Brewers Heather & Danny prep the new Fermenter – Pete & Danny with the tanks installed

Pete Dickson, Head Brewer and Brew House Manager, explained that, “some breweries use the fermenters for the entire beer making process” but at his facility they match a fermenter with a conditioning tank, preferring to use “gravity, temperature, and time” to filter the beer, instead of plate filters. Simply put, post-fermentation, Pete and his team move the beer into the conditioning tank and allow the yeast to settle naturally out of the now cold beer over the course of the week, and also allow it to sit on dry hops, if necessary.

The new yeast brinks – Pete with the rare yeast used for MS Series #14

The yeast brinks are a later addition, which the crew retro-fitted just last month. Again, Pete’s background in engineering came into play. The brinks are 20L kegs from the existing fleet, but the brew-crew removed the Sankey fitting (the top you see on most kegs) and attached a different clamp. As Pete explained, “this allows us to easily and reliably clean and fill a stainless steel vessel that doesn’t have any small nooks and crannies for potential beer enemies to hide in while we collect, transport and store our precious yeast!”

A brewer’s greatest strength may be a desire to innovate and a pragmatic approach, but that kind of passion for yeast doesn’t hurt either.

Inside the brewing of Sixpoint’s Mad Scientists’ series #14 Grätzer. Brewmaster Jan Matysiak and head brewer Pete Dickson share about investigating and creating the rare smoked-wheat brew.

Produced for hundreds of years near the border of Poland and Germany, this traditional style has been on the verge of extinction for some time. There are very few examples of it produced in the U.S. and, with the closing of the last Polish Grätzer brewery in 1994, it has almost disappeared there as well.

Premiere beer writer Michael Jackson once called Grätzer (also known as Grodzisz) a “world-class beer” – surely this is a style that demands investigation. But where to begin?

The road to crafting a Grätzer in true old world spirit is laden with barriers. The unique brew is made with nearly 100% smoked wheat, a product that only became commercially available in the past couple years, a factor that contributes to the brew’s extreme rarity. In addition, an all-wheat mash does not have the advantage of the barley husk, an element crucial to mashing, as it provides a natural filter during lautering and run-off of the wort. To counter, the Sixpoint brew-crew added rice hulls to the mash for filtration.

Even after adding the rice hulls, the mash was impressively compact and offered our brew crew a rather healthy workout.

In addition, the team acquired the rare Grätzer yeast traditionally used with the style, as well as Polish Lublin hops, a strain known for light bitterness and pleasant aroma. This brew, at 3.8% ABV and 30 IBUs, is as authentic as they come.

There is some hope for the dying Grätzer, you should know. The Polish Homebrewing Association began hosting an annual contest in 2011 to recreate the indigenous Polish beer style. If the old-world Grätzer does indeed return, just remember where you tried it first!

Brewmaster Jan Matysiak and head brewer Pete Dickson share about investigating and creating the rare smoked-wheat brew.

A style nearly lost to the world is explored once more – Sixpoint’s Mad Scientists’ #14.

Na zdrowie!

The Sixpoint nanokeg, by contrast, often defies a traditional classification, since many Sixpoint brews do not conform to a single style. The brews are the products of innovation, or of creative reinterpretation, and labeling them by style would be constraining.  Instead, the cans feature volume, alcohol content, bitterness, color, and fermentation type. Of course, that doesn’t help very much if you’re unfamiliar with the units – so we created a guide that highlights these measurements to those who understand them, while also explaining them to those not yet familiar.

So, be sure to check out the brand new “Anatomy of a Nanokeg” page – click on any section of the interactive label to learn what it stands for, and where all the Sixpoint nanokegs lie on that scale.

The Sixpoint nanokeg, now decoded – check it out here.

Voting closed last night at Midnight, and the Beer is Culture Fan Favorite is Kelsea Zeglin! Her slick coaster design, with subtle color schemes and controlled chaos will be Sixpoint’s profile picture for the next year, and distributed on coasters across the network.

Our next two “most liked” entries were Tim Probert’s zany depiction of cultured beasts enjoying a couple Sixpoints and Jesse Brookstein’s brew infused Brooklyn skyline.

Check out all of the submissions here! You can still ‘Like‘ them, it just won’t count as a vote!

And shout out to @BourbonExplorer for winning our art-tweet contest and receiving some Sixpoint swag. Cheers to another great year!

Kelsea Zeglin, our current front-runner, is the feature of the final segment of “Meet the Artist”. Her design is sleek – a coaster-style embodiment of the ubiquity of our mantra. Everywhere you look, Beer is Culture.

