The world of brewing beer may seem like it’s all fun and games at first, but dig a little deeper and new words, equipment, product and different processes are unearthed. Today, we discuss a product called diatomaceous earth.
At Four Peaks Brewing Co, we pride ourselves on the bright (clear) beer selection we offer. Achieving this level of clarity in our beer isn’t something that just happens by way of luck. We invest a lot of time and energy making this happen. An essential component to filtering process is a product called diatomaceous earth (DE or DTE)
Unused DE
DE is made up of the tiny spiny remains of aquatic creatures. These creatures are called diatoms and are made up of a substance called silica. Making up about 26% of the Earth’s crust by weight, silica is a plentiful natural resource whose registered uses include pesticides, skin care products, toothpastes, foods, beverages, medicines, paints, and water filters.
How DE is used in the brewing process
Filter w/ used DE
At Four Peaks Brewery, this powdery substance is used in conjunction with stainless wire mesh through a filter machine (pictured). This allows for optimal clarity in the beer without affecting the color or taste of the filtered beer.
Bret adds DE to the filter during a cycle.
Note: Great care must be taken not to inhale DE. Respirators are used throughout the process to protect the brewers from breathing this material into their lungs.
A brewer adds the diatomaceous earth to the DE filter. Then these crushed, spiky corals layer on top of each other creating enough space, or what Brewer, Rob Rodriguez, describes as a “maze” for the beer to pass through leaving behind unwanted particles.
Not many organizations in Tempe can say they have been running successfully for 43 years. Many of us can’t even say we’ve been breathing for 43 years let alone running anything successfully for that duration.
Dick Neuheisel, President of Tempe Sister Cities
Dick Neuheisel, President of Tempe Sister Cities, can say that. Forty-some years ago, on their way to Skopje, Macedonia, the first Sister City, Dick and his wife stopped in Vienna and they were admiring some dirndls. Dick committed to his wife that he’d bring an Oktoberfest to Tempe for her to don her dirndl to support the Tempe Sister Cities and in 1973, he did just that.
Forty-three years and nine more Sister Cities later, the Tempe tradition lives on. It may have a new name, Four Peaks Oktoberfest, but the heart and soul of the operation remain the same: maintain the monetary lifeline of Tempe Sister Cities. Sister Cities is an organization that provides vital programs for Tempe residents, students, and educators. This non-profit organization is “in the business of making friends – globally.”
“Tempe Sister City Corporation, (TSC), is in the business of making friends – globally.” ~Four Peaks Oktoberfest webpage “FAQ” page
Here are eight reasons why you need to clear your calendar and join us for the 43rd Annual Four Peaks Oktoberfest on October 9 – 11, 2015:
1. Admission is FREE!
Much like the best things in life. Save those bones for beer.
Speaking of beer…
2. Copious amounts of Beer.
Taps will be flowing with this sweet nectar that will include (but not limited to) Four Peaks Pumpkin Porter, and Paulenar Oktoberfest. Paulenar is one of the only six official beers allowed to be poured for Oktoberfest in Munich. Make no mistake about it, though, there will be a brew for all beer lovers enjoy!
3. Bountiful brats.
One of the reasons why Four Peaks was so happy to be a part of this celebration was Tempe Sister Cities’ commitment to local. The brats that are served at Four Peaks Oktoberfest are from none other than Arizona’s own Von Hansen’s Meats and Spirits. It is estimated that 25,000 brats will be consumed over the three-day event with 750 kegs of beer to wash those delicious brats down and, folks, it doesn’t get any fresher than brats from Chandler, AZ.
Duane Moore of Mogollon.
4. Rockin’ jams.
Not just any old jam session. Live music will be played on three stages for three days and it starts with Dierks Bentley’s Whiskey Row Experience Friday night. There are too many to list, so I suggest you check out the Four Peaks Oktoberfest website to plan your visit.
5. Exhilarating exercise.
Are you a runner? Come down bright and early on Saturday at 8 a.m. for the Frank Kush das Foot Race at the Tempe Center for the Arts for a 5K, 10K, and 1-mile scenic jaunt around Tempe Town Lake. Then replenish the carbs with a beer! (After adequate hydration, of course!)
Fans of yoga will find their moment of zen with the Yoga in the Park. And there will even be a Zumbathon for Zumba enthusiasts!
Courtesy of Sister Cities
6. No babysitter required. Four Peaks Oktoberfest is a family-friendly event! Bring the kiddos with you to experience rides, carnival food, and a splash pad to keep cool! (Service animals are permitted however pets are asked to sit this event out.)
