Beer brewers’ bliss

Alicia Robinson

Shawn Steele is living a beer drinker’s dream.

He gets to spend all day around beer, mixing the ingredients,

brewing the beer, making sure it’s ready, tasting it, and finally,

kegging it.

One of his beer-brewing playgrounds is Karl Strauss Brewery

Restaurant at Metro Pointe in Costa Mesa, where he and fellow brewers

from the San Diego-based company meet each month or so to make one of

the company’s 38 varieties of beer.

“There are definitely worse jobs in the world,” said Steele, who

started out making beer-brewing messes in his mother’s kitchen. For

the Michigan native, the move to a Southern Californian brewery just

adds to the perks.

“The last brewery I used to work at, we used to get our forklift

stuck in the snow. Now I’m kegging beer on a porch all day long,” he

said of the Costa Mesa restaurant’s small patio.

The brewing process

Last week, Steele kegged a batch of oatmeal stout that he started

brewing on St. Patrick’s Day with Matt Walsh, another Karl Strauss

brewer.

They begin with 1,300 pounds of oats, and some barley and caramel

malts to add color and flavor to the beer. The brewers pour the grain

into a tank called a mash tun, which acts like a giant coffee maker

with a filter at the bottom.

Hot water is added to the mixture, which is brought up to 150

degrees and kept there for about an hour and a half. The brew has to

be stirred periodically because the oats tend to get doughy and clump

together, Walsh said.

The cooking process converts the starches in the grain to sugars.

The sugars, in turn, become food for the yeast that is later added to

ferment the brew. But some sugars must be left in the beer to give it

sweetness and body, Steele said.

The liquid is then drawn off and pumped into a kettle, where it’s

boiled and about six pounds of hops are added. First bitter hops are

added, which flavor the beer, then aromatic hops that give it its

bouquet. The mixture is run through a heat exchanger -- a honeycomb

of stainless steel plates -- where it is cooled by water. Next, yeast

is added and the mixture is fermented for a week or two, depending on

what beer they are making. After most of the yeast is removed, the

beer is allowed to mature. It is then chilled to just above freezing,

carbonated and put into kegs.

Lagers take about three weeks to a month to make, while ales are

brewed at higher temperatures, finish fermenting sooner and take

about 17 days to reach maturity, Steele explained.

Tradition and technique

There’s more to brewing beer than just pouring in the ingredients

and cooking them. The process involves strict control of the beer’s

temperature and checking it regularly to make sure it has the right

amount of sugars. Sanitizing all the equipment is vital, because

unwanted bacteria in the mix will make the beer taste sour, Steele

said.

Cleanliness and precision are important to making a good-tasting

beer, and that’s the mission of brewery co-founder Chris Cramer,

whose great-grandmother was the sister of a forebear of Karl Strauss,

after whom the business is named.

Cramer founded the company in his San Diego apartment in 1988 with

partner Matt Rattner. The Costa Mesa pub and brewery, which opened in

late 2002, is the newest of its six locations.

The company and its beer rest on the brewing expertise of Strauss,

an internationally known brew-master who escaped Nazi Germany in

1939.

Because Cramer didn’t want the kind of job that requires a suit

and tie, he approached Strauss with the idea of starting a

microbrewery.

“He really surprised me,” Cramer said. “He said, ‘You know, Chris,

I really think it’s going to be the wave of the future in the United

States.’”

The combination of Strauss’ old-world, beer-making expertise and

the fun, laid-back aspects of the Southern California lifestyle that

Cramer has incorporated into the company concept have added up to

success, he said. The company has averaged 23% annual growth and its

beer is sold in a variety of bars and beverage stores around the

state, Cramer said.

Tastes great, less filling

The restaurant offers a selection of 10 beers on tap -- five

regulars and five that change seasonally -- and it attracts a group

of customers that’s just as diverse, bar supervisor Caroline Kelly

said.

Some visitors are beer connoisseurs and others just want to try

something new, she said.

“I think people enjoy the variety when they come in,” Kelly said.

“People get excited about the fact that it was brewed somewhere in

California or on the premises.”

Taste and freshness are also qualities Karl Strauss patrons say

they enjoy in their beer.

“It probably comes right out of the keg, so you know it’s probably

pretty fresh,” said customer Kevin Buchta of Long Beach.

Buchta said he prefers Karl Strauss’ lighter ales and its

hefeweizen brew. His friend Salvatory Fulwider is more of a dark beer

fan whose favorite at Karl Strauss is the Red Trolley ale.

“I like these beers a lot better [than the average Budweiser or

Coors,]” Fulwider said. “They taste better. They’re more smooth.”

Fulwider has greater expectations of the beer served at brew pubs,

he said, but Karl Strauss seems to live up to his standards.

“I’m in here at least once a week,” he said.

It’s all about the beer

Brewers certainly like the taste of their beers, but they also

enjoy the craftsmanship. The main Karl Strauss brewery makes about

200 kegs a day with the measuring, mixing and brewing done by

machines. At brew pubs like the one in Costa Mesa, however, it’s a

physically involved process in which brewers get wet and make a mess

to produce about 35 or 40 kegs of hand-crafted beer.

“Most brewers are here because we like to make beer,” Steele said.

“If we weren’t doing it here we’d be doing it at home.”

Karl Strauss brewers entered their brew in the recent World Beer

Cup competition in San Diego, Steele said, but he wasn’t disappointed

that they went away empty-handed.

“We know we sell a lot of beer,” he said. “We know people enjoy

it. We don’t need someone to give us a medal to justify what we do.”

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* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

alicia.robinson@latimes.com.