#queerbeer

At the end of the last post, I’d finished brewing school at the Siebel Institute, was volunteering with Metropolitan Brewing and still homebrewing, but didn’t have an actual brewing job yet. I was starting to get desperate and wondered whether I’d made the right choice. Then...

Opportunity Knocks - From Overseas

Ryan Witter, an online friend of mine, was also an experienced brewer in the industry, and was living in Denmark while working as head brewer for Fanø Bryghus. He’d promised a while back to keep his eyes open for any leads, and in early 2011 contacted me to let me know that he might have something. There was another Danish brewery looking to hire a brewer from the US to assist the existing head brewer and eventually take over for him, and would I be interested?

I’m glad I wasn’t driving at the time, or I would have crashed the car in excitement.

Ryan put me in touch with the owner of the brewery, and after some back-and-forth through several long emails we came to an agreement and started the process to bring me over to Denmark. I put my belongings in storage, found a new home for my dog and tied up some loose ends, then packed my bags and headed to Denmark to work for Søgaards Bryghus.

Søgaards Bryghus: Trial by Fire, 2011

Søgaards Bryghus is a brewpub in the city of Aalborg, Denmark, near the northern tip of the country’s main peninsula. At the time it had a 10HL (about 8BBLs) Kaspar-Schulz brewhouse, twenty fermenters and an old Kosme bottling line. It brewed beers for its own brewpub, but the majority of its production was in contract brewing for brands like Black Rooster, Løkken Bryghus and Beer Here (its biggest customer by far). 

I immediately got thrown into the mix: My boss picked me up from the Købnhavn airport, then went to deliver orders to customers within the city. I was excited: Literally an hour in Denmark and I was already schlepping kegs! This became a running theme, as I found out that instead of the six months I was told I’d be spending with the existing brewer, I had only a month to learn all of the brewhouse, cellar and packaging operations before he left the industry. I did my best to learn everything I could from him, then took over as head brewer of Søgaards in April 2011.

The rest of the year was an amazing whirlwind as I revised dry-hopping practices, began liquid yeast pitching and propagation, and worked to keep up with the intense demands of the brewery. I spent at least a month working 100-hour weeks because nobody else could run the place, and while my theoretical knowledge and work ethic got me through almost everything, my practical inexperience tripped me up sometimes. I learned not only what to do, but what not to do as I revised some of the procedures my predecessor passed on to me. I worked on an enormous variety of styles and even got to collaborate with the contract brewers on some special projects.

The owner, however, still didn’t think it was enough, so he hired a more experienced German brewer and, soon after, abruptly let me go from the company. It was a devastating development, especially after the hard work and sacrifices I’d made, but I realized I had some incredible experience to fall back on and returned to Chicago determined to continue working with beer.

Getting Goosed: 2012-2013

So remember that thing about the Catch-22 of job experience? I began sending out job applications once again, and this time I had multiple interviews lined up within a week. I made a two-week excursion on the east coast to interview at places like Allentown Brew Works and Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery, but ended up returning home to Chicago to begin working for Goose Island in January 2012.

While Søgaards Bryghus was a relative unknown to me when they hired me, Goose Island had long loomed large in my beer pantheon, between their famous production beers and the numerous trips I’d made to the brewpub as a homebrewer in Chicago Beer Society. It remains an honor to be a part, however small, of Goose Island’s legacy within Chicago and the brewing industry.

I started off brewing on the 50BBL brewhouse, which exponentially increased my brewing knowledge (and showed me what I’d been doing wrong at Søgaards!) and put my hands on everything from 312 to Bourbon County Stout. I also trained in the cellar, operating the fermenters, centrifuge, bell-and-candle DE filter and even doing some barrel-aging work. I participated in the Fulton & Wood innovation program, and helped develop beers like Casimir (a dark smoked wheat ale, inspired by Polish traditions), Dark Traveler (a Munich dunkel with oats), and Devon Avenue Pale Ale (a pale ale infused with Indian spices), the latter based on a homebrew idea I’d had in the past. Most importantly, I learned an amazing amount, not just about brewing and factory practices but about accountability, humility and how to best apply my skills and knowledge. Pat O’Neil, the man who did most of my training at Goose (and who is now a supervisor at Lagunitas), taught me the most about the latter parts, and I continue to consider him my mentor in the brewing world. And at Goose Island, I finally gained the confidence to come out as queer to the world at large.