7. Sunday Funday.
This Sunday lineup includes a laundry list of family-friendly FREE events! Events incluse the Kinderfest presented by Landings Credit Union, Yoga in the Park and Zumbathon, Wiener dog races, a brat eating contest, carnival and splash park! Additionally, Sunday will offer a special where guests can get two beers, one brat and one stein for $20! Put THAT in your lederhosen and polka!
Follow Four Peaks on Periscope!
8. Be a part of Four Peaks Oktoberfest history!
This year’s Four Peaks Oktoberfest is kicking it up a notch and taking this party GLOBAL. That’s right. GLOBAL. Four Peaks Brewing Company (@FourPeaksBrew) will be scoping the opening ceremonies via Periscope! We are inviting Tempe’s ten Sister Cities from Regensburg, Germany to Lower Hutt, New Zealand and Timbuktu, Mali to watch Tempe, Arizona kick off this celebrated event!
So get out those smartphones and save these dates! The Four Peaks Oktoberfest will be heald from Friday, October 9 until Sunday, October 11 at the Tempe Town Beach Park. Visit www.FourPeaksOktoberfest.com for a listing of all the events and the times to plan for your best experience!
Jamie begins a tour through the original Four Peaks in Tempe.
Knowing where your brew comes from is important. Especially to the gang here at Four Peaks Brewing Company.
We just love craft beer. We love that we can enjoy fresh beer from the source weekly. We love the variety that craft beer offers. We love being a part of an active craft beer community.
We wanted to expand that experience. We all sat around a while ago and asked ourselves what we enjoy out of our personal craft beer experiences.
Bottling 101 with Jamie on a brewery tour.
We enjoy the smells of hops and malts offered. We enjoy walking in and seeing the big steel tanks in the morning and then in the early evening during the sunset and illuminates them just so. We enjoy talking to brewers, cellarmen, and the bottling team about what’s on the horizon. We enjoy talking about beer and how we make it. We appreciate the process because we understand the process.
Then it hit us: Brewery tours!
Touring the barrel room and the canning line.
Let's show our friends and fans what we do and how we do it. Let's educate them about Four Peaks beer in a way no one or no other platform can educate them.
Then we got to work. We recruited a couple of enthusiastic, articulate, and fun tour guides that are passionate about not only craft beer but Four Peaks craft beer. We offer tours three times a day on Saturday – 10:30, 12, and 2:30. They last about 45 minutes to an hour and include two (2) tickets to enjoy the beer our participants just learned all about in the tour. We also threw in a price break for any merchandise purchased that day as well – 15% off.
Word got out, and the tours gained more popularity. We were getting requests left and right and, frankly, could not keep up! The choice was simple. We had to add more tours!
This is an excellent opportunity to host a company get together or team building exercise! Out of town guests will be able to tour one of Tempe’s oldest buildings and learn about Arizona’s premier brewery up close and in person! Guests also looking for an entertaining and educational activity for a group of friends will also benefit from our expansion of schedule offerings.
Group tour of Wilson in Tempe, AZ.
But we couldn’t just stop there. We didn’t want the Tasting Room on Wilson to feel left out! We went back to the drawing board. We concluded we must include Four Peaks Tasting Room and production facility in the tour schedule.
Starting September 25, 2015, Four Peaks Tasting Room on Wilson will be open from 4 PM – 9 PM every Friday night. There will be tours to take, beer to drink, food trucks to dine from, and parking spots to… park!
Make your reservations for your tours today or keep us in mind for traveling friends, office parties, or just something to do on a day off.
We look forward to seeing you at a brewery tour or sipping on a brew at the Tasting Room on Wilson soon! Send a shout out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We like hearing from our friends and sharing your awesome pics!
Four Peaks Releases the Seasonal Favorite for 17th Year in a Row
TEMPE, Ariz – While the temperature may not reflect it, fall has officially come to Arizona thanks to Four Peaks Brewing Company releasing their highly anticipated seasonal beer, Four Peaks Pumpkin Porter on September 9, 2015. Four Peaks has maintained the same recipe for the past 16 years and continued the tradition this season too.
Pumpkin Porter will be available for Arizona statewide distribution through Hensley Beverage Company in Arizona beginning the week of September 14, 2015, including draft and cans. Each year Four Peaks produces more than the previous year and each year it’s more popular than the last.
