Harvesting a Brew: Jessica Davis explains Working with Brewer's Yeast

So far we've explored what it takes to harvest barley for brewing, but what does it take to get those amazing little living beings we call yeast to convert that barley-sugar-water into beer? Our Lady of The Bruery Lab Jessica Davis can explain and expand your microbiology vocabulary.

You can’t get very far in a brewery without yeast. One way to keep a yeast culture going is to harvest it. Harvesting yeast implies that the cell culture has already been used to make beer. The basic principle is that you are collecting it to use again, then again and probably 10 more times.

Six Questions on Becoming a Certified Cicerone

The word Cicerone (pronounced sis-uh-rohn) has been chosen to designate those with proven expertise in selecting, acquiring and serving today’s wide range of beers ... Only those who have passed the requisite test of knowledge and tasting skill can call themselves a Cicerone. -- Cicerone.org

Tomorrow is another round of the Certified Cicerone® exam in Southern California and we look forward to supporting this organization by offering up our conference room to host the testing. Our very own Patrick Rue and Director of Marketing Benjamin Weiss are both Certified Cicerones® so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to ask Ben a couple questions about becoming a Cicy!