The Good Doctor

After a conversation with a brewer in OKC about potential space to brew in yesterday, I thought it would be a good idea to give you guys a little background about me and my company.

I've been enamored with brewing beer for quite some time now. When I was about sixteen I became aware home-brewing was a thing you could do when I started noticing a bunch of bubbling buckets my friend's older brother had stashed around the house. I thought that was about the coolest thing anyone could ever do.  That year I did a project for my business class in high school about how I was going to open a brew pub later in life. I still have that dream, and when I'm done being a gypsy I probably will settle down and open up a tiny pub somewhere.

The summer after my freshman year in college, right after I had turned 19, I was at my parents house in South Jersey on vacation and brewed my first batch of beer. It was an extract cream ale kit. I certainly didn't taste it being under-age and all, but a few of my older buddies did. They told me it was "definitely better then Miller". That was a pretty high compliment back when we were still so young and naive. I was hooked. I spent all my savings on brewing books, read about beer either in a book or online for several hours a day, and home brewed twice a week. It took me three batches to go all grain. I remember that beer too. It was a dark mild. That beer was really good (say my older friends who were of legal drinking age when I was under age). I figured if I could pull off such a solid beer brewing the "real" way on my kitchen stove, I probably had enough of what it takes to really hang with the big boys.

When I went back to school in Pittsburgh, I called every brewery in the city every day offering to work for free. It took some time, but by February the guys at the Church Brew Works were so fed up with hearing from me that they told me I could come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays to volunteer on the bottling line. I was working three part time jobs, attending college as a full time student, and was the president of my fraternity at the time, but i made it work.

Things went well. All I was doing was bottling and making variety cases (two things that I couldn't despise more by now) but I couldn't have been happier. The first time they let me scrub yeast out of a tank I nearly fainted I was so excited. I made the decision that this was the career path I was going to head down, and decided to take a year off of college and see what happened. The Church still didn't have any paid work for me, so that summer I worked as a short order cook for the snack shack at a country club, and did my best to keep up with my two day a week internship.

That August, one of the brewers hurt his back and they wanted me in full time. It was a significant pay cut, but I took it without a second thought. I got trained to filter and transfer beer, clean and sanitize tanks, and do everything else that didn't actually involve brewing. I wasn't allowed to brew because I was under age, and the owner at The Church felt that if I couldn't taste beer I certainly wouldn't be effective at brewing it. I was getting a little restless by that point.

By that next February, a year after I started my internship at the Church, I took a job at Hofbrauhaus branch in Pittsburgh. There was no creativity, and I had to trim my beard (those Germans are crazy, that's unheard of in the American beer scene), but I was brewing beer and learning from an old German dude who'd been brewing longer then I'd been alive. He told me I had to taste everything, but that I had to taste it in the corner of the cellar since I was under age. I hit the ground running and was brewing Hofbrauhaus beers a week after I started. My first solo commercial size batch was the Hofbrauhaus Helles Lager, a beer I'm still pretty fond of. I also got trained running a very complicated type of filtration system that usually only larger breweries could afford, and that's a skill I'm very proud to have.

I gained invaluable experience working at Hofbrauhaus, and was really proud of the beer we made, despite sometimes calling it "corporate swill", but I hated it there. The old German dude that I admired and had come to work for had been let go, and I was answering to a corporate style restaurant manager who's former gig was running a TGI Friday's in the airport. He didn't know a mash tun from his own ass, but he was in charge of us and was the one who told us what to do. Being managed by a guy who openly admitted he didn't know anything about my job was the most frustrating experience in my life. Plus he made me trim my beard even shorter and implemented a dress code. We had to wear t-shirts tucked into khaki pants. If I had wanted dress codes and tidy facial hair I would have gone to law school.

By now I was 21, and I had still kept one day a week part time working at the church brew works. Brewers work long hours, usually 9 or 10 hour days. 60 hours a week was really rough, especially without a car. From my neighborhood in Pittsburgh it was a mile and a half walk to the Hofbrauhaus every morning, and on Saturdays an hour bus ride to the Church. I was exhausted all the time, and miserable at the corporate brewery I was at.

But I was always taught hard work pays off, so I kept plugging along. I had developed a nack for a few things as my interests and skills became more specialized. I was offered full time hours again at The Church, and of course I jumped at the opportunity to come back. This time, along with cellar work I was able to brew. I got to make recipes for specialty beers (St. Agricola ale is mine, and it's on right now. keep a look out for a black saison and a beer we're calling "inside out stout" as well, those are my recipes) and was put in charge of and given creative control of the sour beers, the barrel aging program, and cask ales.

And so that's what I've been up to. Your math is right if you're following along, I'm only 22. But now it's time for a move, since my better half got placed in Tulsa with Teach for America. I've worked so hard to get to the level I'm at, and I feel I'm ready, so I'm deciding to take the big leap into opening my own brewing operation once I'm in Oklahoma. The sole reason this is a gypsy operation and not a brick and mortar one is so I have the option to move around with my lovely lady. We're both young and have a little wanderlust going on.

That's my story, and I'm sticking too it.

