Friday. October 30, 1998
The University Daily Kansan
Section C · Page 3
Restaurants tap into art of brewing
By Doug Pacey Kansan correspondent
Beer brewing can be done on a large scale with thousands of workers all performing specialized tasks or on a smaller scale, such as a one-person operation in a local restaurant.
Although Lawrence may not have any macro-breweries, it does have its share of brew pubs.
Three brew pubs call Lawrence home: Free State Brewery, Sports Page Brewery and Brown Bear Brewery.
Free State, 636 Massachusetts St., the oldest legal brewery in Kansas, has been brewing beer in Lawrence since 1880.
Steve Bradt, Free State's head brewer, said they produced roughly 3,300 barrels of beer per year, or 6,600 kees
Brown Bear, 729 Massachusetts St., has been brewing for only two years. It produces an estimated 2,000 kegs a year. Ian Adams runs Brown Bear's brewing operation alone.
Sports Page, 3512 Clinton Parkway, has been brewing beer for less that two years. Justin Dean, the only brewer at Sports Page, said that he brewed an estimated 1,000 kegs a year, which means he works 60-70 hours a week.
Lawrence brewers said the process was not easy or cheap.
I work five or six days a week and eight to 12-hour days, or more, if needed," Adams said. "But you gotta do what you gotta do for the beer."
The long hours are paying for Brown Bear. In August, the brewery placed third in the Scottish Ale category at the World Beer Cup with its Quantrill's Red brew.
"That award gave us world-recognition," Adams said. "We have the third-best Scottish Ale in the world."
Bradt heads up a four-person brew crew at Free State.
"We've got three full-time employees brewing the beer and another person who works about 35 hours a week,"he said.
The equipment, which includes pipes, kettles, kegs and tubes, also has expensive temperature gauges, specialized cooling tanks and holding kegs, Lawrence brewers said.
The malt, generally barley or wheat, is cracked and fed into a wooden tank. Hot water is added into the tank as a catalyst to activate the natural enzymes in the malt. These enzymes convert the malt into fermentable sugars in a process called mashing.
The art of beer
Brown Bear's and Sports Page's brewing equipment cost nearly $300,000 each.
Home-brewing systems are much cheaper but can cost a few hundred dollars. Brewing ingredients, such as the hops, barley and wheat, can also be expensive, Bradt said.
The beer-making process explained
After boiling, the wort is pumped through a water-cooled heat exchanger. The wort drops from 200 degrees to 65 degrees for ales and 50 degrees for lagers. From the heat exchanger, the wort flows into a fermentation vessel.
The liquid is filtered through the grain in the wooden tank until the liquid is clear. This clear liquid, called wort, is then pumped into the brew kettle and it is boiled for at least one and a half hours. When the wort is being boiled, hops are added at different intervals to provide flavor, bitterness and aromatic quality. Most hops are grown in Britain, Germany and the Pacific Northwest.
In the fermentation vessel, yeast is added to the wort. The wort is then stored in a fermenter for 12 to 21 days. The temperature is dropped in the fermenters at strategic intervals, depending on the desired brew. When the fermentation has ended, the beer is filtered and pumped into copper tanks. The beer is then put in kegs and ready for distribution.
Kyle Ramsey/KANSAN
At Fun And Games, Located at B16 Massachusetts St., they are geared up to celebrate Halloween. They have many different masks to fit with every type of costume. Photo by Kate Levenson/KANSAN
Students, costume shops prepare for masquerade
By Melody Ard
Kansan staff writer
To the disappointment of the public, Bill and Monica will not be together in Lawrence this Halloween.
Although the masks are frequently requested, many local retailers opted not to include them in their costume collections.
"Bill and Monica are really popular, but we're not carrying that. I think it is a way overdone deal." Sarah Faymah, owner of Sarah's Costumes, 927 Massachusetts St., said.
However, Faymah said she was able to fill a lot of requests, including those for characters of the cartoon South Park. Sarah's Costumes had the set of four characters, and Faymah said they were popular costumes this season for people going out as a group.
"It depends on what the customer wants to spend," Porter said. "You can spend as little as $10 or as much as $200."
Chad Porter, The Etc. Shop's costume sales representative, said costume-shop employees generally were able to satisfy requests with their collection of 10,000 costumes and accessories.
In spite of the store's ability to create and accessorize almost anything, Porter said he had one request so far this season he could not quite fill.
"There was one guy in here wanting to be huge purple butterfly," he said. "We didn't have the wings or the leotard, but we got him set up with a wand and some other accessories."
John Sears, colby senior, said he had not colly to piece together his costume yet, but he said he would not wait until the last minute to do it.
"I will probably go out shopping today or tomorrow," Sears said Wednesday. "I haven't gone out yet because I haven't decided if I want to be a mailbox or a command."
If he chooses the mailbox costume, Sears said he would have to build it from cardboard and other materials. The idea, he said, was modeled after a costume he had seen before.
"It's not totally an original idea." he said. "This guy I went to school with in Arizona dressed up like the kind of blue mail boxes you see on street corners. He put holes in the sides for his arms and one on top for his head."
Megan Barber, Papillion, Neb., junior, said she and her roommate were going to go out on Halloween with coordinating costumes.
"I want to be a pimp for Halloween," she said. "I plan on wearing a suit and probably some godawful tie and lots of gold jewelry. My roommate and I usually go out together, and we wanted to dress as a man and a woman, but then we decided to do something more extreme."
Summer Job Opportunities
Instructors, Residential Teaching Assistants, & Academic Teaching Assistants
Needed for Duke University TIP's 4-8 week Summer Residential Programs held at:
Duke University
Davidson College
Duke Marine Lab Appalachian State University University of Kansas
Positions are available in the following fields: HumanitiesBusinessMathScienceMarine ScienceComputer Science
Apply by February 15,1999!
Download an application from our website at www.tip.duke.edu
For more information, write or call:
Duke University Talent Identification Program, Box 90747
Durham, NC 27708-0747, (919) 684-3847
Duke University Talent Identification Program