Barrel Theory Beer Company: Rain Drops
It’s always a great time when I get to go visit one of my favorite people in the local beer scene, especially since he happens to be the Owner and Head Brewer of my favorite Twin Cities brewery: Barrel Theory Beer Company.
Timmy Johnson is the genius behind everything that comes out of that building, from the hazy, hoppy IPAs, to the big, bold stouts, and everything in between. There are a lot of things to admire about Timmy; his passion for beer, his drive to be the best, but for me, it’s the fact that he is truly the biggest beer geek you will ever meet (and I mean that in the most loving way possible). Even though he has achieved the dream of so many beer lovers, owning, and running his own brewery, he is still eager to sit down with someone like me, chop it up, and nerd out over beer for a few hours.
Whenever I come in to visit Timmy, it’s never “Hi” or “Welcome in”, it’s something way better: “Want a beer?” to which my answer is, and always will be “Sure dude!”
I always ask him what he recommends. He has never steered me wrong before, so why wouldn’t I trust him? This time around, the rec was the DDH “Rude Awakening”, a fantastic IPA, but not technically the reason for my visit. This time around, my focus was on “Rain Drops”, Barrel Theory’s one and only flagship Hazy IPA.
So with beers in hand, and his brewery dog, Tony keeping an eye on us, we sat down to do what we like to do best. Talk beer.
I have always been fascinated with what goes into the thought process behind developing a flagship beer. My impression has always been that flagships are usually the homebrew recipes that the brewer had down pat, but Barrel Theory is a bit different.
“I never brought a recipe that I homebrewed here. I did different variations of different things, and then kind of came over here, and said ‘Ok, let’s do a Citra / Mosaic’, only kind of taking off from how popular that beer was at Surly Brewing Co. with ‘Todd the Axe Man’. People loved it, it was new, and there weren’t a lot of breweries using Citra or Mosaic at the time. The base recipe was for sure a homebrew, but I never really did like a straight up Citra and Mosaic beer. I was either doing Mosaic OR Citra. I had never brewed Rain Drops. When I came here, I had used the base recipe, from the base malt bill.”
Why Citra and Mosaic hops?
“If I am going to brew a flagship beer, I want it to be Citra and Mosaic, because those are two hops that everybody loves, and it’s a very approachable beer. At the same time, If you can’t make a good Citra / Mosaic IPA, then you probably shouldn’t be brewing beers. Those hops can really cover you.”
I have always thought of tasting beer as something that is pretty subjective, so for someone who knows so much like Timmy does, I had to know how he interprets the experience of drinking a pint of “Rain Drops”. It is never that simple with Timmy, though. He is so honed in on the details, but that is what I appreciate:
“It’s kinda changed, from what type of hop crops we’ve gotten. When we first started brewing Rain Drops, that Citra is a lot different from the Citra that we have now, which is phenomenal, but I didn’t get to pick my lots of Citra because we aren’t this huge brewery. But now they have made it a lot more accessible, a lot of these hop farmers, to be able to go in and select your hops.”
Now onto the tasting notes, directly from the brewer himself:
“Right now Rain Drops is kind of this Pineapple, Mango, Medium melon saturation, overripe cantaloupe, stuff like that. Pretty bright, pretty soft, with a slight bitterness on the end.”
Using Timmy’s notes as my guide, I gave it a go myself. The overripe stone fruit was the first part I noticed. That mango is front and center, with a bit of pineapple and citrus, and a little kick of melon at the end. Not too sweet, with a nice bitter drying finish to anchor it all.
Talking to Timmy, it really started to dawn on me that I had no idea how important hop selection and having the ability to pick your lots is for a brewery. I always hear about “Hand Selected” hops, but never gave it much thought. I am just used to looking at the list of hops on a can, and knowing which ones I tend to like, but there is so much more to it than I ever knew.
“It is very dependent on what hop crop you get. Same recipe, same water, same process, but the hops change. It changes the beer, it absolutely does. The hops are a huge thing. A huge huge thing.”
Because of this, the same is going to apply to the flagship IPA. No beer is immune. But luckily, the crew at Barrel Theory knows their stuff, and how to combat this, to fight for consistency.
“We just try to have the same supplier of hops, and we keep our processes the same, the mash temps the same, the added salts the same. We try to keep that all the same. So, from year to year, the beer might be slightly different, but it usually doesn’t diverge too far. It’s very interesting how dependent you are on your hops keeping your flagship beer the same, and I think it has been pretty consistent with Rain Drops.