“Pumpkin Porter is a dark, rich porter combined with all of the things that make a great pumpkin pie; nutmeg, allspice, ground clove and a little bit of ginger. It’s our most popular specialty beer and has been for nearly two decades,” explains Andy Ingram, Four Peaks Brewer, and founding partner. Pumpkin Porter weighs in at 5.1% ABV and 9 IBUs.
Following on Pumpkin Porter’s coattails will be Imperial Porter later in the season (release date TBD). Imperial Porter is a part of Four Peaks’ Single Tank Series and is brewed one 40 BBL batch at a time, in-house. This double pumpkin imperial porter is not quite double in alcohol and not quite double the pumpkin. This porter weighs in at about 8.2% ABV and 25 IBUs.
Four Peaks Brewing Company has been a part of Tempe, Arizona since 1996. It is the third largest brewery in the United States among those only distributing in their home states.
Americans have a particular palate. While knee-deep in a craft beer revolution, the number one selling beer in America is still a macro-produced light beer. That’s right. A fizzy, yellow brew tops our best-selling beer charts.
But buried deep in the craft beer culture is a sub-culture of beer lovers that are starting to step out of the shadows. They are the cask-conditioned ale (or ‘Real Ale’) drinkers. Proudly, I am one of them.
Traditionally, Real Ales are cask-conditioned ales that are made exclusively with traditional ingredients (malt, yeast, water, hops) then are allowed a second fermentation cycle to allow for natural carbonation. A priming agent may be introduced to the beer. A priming agent is an additional sugar source so the yeast can eat some more sugar to produce an increased amount of natural carbon dioxide. This means that additional gas (carbon dioxide and nitrogen) are not introduced to the beer. The beer is stored in a cask and pulled through a hand pump – or a ‘beer engine’ – or the cask is tapped at the keystone with cask tap and gravity takes over and poured into an English Pint Glass or German Stein.
The agitation that is introduced produces a creamy froth. Occasionally additional ingredients such as coffee beans, special spices, or dry hopping techniques are used to give the beer new dimension and depth. As Charlie Billingsley, Brewer and Real Ale fan, puts it, “The cask itself gives the opportunity for dry hopping and the occasional spice for a unique beer drinking experience.”
Tandoori Spiced Cask-conditioned Raj at the original Four Peaks in Tempe.
Charlie goes on to say, “The challenge of producing a proper pint of cask conditioned beer has always fascinated me. It’s not easy to get the carbonation right, which happens naturally in the cask. Therefore, the term cask conditioned ale. Once the cask is ready to be tapped, a skilled cellarman (not gender specific) needs to fine the cask and put it on stillage with enough time for the beer to clarify.”
A ‘Real Ale’ is the most fundamental, real, raw form of enjoying a brew that we, as consumers, can enjoy.
With such a gift comes great responsibility. This beer is meant to be consumed fresh and stored at cellar temperature. (This being 40º-55º F.) Fresh also means that there aren’t any added preservatives to keep it fresher longer. It also means, if not stored properly and consumed within about 72 hours of tapping, the beer starts to oxidize and go bad.
“When the pint is presented to the beer drinking guest it will have a cascading effect offering a nice dense head on the beer and looking bright as if it was filtered.” -Charlie Billingsley
What makes a ‘Real Ale’ so special?
Four Peaks 8th Street bartender, Cody, pulls a cask 8th Street Pale Ale from the beer engine.
Cask-conditioned, or ‘Real Ales’, are special because of what happens when high levels of carbonation and temperatures are stripped away from shocking then muting our taste buds. What you experience is the truest, most delicate, awesome flavors of a beer that you have never experienced before. It’s like tasting your favorite beer again for the first time only with super sensory powers – malts are maltier; the hops are hoppier; the peaks are higher, and the valleys are lower. Each minute essence of the beer is expanded exponentially in a cask-conditioned beer.
Squashing the myth
Real Ales are seen more predominantly in English pubs however the trend is alive and well in America despite the myth that cask-conditioned ales are “warm and flat”. A well-handled cask-conditioned ale poured properly through a well-maintained engine will present at a comfortable temperature for your palate to experience each flavor nuance. The creamy feel of the natural carbonation may not bounce over your tongue like a carbonated brew but instead will roll across your tongue to allow each papilla to become enveloped in its flavor.
The beer engine handle at Four Peaks Grill & Tap in Scottsdale.