The Method Behind the Madness

Time for a little progress report. I think I've settled on a supplier for a potential pilot system, though I won't name him just yet so as not to jinx things. Hopefully this 3 vessel, 1 bbl system finds some floor space to live in, otherwise it's just going to be the most over-powered home brew system I've ever heard of in my life.

I'm shopping around for cooperage as well. I like the idea of renting kegs rather then buying them, partly because I expect Tulsa won't be the last stop on my journey, but mostly because I have a pretty tight (i.e. almost non-existent) budget to work with. I am going to try and go with a company that offers lease to own options, which is something I would recommend other brewers in a similar situation to my own do as well. Every brewery I've worked for, with, near to, or heard about in my career so far has a cooperage issue, and stainless steel sure ain't getting any cheaper.

I'm also still in the market for some stable space. I'm starting to look for a brewer somewhere in the Midwest (preferably Oklahoma, but beggars can't be choosers) Who has the capacity to contract my flagship, Lazy Bully Lager. This will free me up to find a space in either Tulsa or OKC to physically brew all the various specialty beers, one offs, and seasonal products I want to do, which is really my bread and butter.

So that's that. I'd also like to take a moment here and elaborate a little bit on what exactly I'm trying to do here. For lack of a better term, this is the "beer philosophy" that Doc Buckman's will be operating under.

The way I brew is very simple. I pick one ingredient  like a particular yeast strain, a type of malt, a particular hop variety, or a specific technique like a sour mash or decoction, and then I work backwards. I try my best to then highlight that particular item in a unique beer style. For example, Lazy Bully Lager is all about dark Munich malt. The breadiness and amber color are the focus of the beer. But the key for me always has been and always will be balance. You're not gonna see a beer from me at 112 IBU or 18% ABV. Of course, many breweries do that kind of stuff and do it really well. I'll drink those on my (few and far between) days spent not working.

Brewing for me is about the challenge and the art form. I know it sounds corny, but if I was looking for a career to make a serious profit in and then live off my 401k once I hit 65, I'd be doing anything but this. Anything I brew is going to be challenging to get right. I'm confident enough to think I'll be able to get it right most of the time, but there will likely be some mistakes and less then amazing batches as well. I think that's part of the fun, and hopefully my customers (that's all you fine folks) agree.

I also believe the challenge goes both ways. I don't intend to put out a lot of "Easy drinking" one note type of products. These beers are gonna pack a punch, they're gonna be complex. I want someone drinking my beers to be able to take a few minutes and really think about what they're tasting.

Yeah, it's a little ideological for sure. Hopefully it works out. I think it'll be fine. Trust me, I'm a doctor.

Beers in Progress

Our first batch of labels are pretty much done! We've still got a tiny bit of work to do to make sure they fit with Oklahoma's requirements, but they sure do look pretty. These labels were designed by my future sister-in-law, she'll hopefully be doing most of our design work going forward. here's a sneak preview of what our bottle's might look like

The Doctor's Reserve is going to likely be our first release, sometime in early fall. It's a decently hopped american strong ale with a whole bunch of rye in the mash to create a very distinct character. It'll be fermented with our house yeast strain to add just the right bit of funk.

In addition to that, here's a few others in the works you can look forward to.

Lazy Bully Lager: This'll be our only bottom fermented product. We'll be using an old school steem beer yeast and shooting for a fuller bodied beer with a bready and earthy character. Northern brewer hops and a heavy dose of Munich malt are what set this beer apart.

The Uncle Neal: This beer starts as american stout heavy on the roasted malts, with some nugget hops for a little kick. Fermented with a Belgian yeast strain, this unique brew represents the godfather himself. Thoughtful, but entirely inappropriate.

The Molly Rae: A Classic belgian wit, mainly brewed with unmalted wheat and oats. We'll be going through a traditional multi step mash for this one, and then adding the traditional coriander and orange peel into the kettle, along with a few other herbs and spices from the Doc's medicine cabinet.

Old Country Ale: Amarillo hops, a bit of crystal malt, and our house ale yeast put a unique spin on an old style taste. Sour mashed like a classic Kentucky Common, this is one for the real beer geeks among us.

Snake Oil IPA: A spicy, earthy, and bitter IPA in the British style of things, and again fermented with our house ale yeast.

They'll be out as soon as possible, keep an eye out.

Take once daily for a healthy soul.

It looks like its happening. Three years brewing beer at home and at work have given me the desire to cut out on my own. Unfortunately, like most fake doctors, I've got sort of a funding problem. To remedy this, I'll be working cheap and looking to gypsy brew all the beer we produce. 

Gypsy brewing in a nutshell means that I'll be renting space from breweries who are willing to work with me, and I imagine bouncing around a bit. I intend to be brewing all of the beer I possibly can. Any brewing work that has to be contracted out for some reason (hopefully not much, I like to stay hands on) will be done using my recipes only.

The beer at first is going to be available just around Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and we'll see how it goes from there. I'll be updating regularly to show our progress, and hopefully you fine folks will follow us through the process.

Today, a lot of start up work has gotten done. All that business type stuff, costs and taxes and whatnot has taken shape.

I'm also shopping around for a solid pilot system. This will let me experiment at home, and hopefully if I can get a space for it, I'll be able to do a lot of my brewing on this little guy. It'll take a large bit of work, but anything that can keep me off the streets practicing medicine without a license is a good thing in my book.