I spent two years working at Goose Island, and while it was never a perfect place to work, I still place incredible value on the experiences I had, the maturity I gained and the friends I made. But I heard rumors that Lagunitas might build a new brewery in Chicago, and I felt the urge to throw my hat into the ring.

Lagunitas Doesn’t Suck: 2013 to today

As you may know, Lagunitas was indeed building a new brewery in Chicago, and I got hired on as part of the first wave of brewers to staff the 250BBL Rolec brewhouse, the largest ever built by that company. We all got sent to the original Petaluma brewery to train on their system for three weeks in November 2013, and learn not only about the company’s process but about its beers and culture. We returned to Chicago to continue the work of opening the brewery, but since the brewhouse still hadn’t been completed, the brewers spent a fair amount of time sweeping, and painting, and cleaning, and painting, and planning, and did I mention painting?

At long last, though, the first batch of wort went into yeast propagators on March 17th, a day that kept most of us at the brewery for 20 hours but was worth the exhaustion. From that point forward, we fell into the work at maximum velocity: Most of us only expected to produce IPA for the first year to dial in the system, but within a few months we were working with the entire stable of Lagunitas beers. One of the biggest challenges was making sure that the product remained consistent between Chicago and Petaluma, and everything I’ve seen indicates that we continue to tackle that challenge confidently.

As the “second-shift brewhouse guru”, I helped set standard practices, troubleshoot the system and root out issues keeping the brewery from working at its best. I also trained four other people in operating the brewhouse before transferring to filtration and learning how to operate the centrifuge, filter, carbonator and BBTs. Filtration is where I continue to work right now: Clarifying, stabilizing, carbonating and “finishing” the beer before it reaches packaging.

My time at Lagunitas is also where I finally figured out that I’m transgender, and began the transition process. I came out as trans to the world at large at the end of April, and have been living and working as Julia since then. My boss and Lagunitas HR worked closely with me on coming out at work, and all of my coworkers have been welcoming and accepting of my authentic self. I’m supremely proud to be a Lagunator and hope to stick around the brewery for a while to come.

Brew Trans Soul Rebel

Brewing hasn’t been an easy road for me by a long shot: I’ve given up a lot of financial security and resources I used to have, had to rebuild my life from scratch twice, and even gave up my dog Waldo when I moved overseas. I’ve worked harder than I ever have in my life, and overcome a number of other personal challenges at the same time.

But I wouldn’t give up a second of it for anything. Brewing remains the most rewarding and welcoming industry I’ve ever worked in. I love the confluence of science, craft and history, and of physical and mental work. I love getting off of work at the end of the day and being able to hold a glass in my hand and say, “I helped create this.” I love the people I’ve met and the experiences I’ve had and what brewing has helped me to learn about myself. I doubt I could have ever come to terms with being trans, or made the decision to transition, if I’d gone back to working in an office environment.

Ask most of my friends or family to describe me, and in all likelihood the first thing out of their mouths will be, “She’s REALLY passionate about beer and brewing.” But if you had asked me ten years ago what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, brewing wouldn’t have even been on the list, let alone occupy spots #1 through #234958 as it does now. Roots

I led a pretty average suburban childhood growing up in Northwest Indiana. (That’s right, I’m a Region Rat.) My dad worked in steel, my mom worked as a nurse, and my older sister was an academic overachiever. I grew up without much interest in physical disciplines, but with an avid interest in literature, music and science. My career aspirations ranged wildly throughout my life from marine biologist to author to musician to physicist to software coder, but I ultimately ended up getting an English degree from Purdue University in 2004. 

After college, I moved back to Chicago and started looking for a job, which resulted in landing a document scanning position with a litigation support company. My long history of being a computer nerd and tinkerer translated well into the litigation support field - which primarily involves database and IT work - and I spent the next five years developing a career in that field. 

