Brewed Musings

Brewed Beverage of Choice: A Pint of Mill Creek Brewery Coffee Porter from our friends to the North, eh

One of the main tenets of Confucianism, at least my interpretation of it, is the study of all things: their interconnectedness and the balance this study can bring. This interconnectedness can pertain to something as big as life itself or as a small as something as two swing dancers locked in a dance. (Had to throw that last one in there because I rarely speak of it…) As a brewer and a Confucianist, I find myself constantly reading, researching, and evaluating every step, every process, every movement of the mash paddle. And over the past 14 days, because I had been graciously given the opportunity as the Falconer Scholarship recipient, I was able to attend the Siebel Institute/World Brewing Academy in Chicago.

Within the brewing community there is a slight divide between the scholarly brewers - ones who have gotten their degrees in Brewing Science - and the natural brewers - ones who have obtained their knowledge from on-the-job experience. Judging by the term “natural,” I am sure you can predict what side I am on. Because I tend to make more of this divide than it actually is, attending Siebel frightened me. I was afraid I was getting in over my head.

The hardest part of Confucianism is figuring out what knowledge is best for a specific application: what knowledge do you keep and what do you throw out as useless. Knowledge supplements, better yet it complements experience. Most of the time Scholarly Brewers forget this fact and put all their trust in the science. So when the plane touched down at O’Hare 2 weeks ago, the fear dissipated and the mind readied for the challenge: 10 days of systematically picking through barrels (pun intended) of information to find something useful.

Sometimes I wish people could actually see my mind in this transit. What they would see is an 8 armed roguish pickpocket studying, processing, picking wallets of information from unsuspecting rubes, and either throwing baseball size wads of useless information one way, or stuffing said information filled wallets in his pocket. Rogues work best because they are nimble and are good watchers of human interaction, which fortunately for me is how I learn best. At times, the class became counter productive leaving my 8 armed rogue became bored. There is nothing funnier than an 8 armed being twiddling 8 sets of thumbs. It was at this time I longed for the after class meetings in the Bier Stube (a small room in the back of Goose Island Brewpub.)

It was during one of these times, while drinking a beer, that I made an observation to the congregation of other rogues, about ten of us and an unsuspecting rube of an instructor. It went like this, “You can tell who are going to be the good brewers in class because they are all in the Stube.” I firmly believe this. No offense to the other students who may make good brewers, but there were 8 to 10 of us that stayed after class and discussed many things in the Stube. This is really where the Natural Brewers excel.

There are Stubes all over the world where brewers discuss the latest tricks they have tried in their brewhouse, where many brewers’ rogues pickpocket many unsuspecting brewer-rubes. The Bier Stube in back of Goose Island was essentially my second classroom where my rogue went to town on all these brewing students, these rubes. And to be brutally honest, I lost my wallet about 2 or 3 times too.

And now I sit on a train to Milwaukee for a vacation within a vacation. My brewing wallet found and packed to the gills with new information. My rogue has also given me 8 middle fingers, too tired to continue. My fears of drowning in information and of leaning too much to the Scholarly side of brewing have been squelched. I can now go home and practice a much more balanced and interconnected style of Brewing Confucianism. If you happen to be in Portland, stop on in and share a pint of this new balanced brew with me. I cannot promise, however, that my rogue will leave you alone.

Prost!

the confucian brewer and his sidekick: an 8 armed rogue