A B.A. in Beer Brewing

One Pomona Alumnus on His Dream Job

Mina Hoffman / Claremont Student

By Mina Hoffman
Publisher

Beer brewing is not the logical culmination of four years at a top liberal arts college. Nor is it a career that most college resource centers advertise or steer their students toward. It’s definitely not a dream that most art history majors pursue. But this is where Curtis Dale’s (Pomona ’80) life has taken him, and he couldn’t be happier. I met with Dale at his brewery in Upland, California to discuss his experience in the beer brewing business.

Mina Hoffman: We heard through the grapevine that you are a Pomona alumnus and got curious: How did you get into brewing?

Dale: Well, I was an art history major at Pomona. Then I thought I’d go to Cal Poly [Pomona] and study architecture, but I guess I got sort of sidetracked and I ended up doing urban planning instead. When I was done with school, I just decided I didn’t really want to do it anymore, so I ended up working as a computer programmer for 12 years. I was a subcontractor under someone else, and one day the guy got sick of it and said “Find yourself another job.” I didn’t want to work in another cubicle, so I decided to go into brewing.

The first thing that got me interested in home brewing was when I graduated from college (and I knew everything, of course). I was drinking a Guiness Stout and my first thought was, ‘I can make this.’ So I started looking into home brewing and I made my first batch of beer about a year after that. I home brewed for 20 years by myself at first, then with some friends who were interested and then with my brother. That’s where the name comes from, Dale Brothers Brewery. My brother and I had a dream when we were younger to go into beer brewing.

MH: So tell us, what makes a good beer?

Dale: Whatever you like. It’s very subjective. I guess complexity - multiple flavors. One of the three main flavors in standard American beer is carbonation, so . . . (laughs).

MH: What’s all that machinery in the back for?

Dale: I’ll show you.

[The Brewery consists of an office and a big back room complete with shelves of grain, various stainless steel vats, empty kegs and a nice-sized freezer. Dale takes me into the back and shows me around, starting with the grain.]

Dale: I think beer was probably discovered by accident, people left some grain sitting out in some clay pots and it rained one day . . .

MH: And then they just decided to drink it?

Dale: I know - it must have been some pretty bad beer.

[Dale pulls out a container full of malted barley. He keeps a number of sacks-full in various flavors on hand to brew with. “Smell it,” he says, and I do. It’s strong and musty.]

Dale: This is the basic grain we use, it gives the beer a certain flavor.

MH: What kind of grain is it?

Dale: It’s barley. I use about 225 to 250 pounds of grain per batch of beer.

MH: Is all beer made from barley?

Dale: No, you can make beer out of wheat, spelt, rye - lots of different grains, but most beer is made out of malted barley. It has good enzymes. I’ve got another type here you can see, it’s darker and has a slightly different flavor.

MH: How does all this machinery contribute to the brewing process?

Dale: Well, you put the grain into the mill over here, and that grinds it up, and then it goes up this white tube into the mash tun where it gets steeped in 150 degree water like tea for one-and-a-half to two hours. It comes out very sweet. Then you put it into the brew kettle and boil it. You add the hops while it’s boiling.

MH: What is hops?

Dale: It’s just flavoring. A common misconception is that it’s the main component of beer, but it’s not. It’s a flower; it’s like a cousin of marijuana. The boiled hops bitters the beer, otherwise it would be real sweet, and it gives it its aroma. You add it late in the boil for flavor.

[Dale takes a bag out of the freezer - this is the hops - and tells me to smell inside. Again, strong and musty.]

MH: How long does it take to brew beer?

Dale: Brewing takes about six hours, but fermenting, which happens over here [Dale shows me over to the fermentation vessel, another big, stainless steel vat] takes . . . the last batch fermented for two weeks, but I’ve let them ferment for six weeks before. You cool down the beer from boiling to 70 degrees so you can add the yeast and it doesn’t die.

MH: What does the yeast do?

