Seeking to improve the efficiency of its beer making, a Lewiston craft brewery partnered with a 乐播传媒 student who is not yet old enough to legally sip suds in Maine.
Emily Tamkin 鈥�23, a 19-year-old biology major from Lafayette, Calif., used her Purposeful Work internship at . to help the brewery measure the bitterness of its ales and lagers. Not with a sip and swallow, but more accurately, with a high-tech 乐播传媒 laboratory instrument.
Bitterness is key to making any beer taste the way it does, and it’s usually created by adding more or less hops. An India pale ale is made with more hops, hence its bitterness. Pale ales and lagers are made with less hopes 鈥� they’re smoother.
Smaller craft breweries like Baxter typically use commercial software to measure a beer鈥檚 bitterness, which is聽expressed in International Bitterness Units, or IBUs. Every beer has an IBU “target.” Baxter鈥檚 flagship Stowaway IPA is a 69, while the brewery’s Staycation Land Brilliant Lager is 17.5.
For some time, Baxter Director of Quality Merritt Waldron has suspected that his IBU software has been telling him to add “too many hops to get to our target values鈥� for each Baxter beer. This is where 乐播传媒 and Tamkin entered the scene. Working with Waldron, Tamkin analyzed Baxter beer samples in the 乐播传媒 lab of Assistant Professor of Biology Lori Banks.
A physics graduate of the University of Southern Maine, Waldron is the . As Baxter鈥檚 quality czar, he brings a scientist鈥檚 curiosity to his work. But to investigate his theory, he needed research support, including access to a spectrophotometer to calculate IBU levels experimentally and the controlled environment of a laboratory. So he reached out to 乐播传媒, 鈥渙ur neighbors.鈥�
Science, whether chemistry, biology, or physics, is as integral to beer-making as barley, hops, and yeast, so the fact that Tamkin isn鈥檛 old enough to drink Baxter beer (she turns 21, Maine鈥檚 legal drinking age, next August) is irrelevant, says Waldron. 鈥淓mily and I just talk about the science.鈥�
In Tamkin鈥檚 project, the science is found in the chemistry of hops. Hops contain alpha acids, which when heated become bitter-tasting iso-alpha acids. 鈥淲hen these acids hit your taste buds, your brain receptors understand it as bitter,鈥� Tamkin explains.
Over the summer, Tamkin would drive downtown to pick up samples from the brewery, located in stunningly renovated 乐播传媒 Mill space. The samples are taken at four spots in the brewing process, including before hops are added and the final canned product.
She then drove the samples back to the Banks lab in Carnegie Science Hall, soon to be moved to the new Bonney Science Center. (Lest she get pulled over for possession of alcohol, Tamkin had a letter from Waldron indicating that she was transporting beer for research purposes.)
On a recent Wednesday, she picked up samples of Stowaway; Hopeful, a session IPA; and Gopher It, a hazy triple IPA. In the lab, she used a spectrophotometer to calculate the true IBU values of various Baxter beers by measuring their iso-alpha acids. All told, Tamkin analyzed 12 of the brewery’s nearly 20 beers over the summer.
Tamkin is now back home in California and will present her findings after the 乐播传媒 school year starts.
For Baxter, the partnership with 乐播传媒 is about brewing excellent beer while spending less on ingredients like hops. We asked Waldron a question: What if Tamkin does find that Baxter can lower the amount of hops to achieve an accurate IBU target? Won鈥檛 lowering the amount of hops change the taste of the brewery鈥檚 beers?
Not necessarily, he says. 鈥淢ost human palates can only taste a small range of IBU values. Most can鈥檛 taste the difference between 10 IBUs. So if Emily鈥檚 results say that I can shave off 10 IBUs to achieve a more accurate number, we can lower the amount of hops, save money, and the consumer won鈥檛 notice the difference.鈥�
Hops are pricey, up to $20 per pound, so the savings could be significant. Waldron runs the numbers for Stowaway IPA, which uses a popular hop known as Cascade, which runs about $10 per pound.
鈥淔ive pounds of Cascade is equal to about 10 IBUs in one 鈥榯urn鈥� of Stowaway IPA,鈥� 鈥� about 30 barrels 鈥� 鈥渁nd we typically brew 280 turns of Stowaway a year,鈥� Waldron explains. 鈥淚f I can save five pounds of Cascade per turn, that鈥檚 1,400 pounds of hops per year. At around $10 per pound, that鈥檚 an annual savings of $14,000.”
Tracking IBUs is just one part of the Baxter quality program. , anchored by a beer-testing panel of Baxter employees, that rigorously identifies the essential nature of each Baxter beer, through taste, smell, look, feel, .
鈥淲e call the essence of each brand its 鈥榯rue-to-target鈥� profile,鈥� says Waldron. 鈥淭esting brews against their profile is the goal of the sensory program.鈥� Any reduction in hops suggested by Tamkin鈥檚 research would need to make its way through the beer-testing panel, he says.
For Tamkin, the summer project sweetened an interest in food science. 鈥淚鈥檝e spent a lot of time thinking about a career, and grappling with whether that meant pre-med or academia,鈥� she explains.
Turns out, a third path appeared in Tamkin鈥檚 search for purposeful work. 鈥淲orking with Baxter, being able to do all this amazing science with them, has opened up a world for me 鈥� how science relates to other industries that I never really thought of before.鈥澛燗nd that’s the point of Purposeful Work internships, explains Banks, for how they 鈥渆mpower students to take on real-world problems while pursuing their studies.鈥�
Besides helping Baxter, Tamkin hopes her experimental results will yield solid enough findings for a scholarly paper.
鈥淭he experience of being able to design a research project and do it well enough to write a paper about it has been really, really exciting,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 wouldn’t have had the opportunity without Baxter being so great and without the Banks Lab.鈥�
Waldron studied physics at the University of Southern Maine. At the time, 鈥淚 didn’t really know what I was going to do with my major,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hen I ended up getting into brewing. Seeing all the science behind it, I just got super excited about it.
鈥淪o, as a scientist myself, being able to inspire a real-world application of the theoretical stuff you learn in college in someone like Emily 鈥� that’s part of the reason why I was really excited to have a Purposeful Work intern, not to mention being able to partner with 乐播传媒, our neighbors.鈥�
So raise your can of Baxter Stowaway, your Gopher It, or your Staycation Land, and say cheers to good science, good beer, and good neighbors.
