Experimental Pilot Program at Anheuser-Busch InBev
First up was Brewmaster Rod Read’s initial crack at brewing a light India pale lager. Read referred to the bottle in front of me as a “chip beer,” meaning it had just finished lagering for 21 days on Beechwood chips and had not yet been filtered or blended at a 40-60 ratio with carbonated water (resulting in a “light” IPL that was coming in near 6.5% ABV instead of the 4% it was destined for). With a generous variety of domestic and imported hops added in the kettle and a dry hop addition of Cascade, the nose of grapefruit and citrus was detectable as the beer poured from bottle to glass and formed an off-white lace of foam at the top.
Next in line was a “molé” stout inspired by the Mexican molé sauce. This exotic beer had a wide range of flavors that teased the palate — hints of hot pepper, cocoa, cinnamon, vanilla, and anise. Read acknowledged he would add more lactose for a fuller body and cut back on the anise if he were to re-brew this experimental batch, as the licorice flavor overpowered the cinnamon.
A traditional English pale ale was then proceeded by an imperial oatmeal stout fermented with a lager yeast strain at 55 °F (13 °C). Dark and rich, with a creamy mouthfeel and a roasty chocolate taste on the backend, the 8% ABV was well disguised.
Also unrecognizable if sampled in a blind tasting by astute beer geeks or Budweiser loyalists alike is all of these beers were brewed by Anheuser-Busch InBev (A-B). Not at the main brewery in St. Louis, but in the same complex at the (much smaller) Anheuser-Busch Research Pilot Brewery — a brewer’s paradise where Read and a small team of brewers spend their days brewing batch after batch to test ingredients, techniques, and whatever crazy idea one comes up with.
A-B’s Research Pilot Brewery (RPB) is not a secret, per se, but it also isn’t well publicized or promoted because it is not open to the public. In fact, it is not even open to many of A-B’s employees, as Read, the 30-year-old brewmaster of the RPB who is seven years removed from the UC-Davis Master Brewers Program, said less than
100 people have clearance into the nine-story brewhouse.
I, along with a couple other members of the beer media, recently took A-B up on the rare opportunity to spend a day with Read, tour the facility, and even brew our own recipe on its 15-barrel system (more on that later). What I found inside was mostly what I expected — state of the art brewing equipment and a lot of people who are passionate about their jobs — but the beers coming out of there were eye-opening. None of them were anything I have ever associated with the world’s largest brewing company — meaning they were not brewed for the mass market, gently tip-toeing around flavors that may offend anyone. No, these were brews that craft beer lovers (and most of the homebrewing crowd) would admire, and the overwhelming majority of beer drinkers who prefer the American light lagers A-B is known for would pass on.
Research Pilot Brewery
After being led beyond a tall, black steel gate that wraps around the greater part of the Anheuser-Busch estate, our group walked for about five minutes to the other side of the monstrous campus. Across railroad tracks, which the brewery still utilizes to receive shipments of brewing ingredients, we took a turn and walked between a couple of towering brick buildings. A wooden door to the RPB decorated only with a Michelob sign offers little indication that behind these walls is the hub of Anheuser- Busch’s innovation.
Nearly every new Anheuser-Busch recipe that has hit market shelves since 1981 when the RPB was first established was created, tested, or refined at the RPB. Those, however, are just a tiny fraction of the recipes that have been created there. At any time, there may be 30 to 50 different beers in various stages of the brewing process at the RPB — most of which will be sampled by only a small handful of people and then discarded. The recipes and brewers’ notes, however, are saved for eternity in case they should ever be revisited.
The purpose of the RPB is threefold: Raw material testing to maintain the core brands such as Budweiser and Bud Lite, to be utilized as a training facility for the company’s future brewmasters, and for innovation brewing.
Raw Material Testing
All three branches of the RPB are valuable, but testing raw materials is the most important. It is this effort that ensures all of the A-B brand beers are consistent day after day and year after year. As homebrewers, consistency is nice, but not of nearly the same importance — if we brewed a great brown ale using Kent Golding and Fuggle last year and want to repeat the brew now but the alpha acid of Fuggle is 5 instead of 6 as it was last year, we probably aren’t going to bat an eye. That change would be tremendous, however, for a known commodity that customers have come to expect consistency from.
