GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Grand Rapids is known for its great beer and breweries. There are so many now, each neighborhood creates its own local taste.
“I think just having that connection to the neighborhood, to the city,” said Ben Isbell, head brewer at Harmony Brewing Company, “makes it important. You’re supporting a local business, you’re supporting someone doing their best to get you drunk and you want to put food on their table.”
Isbell took 13 ON YOUR SIDE on a tour of their brewing facility at Harmony Hall on Bridge Street.
It all begins at 5 a.m. Harmony’s brewing operation is just two men. Isbell says it doesn’t take a lot of people to make a lot of beer.
The first task is to load heavy bags of barley into the mill.
“We crushed [the barley] open a little bit,” said Isbell, “because we want to get that nice white stuff in there, that’s what converts to sugar. This is what makes beer.”
The lighter the malt, the lighter the beer, like a pilsner. A darker malt is used to create darker beers, like a stout.
Then it’s time to mash up all the milled barley in the mash ton.
“We steep our barley anywhere from a half hour to hour to extract sugar,” said Isbell, “that creates wert. That wert is like a sugary, syrup.”
Then it’s time to heat up the wert. This is also when the brewer would add the ingredients that gives beer its variety.
“Then in the boiling kettle we’ll add our Hopps, any other flavoring we want to use,” said Isbell, “Some beers have orange, some have coriander. We boil it for about 90 minutes, and it helps clarify the beer and create balance in what we’re ting to create.”
The boiler cools the beer from 210 degrees to 68 degrees in 15-20 seconds. That makes it the perfect temperature for fermentation.
“We have three-10 barrel fermenters, and two-20 barrel fermenters<” said Isbell, “This is just basically where we put our wert, add yeast, any flavoring, dry Hopps, and sugar in the wert is converted to alcohol by the yeast.”
Then it’s time to wait. Some beer can be in the fermentation stage for a week, two, or even more.
But the beer is not done yet. Then, the fermented beer goes into what’s called a bright tank. This is the finishing touch. Here, the beer will be clarified of any sediment, chilled to the right temperature, and carbonated.
Isbell says from start to finish, the normal standard ale takes about three weeks to a month to make. A lot of care goes into each barrel.
“I like taking these raw ingredients and turning it into something people can really enjoy,” said Isbell.”
Harmony doesn’t distribute their beer, so their production is small. They only supply beer for their locations on Bridge Street and in Eastown. They have five mainstay beers, and experiment with other styles seasonally.
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