Workshop — Crafting sour beer is a good thing, finishing strong is epic

Thursday, April 25 — 2:45–4:15 p.m.

Rob Christiansen, New Belgium Brewing Companuy, USA; Lindsay Barr, New Belgium Brewing Company, USA

The processes of fermenting, inoculating, maturing and blending sour beer require great expertise, but what is not commonly considered and celebrated in sour beer production is the attention to detail required during finishing and packaging. Package type, pasteurization and bottle conditioning parameters, oxygen/nitrogen purging and crown selection are all important variables that greatly influence the resulting flavor and shelf life of sour beer. In this workshop, case studies surrounding bottle conditioning live sour beer with secondary yeast vs. traditional packaging and pasteurization and the flavor development associated with this practice will be presented along with their outcomes and suggested best practices. Participants will get to taste the differences between these conditioning profiles and see for themselves just how much a beer can change by using yeast to carbonate while taking into account seemingly simple finishing variables that also have major effects on these beers.

 
Rob Christiansen has a passion for beer and believes being a beer scientist to be the most reputable of professions. As a QA Specialist at New Belgium Brewing and a former brewer, cellarman and QA Director at Avery Brewing he has dedicated himself to the endless pursuit of world class beer. Trained as a Molecular Biologist at the University of Wyoming, Rob embraces fermentation science and all things yeast. He is currently the Vice President of the ASBC and is also an active member of the BA and Master Brewers.
 

 
Lindsay has earned global recognition in the field of Sensory science through her work as the Sensory program manager at New Belgium Brewing Company and as Co-Founder of DraughtLab Sensory Software. She has gained recognition in the Sensory community for challenging the norms, creating new methods and improving the old — making them more accessible while maintaining their robustness.

Lindsay served as the chair of the American Society of Brewing Chemists Sensory Committee for five years. In that time, she helped develop a webinar program and published seven new Sensory methods. She holds a B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of New Mexico and a Masters degree in Food Science and Technology from the University of California, Davis. While at UC Davis, she studied under Dr. Charles Bamforth and published some of the first works on gluten-free beer production. She continues her involvement in academia by guest lecturing at multiple Universities and serving as a peer reviewer for the multiple scientific journals. She also teaches the Sensory Panel Management course at the Siebel Institute of Technology, and is a professional beer judge for the Great American Beer Festival and World Beer Cup competitions.

She believes that flavor is the most important factor in determining beer quality and consistency and has set her sights on continuing to develop tools focused on helping craft brewers use their senses to inform brewery-wide decisions.

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