So, instead of a beer like Budweiser changing in a reflection of the characteristics of its ingredients, what A-B has to do is tweak the recipe — be it the ingredient, technique or procedure — with every variable. These tweaks are not taken lightly, and it is Read who is largely responsible for showcasing each ingredient every time there is a variable.
“The raw material testing is very critical to the brand management because making a consistent product every year and at every location with variable inputs — hop crop years are different and we use various hopping schedules — we have to understand how they’re going to change year to year. And the same with barley, there’s less variability but we have to understand how the crops are going to be year to year,” Read said.
This is done through making one minor adjustment in the Budweiser brewing process batch after batch.
“We’ll do single-hop specials in a Budweiser base just with that one hop, just to understand how that would come through in a crisp lager base,” Read said. (I had the opportunity to taste an example of what Read was talking about with an over-hopped Budweiser brewed using only Galaxy hops, and as expected the citrus, kiwi and passion fruit from the Australian hop variety came through clear.)
These hop experiments are not just done in consideration of the present, but also with one eye on the future as some varieties that brewers have relied on for years are showing signs of less resistance to disease and may one day need to be replaced.
Of course, for these tests to mean anything Read has to be able to brew the exact same Budweiser that is produced at A-B’s 12 breweries across the US and nearly 50 worldwide. As you would imagine, there’s a test for that. Actually, there are a lot of them. Every Friday an expert group of up to a dozen tasters (internally known as the 220 Panel, a reference to the phone extension to the room the taste tests used to be held in) gathers to sample a Budweiser from each of the 19 North American breweries and the RPB. Everyone on the panel is either a current or former brewer of Budweiser who knows exactly what to look for and can detect the slightest off-flavor.
“Everybody who tastes knows what the profile is and if they pick up something they think might be slightly out of profile, they know what part of the process will impact that taste characteristic,” explained Dave Maxwell, A-B’s Director of Brewing for the North American plants.
The panel grades each beer on a 10-point scale and brewers hope to be above a seven, Read said, as an eight or better is “almost flawless.” If the Budweiser brewed at the RPB were below the standard, it would be treated the same way as if a production brewery were off the mark — which is not a situation anyone wants to be in.
“If I can make a Budweiser that can sit up at the 220 Panel and be up there with the rest of the production facilities’ Budweisers, I know that I can make a beer here that they can make at their brewery,” Read said.
Innovation
While ingredient testing is the most important part of Read’s job, the most fun comes from the innovation side of things. Concepts for new recipes can come from a handful of places such as brand management, consumer insight groups, or someone just “having a wonderful lightning strike to the head about some new flavor, or new spice, or new hop that has not been used,” Read said. “Maybe they go to a dinner and have a flavor that is interesting. I think that’s probably how molé made it into a beer. It’s wonderful in Mexican foods and the concept made sense in a stout base so give it a shot. There’s inspiration that comes from all different directions but the innovations get vetted at this facility. We can be as flexible as possible.”
And when inspiration strikes, the options are limitless. Assisted by “flavor chemists,” when he wants to bring a taste to a beer Read is sure to find what he is looking for in a walk-in cooler (a few ingredients I noticed on the shelves during our tour that left my brewing curiosity racing were ghost peppers, hawthorn berries, apple pie spice and poppy seeds). Taking up the majority of the walk in fridge, however, were sealed bags of dozens of hop varieties wrapping around one set of shelves to another (and another).
“(We have) access to procure any hop that we can think of that’s out there. New wheats, new barleys, new malting styles, spices, fruit, whatever it may be,” Read said.
And it isn’t just beer that Read and his team are brewing with these ingredients. Everything from traditional and experimental ales and lagers to Brettanomyces- and Lactobacillus-infected sours to hard ciders and meads, and even the Lime-A-Rita malt beverage drinks were created at the RPB. There are also a couple of bourbon barrels on the top floor of the brewery that, when I visited, were filled with coffee stout aging on Bing cherries.
The endless possibilities are fun, but that doesn’t mean this part of the job isn’t taken just as seriously as any of Read’s other responsibilities. Every batch that comes from the RPB is brewed with purpose and the possibility (although slim in many cases) that it could wind up being marketed. “Everything we make has a possibility of being launched,” Read said.