So when we talk about flagships? Consistency. You want your beer to taste the same all the time. Could there be a difference in the way it has attenuated since last time? Sure. We keep that within a small, small amount of points. We try not to have it differentiate, and if we do, then we don’t sell that as Rain Drops. We’ve dumped beers, and if it doesn’t attenuate out, We’re not going to put it on tap, we’re not gonna can it.”
With all of these different variables changing at any given time, it really is quite impressive that Rain Drops has managed to stay so consistent. That being said, changes are sometimes planned, or intentional. Rain Drops has not stayed the same since day 1, but that is purposeful according to Timmy.
“Yeah, we have changed it a little bit, for sure. I was going through all the recipes, and found batch 1 Raindrops. It’s like 2 row, pils, half a bag of oats, half a bag of flaked wheat. It has definitely changed. We used to do like 70/30 two row/pilsner malt, and now we’re doing 50/50. We were also using a different yeast strain back then. We were using Conan, now we use London Ale III. We still use Conan every so often, that’s kind of like the yeast strain from the Alchemist. It was maybe a bit drier before, but still soft, and not as juicy as it is now, kinda like that overripe fruit flavor.”
Timmy’s reasoning for these seemingly random changes is why I know he is passionate about beer. He is constantly chasing perfection, and keeping a pulse on the current trends in the market.
“You are always looking to get better. You don’t want to get crazy about it, but you want to keep it fresh.It is always about trying to make a beer the best that you can.I feel like when I go out of state, and I try other people’s beers, and then I come back is when I want to be like ‘How do we make this better? I just had this Treehouse, or I just had this Monkish, and you know all those guys make super good beers, and then you come back and it’s like, ‘Okay, I feel like we can do better.’”
Being a big beer fan himself, and looking to try all the beer he can get his hands on, Timmy has the advantage of thinking from the angle of consumer.
“There are a lot of people making a lot of good beer out there, and I love trying them, cuz I get to drink Barrel Theory all the time, and it’s fun to drink other people’s beers. Locally, nationally, there’s a lot of fire beers. People like Fidens, and Brujos are making some fire beers. So, yeah, if I see something like that, I want to try it. There is always competition out there. How is your beer standing up to the rest of them? Because, the consumer is buying your beer, and there is only so much money in the consumer’s pocket. You need to stay in there, and make sure your beer is up to snuff.”
Now, when it comes to flagships, I want to get philosophical. What is a flagship beer? What should it mean? What should it represent?
“It’s always the go-to, that’s your flagship IPA. Maybe someone comes in and says ‘Well, I don’t like that, that, or that, but I like Rain Drops, so I can always go to that.’ People can always jump back to that if they feel uncomfortable with the rest of the menu. It’s never going to hurt them, because they know that’s good. Same thing in the liquor store.
I think your flagship is a really good starter point, and then you branch off of that recipe. Whatever is working, maybe you add more oats and make a new recipe, or maybe you double it, and make it a double IPA.”
He explains that Rain Drops is an anchor of sorts for a lot of the recipes devised at Barrel Theory. It provides a strong point of reference, and acts as a figurehead. Rain Drops is a beer that perfectly encapsulates Timmy’s philosophy and tastes in beer.
I have always wondered, why does Barrel Theory only have 1 official flagship, year round beer? What you will see oftentimes is 2-3 on any given menu; usually something hoppy, something light, and something malty. So, what goes into the thought process of only having one flagship, and making it an IPA?
“I think IPA is what, a top 3 to 5 favorite beer in the world? We just wanted an IPA that we could have on all the time. When you first start out, you kind of don’t know what you’re gonna do, and you want to make sure you hit it with something you can sell, and then just focus on that, and work on that one beer. I’d say we even have 2-3 now. We have Rude Awakening which we started brewing a lot more, and Shooter McGavin, our Double IPA, but that’s all Citra, and Rude Awakening is an all Citra single IPA. We focus on a simple recipe, and get really good Citra.”
Whoa. Who knew so much thought and effort could go into one beer? Knowing Timmy, I would expect nothing less. Talking about just one of his beers, you can get a sense of the passion and detail he puts into everything he makes. That comes through in the finished product as well, without a doubt. That is why I would put Barrel Theory up against any of the big hitters in the haze game any day! And the best part is, we haven’t even scratched the surface of everything Barrel Theory has in its bag, like the delectable, thick, barrel aged stouts they release throughout the year. That however, is another story, which we will get to in due time.
As always, Thanks to Timmy Johnson at Barrel Theory Beer Company for taking the time to sit down and humor me a bit, and next time you are in the Twin Cities be sure to swing by their taproom in Saint Paul, and see for yourself why they have made such a name for themselves in the area.