Dr. Beer
Joe Parrell will cure what ales you
Caitlin Crawshaw, edmontonjournal.com
Published: Wednesday, November 14 2007Most partying college kids joke that while they're bound to fail biochem, they'll pass Beer 101 with flying colours.
But Joe Parrell isn't, well, your average Joe. He excelled at both and has since developed a career in beer from a solid background in biochemistry and a love of fine lagers that precedes his university days.
"I know that when I was younger, all of the university students loved to party, but even before that, my dad used to home-brew all the time, so I used to be his test guinea pig," laughs the 31-year-old, who'd "work with him to get a nice balance in the beer."
He admits, "I might've been a little underage."
These days, Parrell is the brew master at Amber's Brewing Company, a brand-new Edmonton microbrewery blocks away from the Whyte Avenue drinking district. How new? Parrell and brewery owner Jim Gibbon finished their first batch - a pale ale - just weeks ago.
Brewing is as much an art form (yes, there is taste-testing involved) as a science, Parrell explains. Each part of the process - from the choice of hops to how the beer is brewed - can affect the flavour. The entire brewery must be kept clear of beer spoilers like bacteria and spores which, even in small traces, can ruin the batch.
As an employee at a craft brewery (a fancy word for microbrewery), Parrell has been involved in a wide variety of operations. He's helped prepare the warehouse for the brewery equipment, manage the bottling - even help with some of the plumbing and electrical when needed.
The brewery is worlds away from the government food lab where Parrell began his career, but also very different from his job at the city's now-defunct Molson plant, where he worked after completing training with London's Institute of Brewing and Distilling.
"The big guys have their recipes, the processors have been in place for a long time," he explains. "But here you get to develop your own recipes, you fill it from the start, you fix your process, you sell yourself. When you make it yourself, it's a lot easier to sell yourself. You know what you put into it."
And the public is buying in, says Parrell. People are eager to try new recipes.
"The big guys - Bud, Molson, Coors, Labatt - they've been around forever and they have their market share, but it seems to be declining. What's growing is this kind of brewing because people want to try something different. When you get craft brewing you get traditional beers, pale ales, Belgian styles - you can brew whatever. And people drink it and you keep exploring."
Here is the Original:
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/ed/story.html?id=4c62f22c-dfd1-4149-95ff-6b8f661cdc9f&k=6283