Even when a recipe doesn’t strike gold, or even get adjusted and brewed a second time, what the brewers learn from every batch is important. “It’s not always exactly going to be whatever product we made but we may get some inspiration from it, like ‘oh this is a cool clove note that came through really well in the saison that you made, how did you get it?’ Well we used different yeast strains and this is how it turned out,” Read explained.
Around this point you may start wondering, if so much beer is being produced at the RPB, where does it all go? Sometimes these experimental beers end up at beer festivals, but because they cannot legally be sold, more often than not the majority of this beer gets poured out. From what starts in a 15-barrel fermenter, and ends in an 8-barrel lagering tank, usually just four cases of beer are bottled for the purpose of evaluation.
“That’s the price of innovation,” Read said. “We brew at a 15 barrel scale because we need a larger system if we want to scale recipes developed and perfected at the RPB for our larger breweries. It would be difficult to demonstrate the ability to scale a recipe brewed on a 1-barrel system to a 1,000 barrel system; the RPB is a more accurate representation of our US breweries.”
Unfortunately, it also means there is a lot of excess beer brewed, and dumped, there. Dumping the beer isn’t a total waste, though, as the plant has an anaerobic digester to help reclaim energy from the waste that produces about 10 percent of the energy for the St. Louis brewery.
My Brew Day
Part of the hook in our invite to St. Louis was that we would get to brew our own batch of beer at the RPB. When the time came, I sat with two other journalists at a conference table discussing the style we’d like to brew and Read called up a brewing spreadsheet in an Excel file on his computer. The simplicity struck me — given that this is A-B we are talking about — but Read said an Excel file is what he generally uses when developing recipes. In fact, the process we went through was very similar to what he and his assistant brewers do on a regular basis, and what homebrewers do when they set out to make a new recipe.
The grain bill was selected for us as it was prepared the night before to save time. It consisted of 2-row, caramel 60 °L, and Best Malz Red X malt, a base malt that is relatively new on the market and contributes an intense reddish hue. Considering the grain bill, and a cumulative appreciation of the citrusy flavors and aromas of hops from down under, we decided to brew an IPA targeting an IBU around 60 with Galaxy and Citra® hops added in three steps.
The real fun with our brew, which we named Lede Lager drawing from our collective journalism backgrounds, came with fermentation. Querying Read earlier in the day about legend of the ability of the Budweiser yeast to ferment at ale temperatures got us thirsty for an experiment. So, at fermentation we split the batch — half to be fermented with the Budweiser yeast strain at its ideal temperature of 55 °F (13 °C) and the other to be fermented with the same strain at an ale temperature of 68 °F (20 °C).
Working with pounds of hops and hundreds of pounds of malt had our heads spinning trying to convert what we were doing to a 5-gallon (19-L) recipe. Fortunately, Read was able to lend a hand, which wasn’t surprising, considering he does the same thing at home. Even with the creative flexibility he is granted, brewing up to three batches of beer a day at work, Read has never abandoned his roots as a homebrewer and still frequently puts use to his 10-gallon (38-L) brewing system. “There’s that art and really the passion of brewing, you just can’t get away from homebrewing. It’s just so intimate that I think it’s worthwhile doing even if you’re brewing day in and day out.”
We all associate craft brewers as converted homebrewers, but sometimes it is hard to think of brewers who literally brew 17,000-gallon (64,000-L) batches of beer going home to brew 5 to 10 gallons (19 to
38 L). But that is the case with most of the employees involved in A-B’s brewing process (and many who work in other parts of the company). Need proof? A-B holds their own in-house homebrew competition each year, which attracted about 260 entrants last year. “We don’t require people to homebrew … but I think it’s something everyone should try at least once — just to enjoy it more than anything,” Read said. “It’s an art, it’s a science, and it’s a love, and I think it’s a labor of love that we have run with and that’s why we’ve been so successful because we have people who are truly passionate about making beer.”
