Here at Firestone Walker the brewing process begins with sourcing choice ingredients from all over the world. We incorporate imported malts and hops into our flagship, DBA, to produce a British pale ale as close to those in the UK as possible. Other beers like our Pale 31 and Union Jack IPA use American hops to produce more aggressive bitterness and fruity aroma.
The brewing process can be divided into three parts. The Brewhouse, the Cellar and Packaging.
THE BREWHOUSE – making wort.The Brewhouse has one major function, converting dry malt and hops into a fermentable liquid. The process starts with a unique recipe outlining the types of malts and hops used as well as other specifics of that beer recipe. Typically a base malt (like 2-row Pale) is milled together with specialty malts and then combined with hot water in our Mash Tun. There the enzymes naturally present in the malt convert starches to fermentable sugars. This combination of grain and water (mash) is then transferred to our Lauter Tun. Here the sweet liquid (called wort) is filtered away from the spent grain and into the Kettle.. The spent grain is transported away by local rancher Rex Swan for use as cattle feed. The wort is brought to a boil in the kettle where hops are added at different intervals to add bitterness, flavor and aroma. After about 90 minutes in the boil, the hot wort is sent to our Whirpool, another filtering step. A heat exchanger cools the boiling hot wort to about 72 degrees on its way to one of our stainless steel conical fermenters. Our proprietary house yeast is then pitched into the fermenter to start fermentation.
THE CELLAR – making beer.The Cellar is all about fermentation and refinement. It has been said that brewer’s make wort and yeast makes beer. In The Cellar, the yeast does just that consuming fermentable sugars and producing alcohol and CO2 as bi-products. Primary fermentation lasts about 6 days with a secondary fermentation (conditioning) lasting 5 days. Our Cellar features 17 interior stainless steel fermenters ranging in size from 150bbl to 300bbl. We also utilize 4 exterior 500bbl stainless steel fermenters which are fully insulated to handle the extreme summer heat of Paso Robles.Our DBA, Pale and Walker’s Reserve differ from our other beers as they are partially fermented in oak. So, after 24 hours, the fermentation reaches its most vigorous point (high krausen) and a portion of the wort is racked to one of 42 oak barrels (the Firestone Union).
THE UNION PROCESS - Our Firestone Union was inspired by the old Burton Union system, once a staple of British beer making. The Burton Union was developed around 1840 as English tastes shifted from London porters to pale ales crafted in Burton-Upon-Trent. The Burton beers were bright and clear with a firm, satisfying bite: a taste unique in its time-and still unique today. We are the only brewery in the United States to currently employ the union brewing method.
FIRESTONE UNION - Our patented Firestone Union uniquely incorporates 60-gallon heavy or medium toast American oak barrels into a brewing process that yields beers of extraordinary character and complexity. This system improves the fullness of the palate, enhances hop maturity and lends a clean briskness to the finish. The influence of the toasted oak also imparts unique hints of smokiness and vanilla, as well as a subtle fruitiness to the flavor profile.Historically, brewers using union systems experienced different ambient temperatures that produced inconsistent flavors. Scaling the Firestone Union to smaller vessels meant that the barm-back did not require open air for cooling, thus eliminating ambient temperature fluctuations and preventing contamination. The technical advantages of the Firestone Union are bright beer, stable fermentations, good attenuation and healthy pitching yeast. Equally important, the Firestone Union resurrects a time-honored brewing tradition, one that embraces handcrafted quality and ensures regional character.Our oak barrels are used for a set period of time (usually about 20 weeks) before being retired for use in our barrel aging program.The wort spends 6 days in the barrels before being racked into stainless for secondary fermentation lasting about a week. From this point the wood fermented beer follows a similar path to stainless steel fermented beers. In the case of DBA, 20% of the oak fermented beer is blended with beer fermented in stainless steel, filtered and force carbonated then sent to a 550 barrel (17325 gallon) bright tank until the beer is ready to be kegged or bottled.We do feature a 100% oak barrel fermented and unfiltered version of our DBA in both our tasting room at the brewery in Paso Robles and at our Taproom Restaurant in Buellton. It is a local favorite.
BARREL AGING - We produce a very limited amount of “strong beers” each year, named so for their higher alcohol contents and complexity. Many of these beers, after going through primary fermentation, spend a significant amount of time (some as long as 3 years) in one of several kinds of oak barrels ranging from retired bourbon to retired wine barrels. Here the beer picks up the complexities of the barrel it is in and its flavor is influenced by what the barrel used to hold. These beers feature bourbon, espresso, plum, cherry, and tobacco flavors, to name a few. Parabola, Abacus, Saucerful of Secrets, Bravo Brown are just some of the beers that go through barrel aging this way. These same beers become part of the blend that we release each year, our Anniversary series.
BOTTLES & KEGS - Our brewery features a Krones bottling line capable of producing 300 plus 12oz. bottles per minute. This line was custom built for the brewery and consists of an un-packer, rinser/santizer, filler, capper, labeler and drop packer.