Dale: The yeast eats up all the sugar from the grain and converts it to CO₂ [carbon dioxide] and alcohol.

MH: Do you bottle it here or do you send it somewhere else?

Dale: I keg it. On Fridays. Those are all the kegs we just cleaned over there [there is a stack of them in the middle of the brewery]. Sometimes I bottle it from the keg. I just got a request from Wolfe’s [Market] for some bottles of my Black Beer.

MH: I’ve seen Pomona Queen sold in the Village. What other types of beer do you brew?

Dale: There’s the Queen, my Black Beer - actually it’s California Black Beer . . . Winter Haze is my holiday beer; I brew that about once a year. It’s got more alcohol in it. Pacific Daylight, I brew that during Pacific daylight [savings] time. Pomona Queen is the most popular with restaurants and drinkers because it’s not so scary.

MH: What do you mean “scary”?

Dale: Some of the other beers are darker, and the restaurants don’t want them because they think no one will want to drink them ‘cause they’re too dark.

MH: I see. How long have you been working in Claremont?

Dale: We’ve been in business here for three years.

MH: Does Claremont treat your business pretty well?

Dale: Claremont’s good because it supports local businesses. People like non-chain restaurants and things like that.

MH: Rumor has it you’re cutting a deal with the Claremont Colleges; they want you to provide beer to serve at parties.

Dale: I’d love to! We do a lot of events, I sell beer to the Williamson gallery and the Pomona art gallery for openings, Pitzer buys beer . . .

MH: Do you have any advice for students who want to go into brewing, tricks of the trade, things like that?

Dale: The brewing community is very open. No one has secrets, if they have secrets it’s because they’re scared or they don’t know what they’re doing. Everyone shares, sometimes down to the recipes because they know even if they give you their recipe you won’t be able to make their beer on your equipment.

MH: Sounds like a good community to be a part of. Anything else?

Dale: Well, you won’t become a millionaire doing this.

MH: But you’re doing something you love instead of slaving away in a cubicle, right?

Dale: Yeah (laughs). After I was a computer programmer and that guy said “find another job,” I thought, well, I can find another job where I work in a cubicle, and I probably won’t get paid as much, or I can go brew beer. I guess I have a cubicle here, but it’s really big.

Dale owns and runs the Dale Brothers Brewery, which is located in Upland, California. His beer is served in several of the restaurants in the Village, at various Claremont Colleges’ events, and is sold at Wolfe’s Market. Dale’s California Black Beer won a gold medal in the European-style dark lager category at the Los Angeles County Fair Commercial Beer Competition in 2004.

For those interested, the basic beer brewing process, although it varies considerably, goes something like this:

Mashing: In the first phase of brewing, the malted grains are crushed and soaked in warm water in order to create a malt extract. The mash is held at constant temperature long enough for enzymes to convert the starches into fermentable sugars.

Sparging: Water is filtered through the mash to dissolve the sugars. The darker, sugar-heavy liquid is called wort.

Boiling: The wort is boiled along with any remaining ingredients (excluding yeast) to remove excess water and kill any bacteria. The hops (whole or pelleted) are added and, or a hop extract is used.

Fermentation: The yeast is added (or “pitched”) and the beer is left to ferment. After primary fermentation, the beer may be allowed a second fermentation, which allows the yeast and other particulate matter (called “trub”) to settle further. Some brewers skip this secondary fermentation and simply filter off the yeast.

Packaging: At this point, the beer contains alcohol, but not much carbon dioxide. The brewer has a few options to increase carbon dioxide levels: the most common approach, used by large-scale brewers, is force carbonation via the direct addition of carbon dioxide gas to the keg, cask, bottle, or can. Smaller-scale or more classically-minded brewers add extra suger (“priming”), or a small amount of newly fermenting wort (“kräusen”) to the final vessel, resulting gin a short re-fermentation know as cask- or bottle-conditioning.

Drinking: The “uncapping,” or opening of the bottle, and enjoying the fresh beverage.