Lessons for the Homebrewer
At home, the brewing process and principles aren’t any different than at the RPB. “The first and most important thing; cleanliness, in homebrewing, I think is just as important as cleanliness is here. Next is quality of ingredients,” Read said. “There’s better controls here with temperature and whatnot, so I’ll probably make a better product here, but the inspiration and how we go about it, I’m going to use the same principles.”
Homebrewers can glean a lot of other useful advice from the RPB too. For instance, homebrewers can probably relate to the experience of that saison that largely missed the mark except for the clove note. Homebrewers know that not every batch turns out great, but with careful and honest evaluation every batch should be a learning opportunity. If you don’t take anything away from a brew, you aren’t trying to, Read believes.
Inspiration is another example. Who would have thought of a molé beer? Well, someone who had a molé sauce who had an open mind and a passion for brewing. Sounds like a homebrewer. And just like small homebrewers who soak up inspiration at beer festivals and homebrew competitions, Read does as well. In fact, the recipe we brewed was Read’s first exposure to Red X malt after he learned about it months earlier. In a conversation about his desire to get a deeper red hue in a recipe, a co-worker said he had homebrewed with an ingredient that would work perfectly. “He had said there is this Red X that has this really nice red hue,” Read said. “So a couple weeks later I made an order and we got the Red X in and now we’re brewing with it today.”
A-B likely isn’t the first commercial brewery that comes to mind when homebrewers consider sources for inspiration for their craft — but like Read says, “inspiration can come from anywhere.”
Rod Read, Brewmaster of Anheuser-Busch’s Research Pilot Brewery, pours hops into the brew kettle. Less than 100 people have clearance into the experimental nine-story brewhouse.
“(We have) access to procure any hop that we can think of that’s out there. New wheats, new barleys, new malting styles, spices, fruit, whatever it may be.”
A-B PILOT RECIPES
Molé
(5 gallon/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.054 FG = 1.015
IBU = 2 SRM = 30 ABV = 5.3%
Ingredients
8.6 lbs. (3.9 kg) 2-row pale malt
1.15 lbs. (0.52 kg) flaked barley
13.6 oz. (0.39 kg) roasted barley
6.4 oz. (181 g) caramel malt (20 °L)
5.6 oz. (159 g) black malt
0.4 AAU Hallertau hops (60 min.)
(0.1 oz./3 g at 4% alpha acids)
1 oz. (28 g) cocoa powder (alkaline processed) (5 min.)
0.1 oz. (3 g) chili powder (5 min.)
0.15 oz (4.2 g) chipotle powder (5 min.)
0.25 oz (7 g) ground cinnamon (5 min.)
4 mL rose water (5 min.)
4 oz. (113 g) lactose powder (5 min.)
0.1 oz. (3 g) anise (5 min.)
1 oz. (28 g) vanilla beans (5 min.)
3 cinnamon sticks (post fermentation)
Wyeast 2035 (American Lager) or White Labs WLP840 (American Lager) yeast
2⁄3 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
This is a single step infusion mash. Mix grains with 4.3 gallons (17 L) strike water to achieve a mash temperature of 146 °F (63 °C). Hold at this tem-perature until starch conversion is complete. Raise temperature up to mash out at 168 °F (76 °C) then begin to lauter. Boil for 60 minutes adding a pinch of hops at the beginning of the boil just to control the foam. With 5 minutes remaining, add all the spices with the exception of the cinnamon sticks. Chill the wort down to yeast pitching temperature. Aerate the wort and pitch the yeast. Hold at 50 °F (10 °C) for the duration of primary fermentation. After primary is complete, add the cinnamon sticks and hold for 10 days. Slowly chill to 45 °F (7 °C) over 24 hours then bottle or keg.
Molé
(5 gallon/19 L, partial mash)
OG = 1.054 FG = 1.015
IBU = 2 SRM = 30 ABV = 5.3%
Ingredients
3.5 lbs. (1.6 kg) extra light dried malt extract
2 lbs. (0.91 kg) 2-row pale malt
1.15 lbs. (0.52 kg) flaked barley
13.6 oz. (0.39 kg) roasted barley
6.4 oz. (181 g) caramel malt (20 °L)
5.6 oz. (159 g) black malt
0.4 AAU Hallertau hops (60 min.)
(0.1 oz./3 g at 4% alpha acids)
1 oz. (28 g) cocoa powder (alkaline processed) (5 min.)
