Brewing IPAs & Friendship

With unprecedented free time afforded by 2020's quarantine, many were inspired to get in touch with their crafty sides. Dr. Paul Zottola and Seth Brewer of New Britain, Connecticut, were among them, deciding to take their creative efforts to the tap.

"We both like the creative process, we like exploring stuff, we like learning things," said Zottola. "And quarantine, and the whole process of going through all that, kind of pushed both of us into 'let's try this.' Everybody's trying stuff, and beer seemed like the natural choice."

Inspired by a love for beer, an interest in the process and, in Brewer's case, a responsibility to get in touch with his ancestral roots, the pair went down the home-brewing rabbit hole, determined to brew their own New England IPAs.

"I had this motivation and it didn't take very much to get Paul interested," Brewer explained. "So, we pooled our resources and we got sort of the starter kit that we needed. And he, as I expected, got...really into it."

The two have brewed three batches thus far, each getting closer to their desired hazy, fruit-forward IPA. They've tweak the recipe and learned the dos and don'ts of the process from their previous mistakes — and there have been plenty of mistakes.

The two laughed over a ruined batch that boiled over while they were distracted drinking beer and chatting. "I think maybe the best thing about it is you get to drink your mistakes," Zottola said.

But they're serious about improving. Knowledgable from the trials and tribulations of their experience so far, they explained the home-brewing process step-by-step, from brewing to fermentation to bottling, or in their case, kegging.

The pair begins with a pre-packaged set of ingredients, including grain and hops, which Brewer affectionately refers to as "the Betty Crocker version of beer-making." The hops, they explained, each have their own oil and flavor, and it's that combination that makes certain beers taste like they have grapefruit, or raspberry, or other flavors in them – with no fruit puree or extra additives necessary.

Beer is made, quite simply, from grain, hops, yeast, and water, though Zottola refers to the yeast as the "star of the show," since none of this works without it. Once the ingredients have been sorted, abiding by the recipe of choice for that week, the pair gets to brewing. To begin the brew, they must first steep the ingredients in boiling water, a process that Brewer compares to making tea.

"So you have this sort of sock-like strainer, which is just sort of a cotton netting material. You fill that with this grain, and then it just plops into here like a teabag. It depends on what it is that you're steeping, but you leave it in there for 20 minutes, half an hour, an hour, something like that. And at the end of that, you end up with what's called wort. It's not w-a-r-t, it's w-o-r-t, which is a much better kind of wort. And it's like a brewed tea," said Brewer.

After the steep, the malts are poured in to add sugars and sweeteners that impart flavor and give the yeast something to work with later on. The wort sits until it's fully mixed, and then must be chilled using a contraption aptly titled a wort chiller.

Avoiding contamination in the vessel and aeration in the transferral, the chilled wort is then moved to a carboy, which serves as a fermentation chamber for Zottola and Brewer. This is when the star, yeast, is added. As the fermentation process happens, ethanol and carbon dioxide build up and escape through the valve at the top. Heat is also released as it ferments, which is why it's essential temperature is controlled and stabilized in this step. Next, the hops are added directly, a process known as dry-hopping that specifically works for IPAs. At this stage, the flavor from the hops then infuse into the wort itself.

Fermentation can last 3-4 weeks or longer, and then the beer must be transferred to a keg, except for the dead yeast and hops caked on to the carboy's bottom. Once transferred, to the keg, the pair connect the carbon dioxide, and blow off extra so that the empty headspace in the keg is filled with carbon dioxide and not oxygen, coined the "enemy of beer." The pair then perform a process called forced carbonation, in which they crank up the CO2, turn the keg sideways, and roll it around vigorously for 2-3 minutes so the CO2 is distributed into the beer, giving it its nice, trademark foam.

Throughout every step of the meticulous process, Zottola and Brewer explained there are three factors that must be carefully monitored – temperature, timing, and sanitation.

"Temperature is a very important part of this. Another important part is the timing — how long you steep for, how long you ferment for, the time it takes for you to go from one step to the next. And the last one is keeping everything clean. And that process is weirdly complicated because often times you'll find yourself in a sequence when you've already sanitized something and then you touch it by mistake, or you realize there was something that you forgot to sanitize and now you have to go through that whole process before you use it," said Brewer.

Zottola and Brewer noted that temperature control has probably been their kryptonite – during all the phases, though most notably that of fermentation – and it's a step they'll have to perfect to get that that ideal brew.

"Not being able to control the temperature ruins the chemical reactions that are governing the process and, in the end, it hurts your beer," Zottola reflected.

Improvements to the process are inevitable as they remain early on in their home-brewing process, and they're intent on working out the kinks in their process so that they can become more self-sufficient.

"Up to this point, and certainly as we're learning the process, we've been relying on other people's recipes, other people's combinations of ingredients, ratios, that's sort of thing," said Zottola, referencing the starter kits they've used. Eventually, we will probably experiment with our own stuff, but we have to know the process first, right? You have to learn the basics of cooking before you can really start making your own recipes, and the same applies to beer."

Zottola has even looked into farming his own yeast, and the pair hope to grow their own fresh ingredients in the future.

Brewer has even bigger dreams for their brewing down the road, fantasizing about opening their own New Britain-based fermentory which would serve a multitude of variations including, beer, ciders, cysers, kombucha, mead, and jun.

But for now, they're content experimenting, striving for that perfect New England IPA, and having fun along the way. And, of course, drinking a lot of beer.

"Beer brings people together," said Zottola. And that it has.