At Four Peaks Brewery and Four Peaks Grill & Tap, a new variety of cask-conditioned ales are released weekly. Each Wednesday, the original Four Peaks in Tempe releases two varieties and each Thursday, Four Peaks Grill & Tap pulls one variety from their engine. We share our newest cask-conditioned creations on Facebook, Twitter, and our website.
Tasting beer requires more than simply drinking beer.
There is a ritual to tasting beer that involves each of your senses. Bringing this practice to light may tack on a few extra minutes to your sampling session but what you learn by participating in a friendly (and somewhat organized) tasting session could last a lifetime!
PRO TIP: “What I tell people is to use all of your senses when tasting beer. You eat with your eyes why not drink with them too.” – Melissa Osborne, Brewer
The Structured Analysis Process
Melissa leads a tasting session with craft beer team leaders for Total Wine.
Melissa Osborne is a member of the Four Peaks Brewing team and an experienced judge. Melissa leads monthly tasting and sensory panels for the staff and specialty tasting sessions for partners. She knows a thing or two about sampling and judging beers.
During organized and formal tasting sessions, the group is given samples of each of the Four Peaks mainstay beers – Hop Knot IPA, Raj IPA, 8th Street Pale Ale, White Ale, Arizona Peach Ale, Sunbru Kolsch, Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale and Oatmeal Stout. Each participant is given a sheet of paper that outlines each style. There is a quick overview of what the style is and the ingredients of that specific brew to give participants some background and education about the style at hand.
For each style, some sections can be checked that offer several descriptors. Using all senses – appearance, aroma, taste, and mouth-feel, participants take their time to identify precisely what they see (color, clarity, head), what they smell, (dark fruit, light fruit, citrus, spices, bread), what they taste (flavors, intensity, transitions, finish) and mouth-feel (carbonation, body, smooth, silky).
Sampling notes
Participants are urged to take notes on their findings and encouraged to consider food pairings for each style. After taking notes on each style, participants share their findings with each other and compare notes. This is a crucial step! Many times different folks have different sensory thresholds. This means they can pick up on a particular attribute much easier than someone else in the group. Once discussed, other participants may be able to pull through a similar attribute and VOILÀ! Palates have been expanded. Similar characteristics can be detected in future tastings of that same style (or other related styles).
PRO TIP: “At a judge table, we taste and make our notes independantly then talk about it afterward so we don’t influence each other.” -Melissa Osborne
Why so serious? Tasting beer is supposed to be fun!
Tasting and learning about your beer should be fun! Let’s break down the process into four easy steps that will take your beer sampling (and palate!) to the next level:
Hold your sample up to the light (Hint: put a piece of white paper or a white napkin behind it.)
What do you see? Take note of the color (honey, russet brown, inky black), the clarity (brilliant, hazy, cloudy, bright), and the head (persistent, rocky, frothy)
Bring the beer up to your nose and inhale. (Hint: open your mouth slightly and inhale with your nose and mouth.)
What do you smell? Is it bready or biscuity? Can you smell raisins or bananas? Maybe a hint of grapefruit? Possibility pepper, licorice? Reach deep into the old memory bank for scents of your youth – grass, a cellar, a fresh lilac, Sunday breakfast (bacon!).
Now, take that first sip.
What do you taste? What is it? Is that vanilla? A hint of dark chocolate? Maybe caramel? Is it all bread? What’s the intensity of the flavors? Subtle or over the top? Maybe one taste transitions into another? How’s that finish? Dry or lingering?
Once that sip of beer has passed, let’s think about how the mouth feels.
How did that beer feel in your mouth? Was the beer smooth and silky? Or was it hot and astringent? Did it bounce over your tongue or did it glide over it? Was it dense and chewy or delicate and light?
Staff sensory tasting at Four Peaks Tasting Room in Tempe.
For these exercises, you don’t have to be taking in-depth notes. Using a free app, like Untappd, can help you organize and document the beers you have tried. This is an exercise about expanding your palate and understanding what you are drinking. It gets you talking about beer and increases your appreciation for the craft. You can tell your friends why you liked (or disliked) a particular brew.
Don’t worry, you won’t be tested. There aren’t any right or wrong answers to tasting beer. While it can be intimidating at first, I encourage you to get out there and taste with friends. Hosting a bottle exchange party or getting together with a group to enjoy a round of taster flights is the perfect opportunity to put this ritual to good use!
PRO TIP: “Go with your gut instinct when tasting a beer. Trust your palate.” – Melissa Osborne
Do you have a tasting ritual you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below or share with us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram!
Marie at Four Peaks 