0.1 oz. (3 g) chili powder (5 min.)
0.15 oz (4.2 g) chipotle powder (5 min.)
0.25 oz (7 g) ground cinnamon (5 min.)
4 mL rose water (5 min.)
4 oz. (113 g) lactose powder (5 min.)
0.1 oz. (3 g) anise (5 min.)
1 oz. (28 g) vanilla beans (5 min.)
3 cinnamon sticks (post fermentation)
Wyeast 2035 (American Lager) or White Labs WLP840 (American Lager) yeast
2⁄3 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Place crushed grains in a large muslin bag. Mix grains with 2 gallons (7.6 L) strike water to achieve a mash temperature of 146 °F (63 °C). Hold at this temperature until starch conversion is complete. Raise temperature of the mash up to 168 °F (76 °C) then place the grains in a large colander. Slowly pour about 2 gallons (7.6 L) of 168 °F (76 °C) water over the grains to wash the sugar out. Bring the wort up to a boil, then turn off heat and stir in the dried malt extract. Return the wort to heat and boil for 60 minutes adding a pinch of hops at the beginning of the boil just to control the foam. With 5 minutes remaining, add all the spices with the exception of the cinnamon sticks. Chill the wort down to yeast pitching temperature, then transfer to your fermenter and top off to 5 gallons (19 L). Follow the remainder of the instructions in the all-grain recipe.
Imperial Oatmeal Stout
(5 gallon/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.088 FG = 1.032
IBU = 30 SRM = 70 ABV = 8%
Ingredients
14.2 lbs. (6.4 kg) 2-row malt
2.1 lbs. (0.52 kg) chocolate malt
1.5 lbs. (0.68 kg) flaked oats
1.15 lbs. (0.52 kg) Briess Blackprinz® malt
1.75 AAU Cluster hop pellets
(first wort hop) (0.25 oz/7 g at 7% alpha acids)
3.5 AAU Cluster hop pellets (60 min.)
(0.5 oz./14 g at 7% alpha acids)
3.5 AAU Cluster hop pellets (30 min.)
(0.5 oz./14 g at 7% alpha acids)
5 oz. (142 g) lactose powder (0 min.)
Wyeast 2035 (American Lager) or White Labs WLP840 (American Lager) yeast
2⁄3 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Ramp mash bed up through conversion, looking to target 55% real degree of fermentation (RDF). When the grain bed reaches mash out temperature of 168 °F (76 °C), begin the lauter. During the sparge phase, add the first wort hops to the brewpot. This is a 60-minute boil adding the hops at the times indicated and the lactose at the end of the boil. Ferment at 55 °F (13 °C) with lager yeast. After primary fermentation is complete, rack the beer to a secondary and condition for one month. At RPB, the Imperial Oatmeal Stout was then split and aged on varying amounts of vanilla beans and cocoa beans in bourbon barrels for six months. Bottle or keg as normal.
Imperial Oatmeal Stout
(5 gallon/19 L, partial mash)
OG = 1.088 FG = 1.032
IBU = 30 SRM = 70 ABV = 8%
Ingredients
8 lbs. (3.6 kg) golden liquid malt extract
2 lbs. (0.91 kg) 2-row pale malt
2.1 lbs. (0.52 kg) chocolate malt
1.5 lbs. (0.68 kg) flaked oats
1.15 lbs. (0.52 kg) Briess Blackprinz® malt
1.75 AAU Cluster hop pellets
(first wort hop) (0.25 oz/7 g at 7% alpha acids)
3.5 AAU Cluster hop pellets (60 min.)
(0.5 oz./14 g at 7% alpha acids)
3.5 AAU Cluster hop pellets (30 min.)
(0.5 oz./14 g at 7% alpha acids)
5 oz. (142 g) lactose powder (0 min.)
