This past week, Beer Sessions Radio (TM) was happy to welcome Bill Herlicka from New Hampshire’s White Birch Brewing into the studio. The gang talked about “Belgian-Inspired” beers, bottle conditioning and spontaneous fermentation. As with many of our guests, 45 minutes was just the tip of the iceberg! Bill sat down for a brief interview with the Good Beer Seal:
What advice would you have for those considering home brewing for the first time?
1.Don’t try it assuming you’ll save money. If you value your time for anything it’s much cheaper to buy beer at the store. 2.You’ll be drinking 5 gallons of your brew. Don’t pick an “easy” style you like thinking it’ll be easier to learn with. 3. Brew the same beer at least twice. Practice makes perfect and if you make a great batch twice you should be able to make anything. Too often people make a ton of different style beers to start and find the beer isn’t coming out right and they’re not sure why. Making the same beer twice lets you work on technique and ensure you know why your beer is coming out a certain way.
What have been the biggest challenges in terms of getting your brewery off the ground?
Balancing all of the demands. Time, money, work, personal life. As a small shop I wear a lot of hats. As such the focus has been on beer first and then everything else. For example the first version of my website was made using Frontpage2000. I owned the software and it was easy. Many of my tech friends teased me about how archaic my website was.
Managing growth: The perception of beer is that it’s made in huge breweries. Starting as small as I have there’s an educational step for my customers. The batches are small because we’re small and sometimes we run out of beer. I’ve also had a few people tell me I should contract brew. That way I could grow my company faster and take advantage of the marketplace. There are two major problems with that strategy in my book. First is that I like bottled conditioned beer and you don’t find that in the contract marketplace. Second, I would worry that my company’s future is contingent upon someone else’s brewery. What if conditions change? What if the contract shop doesn’t want to make beer in the time consuming manner I do? What if everything works and we’re stuck because there is no extra capacity for growth? At the expense of rapid growth I’m much happier controlling the process and keeping everything here in Hooksett.
Could you tell me a bit more about your apprentice brewing program? How does one become an apprentice with you? What can your apprentices expect to learn while working with you?
The apprentice program is a six month program, one day per week. You work the full schedule, bottling, milling, brewing, cleaning. The goal is that once you complete you’ll have had a rounded experience and be ready to move forward with your own business or get a job in the industry. My next openings are for July. The day is a full day, from 9 to 5 or whenever the work is completed. [Apprentices have] opportunities to participate in beer events as a White Birch team member – festivals, tastings, etc.[as well as] he opportunity to make a test batch of your own recipe, recieve critical feedback and release a commercial version of your beer
To get in I schedule an interview to fill an upcoming opening and we discuss the applicant’s goals, favorite and least favorite things about beer and their goals for the future. If I think thing match between what we can offer, what the applicant is looking for and the applicant will work well with the team then they’re in.
Are there any events or new releases upcoming that you would like our listeners to know about?
In March we’re releasing our new Tavern Ale which is a smoked imperial brown ale designed by our new Head Brewer David Kilgour. We’ll be doing some tastings and a couple of restaurant events. Full details will be on our website. On April 12th from 6-8 we’ll be doing an open house to celebrate our next apprentice’s graduation. Adam Romanow is graduating and he’ll be pouring is black IPA called Nyx. It’s free to come in and have a sample and tour.
Thanks, Bill!