Learn more about Kelsea and her design below.

1 )Tell us a little bit about your entry. What is the inspiration and story behind it?

I stumbled upon this contest while reading Beer Advocate. Being a huge fan of craft beer and also working as a bartender, I was stoked to enter this contest. Being a recent Graphic Design graduate, I wanted to take this opportunity to show my skills of design. I chose to work with typography. Typography is one of the key elements to design, especially graphic design. For this, I wanted to incorporate typography into my design. I used only the words BEER IS CULTURE and SIX POINT BREWERY, in which each word is placed in somewhat of a chaotic mess, but if you look closely each word relates towards the others. Have you ever seen those photographs that are entirely made up of just words? And when you look from it afar you see the whole image, but when you look closer they’re just words. And that is how I came up with the design decisions for my coaster.

2)Do you have any academic or formal artistic training, or are you self-taught?

I do, actually, I have just recently graduated from Towson University with a BFA in Graphic Design. That being said, I have had a decent amount of artistic training, mostly with designing on the computer using various of programs such as CS5 (ILLUSTRATOR, INDESIGN, PHOTOSHOP, ETC) and I have dipped into hand drawing and painting as well. Most of my training has come from my education but there have been people that have taught me various things pertaining to art and, being a curious person, if I do not know how to do something (art related) I research and learn how to do it. So I would say it is a mixture of all kinds of things that have helped me develop some sort of an artistic ability.

3)Even before civilization, there is evidence of cave paintings by early humans. Flash forward to today, when perhaps the most significant innovation and development for the artist in the past 30 years was the invention and proliferation of the personal computer, which has a remarkable efficiency in generating art. How does art generated by the artist on a computer relate to some of the more conventional art forms?

I feel that the invention of the personal computer and its ability to do a lot of what the human hand can create, is pretty remarkable. People may argue that computer generated art is half the work compared to artists that used their hands to create their work. In which part I can somewhat level with their argument. But, art is created through the human mind. The ability for one to create works of art starts within them, and how they choose to fulfill their ideas via conventional or computer should not matter. What we call “mediums” in the art world, I think of computers being another “medium” for carrying out one’s designs. There are ideas that work best through conventional art forms and there are ideas that work best through computer generated forms. You’re the artist, you decide your outcome not anyone else.

4)Who are some of the artists who have influenced you most?

It is funny you guys ask this because this was basically the number one question that many of my art professors always would ask us at the beginning of the term. Well I would say there are more THINGS that have influenced me, like the things I see everyday. I feel its not mostly the artist or artists that have influenced me, it is mostly the ideas I get from viewing their artwork. Also, people in my life have greatly influenced me. A couple of my art professors have defiantly stirred my creative mind and for that I appreciate and thank them.

5)We believe “Beer is Culture” given the synchronized parallel between the explosion of civilization, art, and culture and the cultivation of cereal grains by the earliest human societies. When you hear the phrase “Beer is Culture” what does it mean to you?

Beer can be found all around the world. Whether it is great or terrible tasting, people are still producing it. And this is not something new, people have been drinking and producing beer for thousands of years. Obviously this is telling us something…if beer has been around for so long, it defiantly can be considered a cultural phenomenon.

”Beer unites”, by AJ Fusco, distills the spirit of Beer is Culture – that beer is the ultimate equalizer, bringing people from all backgrounds together in conversation. It’s the whole globe united, with a Sixpoint brew at the center of it all.

We asked AJ a few questions about his inspiration, process, and views on Beer is Culture. Check out his answers below.

1 )Tell us a little bit about your entry. What is the inspiration and story behind it?

When I saw Sixpoint’s post I saw it as a great opportunity to both challenge myself artistically and also really think about the way beer plays a role in this world.  My inspiration comes from beer’s ability to bring together people, both friends and strangers.  Think about it, you’re sitting at a bar enjoying a beer when to your left could be a fireman and to your right could be a brain surgeon.  It is at these moments when beer is honest and unpretentious; it doesn’t see salaries, race or religion.  The story behind my entry is quite simple really.  Over the course of thousands of years, this beverage has been so important in the development of societies and cultures.  And now in this modern day, people all over the world enjoy it together.

2)Do you have any academic or formal artistic training, or are you self-taught?

