A pitch of yeast is testament to strength in numbers, as is Berkeley Yeast’s growing team. One of our newest hires is VP of Product Strategy, Anthony Bledsoe, who brings expertise gleaned from more than 15 years working for breweries ranging from Trumer Braueri to Anheuser-Busch InBev.
In 2009, he graduated from the Master Brewers Program at University of California, Davis, and went to work for Hawaii’s Kona Brewing, eventually becoming director of brewing operations.
Brewing on an island “really gave me an appreciation for forward thinking and planning,” Bledsoe says. Need more hops and malt? That’ll be at least two weeks.
Craft Brew Alliance acquired Kona during his tenure, and Bledsoe returned to the mainland at the company’s Portland, Oregon, operations at Widmer Brothers. He worked in process improvement across the company’s national brewery portfolio, before transitioning into innovation. “I got to learn about the commercial side of the business,” Bledsoe says.
After ABI acquired CBA, Bledsoe became the company’s innovation manager. In part, he led a liaison linking nearly two dozen breweries to the supply stream. “I’ve seen so many of the challenges and struggles that our customers are facing,” Bledsoe says.
Now at Berkeley Yeast, he helps our customers identify opportunities and provide solutions informed by working at breweries of every conceivable scale. “It’s natural for me to talk with our customers and find out how we can add value to their business,” he says. “I joined Berkeley Yeast because I saw how impactful Berkeley’s technology was going to be for the industry. Having a hand in shaping the future of that is pretty exciting.”
Have any questions? Email Anthony at anthony@berkeleyyeast.com.
The Latest At Berkeley Yeast
Tim Sciascia’s Tropics Boosted Hazy IPA
Looking to lower costs on your Hazy IPA but not at the expense of aromatic potency? This recipe relies on a heavy dose of Berkeley Yeast’s Tropics Boost and fermentation with Tropics London yeast strain for an attention grabbing bouquet of passionfruit.
Recipe: Tim Sciascia’s NA West Coast IPA
Brewing a tasty nonalcoholic beer is dramatically different from brewing one of normal strength—but this recipe provides a great jumping-off point for making something pleasurably hoppy but without the alcohol.
Recipe: Tim Sciascia’s NA Light “Lager”
Drinkers who are familiar with American light lager will be impressed by this crisp nonalcoholic version. Even more amazing, nonalcoholic beer production’s shortened fermentation can move this “lager” from grain to glass in as little as one week.
Brewer Stories
Turning Off Unwanted Flavors: How Berkeley Yeast’s Fresh Strains Create Low Diacetyl IPAs and Lagers
Like most brewers, Danny Priddy has a pretty discerning palate. The director of brewing operations at Riip Beer Company in Huntington Beach, California, is particularly sensitive to diacetyl, an organic compound that, at low concentrations, can mute hop notes in beers like Riip’s aroma-charged IPAs. At high concentrations, diacetyl can add an unwanted buttery note.
How Tropics Strains Are Helping Brewers Create More Aromatic IPAs
J.C. Hill, the cofounder of Alvarado Street Brewery in Monterey, California, wanted to make a hazy IPA that’s welcoming in both flavor and price point; increasing the hopping rate increases a beer’s price tag, and a $24 four-pack is a hard sell to many drinkers. So he built a recipe around Tropics London and three hop varieties that impart flavors evocative of kid-favorite candies including Lifesavers, gummy bears, and peach rings. “They line up super-well with the passion fruit and guava flavors you get from the yeast,” says Hill, who calls Tropics “a game changer.”
How Berkeley Yeast’s Superbloom Builds Highly Drinkable Hoppy Beer
Over the last decade, boom-and-bust cycles have defined the IPA category. Sour IPAs, overly bitter palate wreckers, and bone-dry brut IPAs have mostly disappeared, a dry-hopped gold rush that didn’t quite pan out. Session IPAs also fizzled out, even though the concept seemed like a certain winner. Drop an IPA’s alcohol by volume to a more restrained 4 or 5 percent, keep flavor and aromatics high, and count the profits. Outside of Founders All Day IPA, many session IPAs were too dry and thin to support hop bitterness.