,

you know, all of the other, uh, light beers that we had.

Well, very strong.

May the, may the bikers come more to the, to the Northwest sector here in, in Arkansas.

Well, Chris Milan from the, uh,

hog house brewing company.

I very much appreciate the time, uh, continued success to the brewery here and all your efforts

and, uh, sort of expanding the horizons of those that enjoy beer.

And hopefully with this podcast, those that come through Northwest Arkansas, specifically

stop down here at the hog house brewing company and taste some of your fine wares.

Thanks so much.

Well, thanks for listening folks.

And I hope you enjoyed the time with Chris.

If you find yourself down in Fayetteville, I got to recommend the salmon with some Gouda

cheese and some mushrooms on it, along with some of the.

Fine brew.

I believe I had the pale ale the night I was there.

Anyhow, find yourself there.

Find yourself some good beer.

We'll look forward to see you next time around on beer cast brew.

Remember to visit our site and check in with our friends over at all about beer.

Thanks.

Yeah.