Wyeast 2035 (American Lager) or White Labs WLP840 (American Lager) yeast
2⁄3 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Mix the 2-row pale malt and flaked oats in a large muslin bag and place it in a large brew pot with 4.5 qts. (4 L) water. Heat the grains mixture slowly until the temperature reaches 168 °F (76 °C) over the course of 45–60 minutes. While the mash is heating, begin heating a separate pot with 3 gallons (11.4 L) water up to 168 °F (76 °C). Add an additional gallon (3.7 L) of water plus the crushed chocolate malt and Blackprinz® malt in a separate muslin bag once the mash has reached 168 °F (76 °C). After roasted grains have steeped for 10 minutes at this temper-ature, remove both grain bags and place in a colander. Slowly pour the remaining 2 gallons (7.8 L) over the grains to wash out the sugars. Bring to a boil, adding the liquid malt extract and first wort hops off heat just prior to reaching a full boil. Stir until extract is fully dissolved. This is a 60 minute boil, adding the hops at the times indicated and the lactose at the end of the boil. Chill the wort and top off the fermenter to 5 gallons (19 L) then aerate the wort heavily and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 55 °F (13 °C) with lager yeast. After primary fermentation is complete, rack to a secondary and condition for one month. At RPB, the Imperial Oatmeal Stout was then split and aged on varying amounts of vanilla beans and cocoa beans in bourbon barrels for six months. Bottle or keg as normal.
Doodle
(5 gallon/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.052 FG = 1.022
IBU = 3 SRM = 10 ABV = 4%
One of the fun things about the RPB is the ability to brew very unique beers. This recipe is Brewmaster Rod Read’s attempt to brew a beer that tastes like a snickerdoodle cookie.
Ingredients
7.75 lbs. (3.5 kg) 2-row pale malt
3.25 lbs. (1.5 kg) Briess Victory® malt
0.1 oz. (3 g) Saaz hop pellets (60 min.)
3.5 oz. (10 g) ground cinnamon (5 min.)
Wyeast 2035 (American Lager) or White Labs WLP840 (American Lager) yeast
1⁄2 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Ramp the mash temperature through conversion. You will probably want a very short or high temperature mash in order to conserve residual starches and help the breadiness (58% RDF).
Boil the wort for 60 minutes adding just a few hops at the beginning of the boil. Cold ferment the wort at 50 °F (10 °C) for 7–14 days or until the gravity stabilizes. Chill to 45 °F (7 °C) over 24 hours to drop yeast, then bottle or keg. Add corn sugar (if priming) and bottle or keg as normal.
Tips for Success:
Fresh Victory® malt will help give that biscuity/bready note that you need to accentuate the “cookie-ness”. We added the hops just to control the boil, but not for bittering. Fermentation should take seven days at 50 °F (10 °C) with no mat-uration time (you want elevated diacetyl to give a buttery aroma, reminiscent of a cookie). A-B packaged Doodle unfiltered with low CO2 (2.3%v/v).
Lede Lager
(5 gallon/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.060 FG = 1.014
IBU = 62 SRM = 13 ABV = 6.2%
Ingredients
9 lbs. (4.1 kg) 2-row pale malt
2.5 lbs. (1.13 kg) Best Malz Red X (12 °L)
1.25 lbs. (0.57 kg) crystal malt (60 °L)
10.5 AAU Galaxy hops (60 min.)
(0.75 oz./21 g at 14% alpha acids)
21 AAU Galaxy hops (1 min.)
(1.5 oz./43 g at 14% alpha acids)
18.8 AAU Citra® hops (1 min.)
(1.5 oz./43 g at 12.5% alpha acids)
0.67 oz. (19 g) Galaxy hop pellets (dry hop)
0.67 oz. (19 g) Citra® hop pellets (dry hop)
Wyeast 2035 (American Lager) or White Labs WLP840 (American Lager) yeast
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
If your homebrew shop does not stock Best Malz Red X, you can substitute a Munich malt (~9-10 °L) in its place. Color will be slightly different. Single infusion mash at 148 °F (64 °C) until starch conversion is complete. Bring wort to a boil and boil for 60 minutes adding hops at times indicated. After the boil is complete, give the wort a long stir to create a whirlpool and let the wort settle for about 20 minutes. Rapidly chill the wort to yeast pitch temperature. Ferment at 55 °F (13 °C) until primary fermentation is complete and then lager 21 days.
For the last week of lagering, raise temperature up to 55-60 °F (13-16°C) and to add the dry hops. Add corn sugar (if priming) and bottle or keg as normal.