I do not have much as far as formal art training goes.  I took a Drawing 101 class in college, but that is the extent of it besides finger painting and crayons in elementary school.  Both of my parents are very artistic so I have them to thank for passing on the creative gene to me.  Much of what I have done as an artist has been “self taught”, although I like to use that term loosely.  So many other artists have inspired me that I feel like it would be very dishonest to say I taught myself.

3)Even before civilization, there is evidence of cave paintings by early humans. Flash forward to today, when perhaps the most significant innovation and development for the artist in the past 30 years was the invention and proliferation of the personal computer, which has a remarkable efficiency in generating art. How does art generated by the artist on a computer relate to some of the more conventional art forms?

Technology in art has allowed the artist to do so much more than a pen and pencil could ever do.  I myself tend to steer away from the digital world of art because I find much more satisfaction in the brush touching the paper but that is not to say I don’t see technology’s value to the modern artist.  Whether a piece is done on a computer or on watercolor paper, there is still a creative mind behind it.  The ability to think of an idea and create it is something both the digital and conventional art world share.  For my entry I used watercolor, ink, and beer.  Yes, you read that right, Sixpoint’s Brownstone was used to stain the background and give it that aged look.  I then scanned it on to the computer and was able to digitally add the logos giving it that crisp look it needed, pun intended.

4)Who are some of the artists who have influenced you most?

I have been influenced by so many people over the years it would be impossible to list them all.  My parents first and foremost, have always driven me to create.  As a kid I was very inspired by the Disney artists, at one point I wanted to be an animator.  As I got older artists such as Basil Gogos and Ed Roth came into my world.  Today I am heavily influenced and driven by the art of the tattoo.  The forefathers of this art form such as Owen Jensen, Milton Zeis and Norman Keith Collins are just some of the artists I draw inspiration from.  I am also lucky enough to have friends in the industry who have also encouraged me to get better every time I put my brush to paper.

5)We believe “Beer is Culture” given the synchronized parallel between the explosion of civilization, art, and culture and the cultivation of cereal grains by the earliest human societies. When you hear the phrase “Beer is Culture” what does it mean to you?

When I hear “Beer is Culture”, I think of how there are so many styles of beer and how there are so many “styles” of people and cultures that continue to enjoy it.  From the early periods with recipes painted on walls to tweeting your latest batch, it is a universal language that has no borders or boundaries.  Let’s keep it that way.

Visit the 2013 Beer is Culture 2013 art gallery and vote now!

1)Tell us a little bit about your entry. What is the inspiration and story behind it?

I’ve always loved the way a city can shape the very being of it’s inhabitants, how people become reflections of their surroundings – for good or bad. As craft brewing continues to find it’s way into our culture, it’s inevitable that the beer too will be shaped by the area in which it’s brewed. A consumer builds a relationship with a regional beer and brewery in the very same way the fermenter and beer bottles leave their imprint on the city’s skyline.

2)Do you have any academic or formal artistic training, or are you self-taught?

I attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for a whopping one semester and eventually received my associate’s degree in graphic design from a local community college in upstate NY. After an additional four years of college studying, ahem, communication, I began working in the craft beer industry, doodling here and there when I’ve had a chance.

3)Even before civilization, there is evidence of cave paintings by early humans. Flash forward to today, when perhaps the most significant innovation and development for the artist in the past 30 years was the invention and proliferation of the personal computer, which has a remarkable efficiency in generating art. How does art generated by the artist on a computer relate to some of the more conventional art forms?

I think it’s an incredibly tight-knit relationship, and with this piece I attempted to bring the two worlds together. I drew the basic image with pen and paper in an effort to mimic a more textured Illustrator design, and my special lady friend, Chelsea Giordan, used her computer skills to bring the piece to life.

4)Who are some of the artists who have influenced you most? 

Frank Miller, Shaun Tan, Jim Lee, the untiring Tom Patterson, and of course, the one and only Bruce Springsteen.

5)We believe “Beer is Culture” given the synchronized parallel between the explosion of civilization, art, and culture and the cultivation of cereal grains by the earliest human societies. When you hear the phrase “Beer is Culture” what does it mean to you?

From the beer gardens of Germany to the industrial park tap rooms of America, and all points in between, there’s nothing like the camaraderie between friends and loved ones while sharing a pint of one’s favorite brew. More than anything, there’s an honesty behind craft beer, a reflection of who we are as a people, a bare bones sense of purpose built on a passion to create and enjoy something an entire community of fans can love and respect. That to me is culture, brought to you by beer.

Visit the 2013 Beer is Culture 2013 art gallery and vote now!