“DUDE, YOU KNOW WE HAVE SCIENTISTS TO HELP ENSURE THE QUALITY OF EVERYTHING WE DO, RIGHT?” I DO NOW, TOUR GUIDE. I DO NOW.
TED PETERSON // WOOD CELLAR POET LAUREATE Ted Peterson’s office is our Wood Cellar, and he makes poetry blending sour beers, or so his business card, and perhaps pickup lines, implies (official title: Wood Cellar Poet Laureate). The Wood Cellar is a collection of 60-ish two-story foeders (giant oak barrels used for aging and developing our sour beers), and this is Ted country. Another thing to know about Ted is that he’s my favorite person to run into when I visit the Mothership, and I’ll tell you why: Dude’s trouble. Chill, manageable trouble—but trouble nonetheless. If you work for New Belgium, but you’re one of the few hundred employees who work remotely, brewery visits tend to have many opportunities for “sampling,” or as you’d call it anywhere else, “drinking.” For example, I may walk through our Wood Cellar, and if I run into Ted on the way, the next thing I know he’ll be zig-zagging me through the maze of foeders to one particular retired whisky barrel where he’s aging a “secret blend of [inaudibly trails off].” He’ll hand me a glass, use pliers to pry out the nail used as a stopper, and unleash a healthy pour of what is most likely a very high ABV sour beer that very few people will ever try—at least as is. Pair this with the beer I was probably already drinking (hey, I’m sort of on work vacation), and the fact that this will probably happen a few more times today, and Ted starts to seem like trouble. I like Ted and I like sour beer. A lot.
ANDY MITCHELL // BREWER Andy Mitchell is a Brewer 3, and despite Andy’s protest, being Brewer 3 level is like having a black belt in the brewing arts. Brewers don’t make beer, they make wort (If you’re saying it correctly, it’s pronounced wert. If you’re like me and mispronouncing it correctly, it’s WART). In short, wort is a malty, sugary feedstock for yeast, and it’s the yeast that makes the beer, by converting sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Not only does Andy know what it takes to make yeast happy and healthy, he specializes in improving the brewing process so we can make more with less—more and better beer with less energy and fewer inputs through constant collaboration between brewers, engineers, and programmers for process improvements. The German engineering-level of precision it takes to make our beer is greatly appreciated.