The Beer

I got introduced to alcohol by my father in high school, when he took me to New Orleans for Halloween a few years in a row. He figured that the best place for me to learn about booze was under his wing, rather than blindly boozing with other jackasses in college and dying of alcohol poisoning or something. In addition to discovering whiskey and gin, I was inducted into the world of beer with beers like Newcastle Brown Ale and Guinness: Not the most distinctive start, but one that gave me an immediate taste for the stuff. I spent a short time in college drinking fairly cheap beers before my best friend Gary and I, while spending a night tinkering with music, decided to get some bottles of stuff we’d never tried before whose labels looked kind of cool: Names that were still new and magical at the time, like Rogue, Dogfish Head and Unibroue. We both immediately took to them, and my taste for craft beer was locked in.

A few years later, while I was thoroughly mired in the doldrums of office work, Gary and his girlfriend visited with a few sixers of beers I couldn’t find in Chicago, plus several mysterious bottles without labels: An all-Fuggle IPA they’d recently brewed together while experimenting with homebrewing. The idea of homebrewing intrigued me, but seemed like too much work at the time, so I enjoyed the beer and went on my merry way. But they’d stirred the beast, and it would not be put to rest...

Highbrau Brewing

I finally decided to give homebrewing a try in 2008, when Gary and Liz got me a steep discount on equipment due to the fact that Liz worked at a winery and homebrew shop in Bloomington, Indiana. I had fun with the first few batches, but it didn’t really grab me until I brewed a black saison kit from Northern Brewer later that year. After that, I fell down the rabbit hole hard and fast, and quickly jumped into all-grain brewing and formulating my own recipes.

Brewing is a confluence of many different things that excite me: Chemistry, biology, art and history. I developed a passion for both the mental and physical aspects of the hobby - and the fact that it results in delicious beer! To pay tribute to my love for literature, I decided to call my “homebrewery” Highbrau Brewing, and named all of my beers for literary references, from Steppenwolf Dunkel to Pale Fire IPA to Dorian Gray Belgian Ale (best enjoyed by the pitcher). I began brewing in earnest and sharing the results at Chicago Beer Society meetings, with positive results.

The Tipping Point

By the summer of 2009, I’d gotten a solid start on homebrewing, but had lost steam in developing my career in litigation support. Having a steady office job paid the bills, but it wasn’t satisfying in any personal or meaningful way. I felt like I was treading water behind a desk and not making any forward progress. But what really sealed the deal was when I lost my job that July, and found myself directly facing the decision: Do I want to spend the rest of my life in front of a computer screen, or do I want to do something different? And if I want to do something different... then what?

For the first time, I thought, “Hey, maybe I can do something with this whole brewing thing,” and put it on the list of potential paths I could take. I spent some time thinking the subject over, and as paths like graduate school looked less and less appealing, they disappeared from the list until only two paths remained: brewing and litigation support. Finally, I decided to take a chance on brewing so that I could do something I love for a living, and signed up for classes at the Siebel Institute.

Siebel, Metropolitan, and a Year in the Desert

I attended the Siebel Institute’s two-week Concise Course in the fall of 2009, and followed that up with the 12-week International Course in the spring of 2010. During that time I held a part-time job at another litigation support company to help pay my way through classes. Siebel taught me a lot about the science and practice of brewing, but it did so much more: Connected me to a huge network of colleagues and friends, gave me some amazing life experiences, took me on my first trip to continental Europe and gave me some useful “liver training”. I still look back on it as one of the best times of my life.

Once I returned from my time in Germany, though, the litigation support company informed me that I’d been laid off in my absence, which left me plenty of time with which to search for brewing jobs but not much in the way of resources. I spent a year looking for brewing work, either unemployed or underemployed. After all, the same Catch-22 of the rest of the world still applies to brewing: You need experience to get a job, but you need a job to get experience.

During this period I put in some time volunteering on the packaging line at Metropolitan Brewing, an all-lager brewery in Chicago headed up by Doug and Tracy Hurst. I got my first experience with the sometimes-brutal, usually-messy and always-wet physical labor of the industry, and made many connections that have proven themselves fruitful throughout my career. And hell, I made some damn good friends there too. Metropolitan remains one of my favorite breweries in Chicago and holds a special place in my heart, and I’m still friends with all of the folks there.

By the end of 2010, I was working part-time at a gourmet cheese purveyor, low on funds, and running out of hope. And then opportunity knocked...