Founders Brewing Company Training

My buddy Diamond...nicest brewer in Grand Rapids!

I started my training at Founders Brewing Company today.

Located in the heart of Grand Rapids, Michigan, Founders is a medium-sized, regional brewery and taproom. Since this is a 5-week training session, I’ve “moved” to GR for these 5 weeks. By some good fortune, the first sublet I saw on craigslist just happened to be available for the exact 5 weeks of my stay and get this — right across the street from Founders! I can stumble tired to it in the morning and stumble away from it drunk at night! 

The first day consisted of working with head brewer Jeremy Kosmicki in the brewhouse. Since it was Memorial Day, not too many people were working. So we brewed a couple batches this morning: 2 pale ale batches and then started a third batch of the rye pale ale. Fortunately, the brewhouse is a very manual, steam-heated, 4 vessel, 30 bbl system. The 4 vessels consist of the hot liquor tank, mash/lauter tun, kettle, and whirlpool. I can’t say much about the beers or processes used because some of it is considered proprietary. I can say, however, that Jeremy specializes in full-flavor ales with moderately complex malt and hop bills. I like his style and I believe his brewing philosophy will mesh well with mine. Today was mostly standing back and getting the feel for the process in the brewery. I did get a chance to get my brewing-hands dirty by cleaning some tanks, taking out some spent grain, and loading up hops.

All the Founders folks I’ve met so far have a Midwestern hospitality (some with thick Midwestern accents), and I should enjoy working with them. Oh, and I should also mention that I tasted a bourbon barrel-aged maple syrup today (from a local guy). Delicious! Founders takes the used maple-glazed bourbon barrels and puts their Kentucky Bourbon Stout in them to age — and then renames it Canadian Stout. I hope to try that one tonight!

So, in the upcoming days and weeks, I’ll delve into the process more and become comfortable with all the aspects of brewing here. Look for more blog updates in the near future.