Beer tester is world's best job? Maybe, minus hot sauce
By Ryan Robinson
Updated Feb 19, 2007 15:52
The 36-year-old master brewer at Stoudt’s Brewing Co. measures bitterness with a spectrophotometer.
Another machine pierces a bottle cap and pinpoints a beer’s oxygen content to parts per billion.
But then Worona dutifully performs the most important test, a task some would say makes his job the best in the world.
He taste-tests the beer.
In fact, all the employees at the Adamstown brewery sample the 11 types of beer made there, from the “full-bodied, roast coffee-like’’ black Fat Dog Stoudt to the straw-colored “crisp and happy’’ Pilsener lager.
Same for workers at the Lancaster Brewing Co. They test 20 beer varieties there, including Amish 4 Grain ale — made from wheat, rye, oats, barley and a heap of hops.
Christian Heim, the city company’s brewmaster, touts taste tests as invaluable: “Modern science has not invented a machine sensitive to a range of flavors as broad as the human palate.’’
Both microbreweries have taste panels several times a month, as well as daily taste tests to make sure flavor remains consistent.
Worona and Heim know which of their brew crew members can best detect tartness, fruity flavors, or the popcorn-butter or butterscotch-like flavor many beers can have.
But for the tipsy among us — don’t quit your day job, send the brewers your resume and start praying to Bacchus. No one is chugging down pints here.
“Throughout the day, I’ll get a quick sample — just a sip,’’ Worona says.
Heim’s daily taste samples would add up to less than 8 ounces.
Pour in the most popular practical joke at Stoudt’s — Dave’s Insanity Hot Sauce in a comrade’s test beer sample — and the job’s glamour fizzles.
A better position is father of a brewmaster — Worona’s pop always has a fresh supply of Stoudt’s Gold on tap at his home.
Worona said his father once tried to make his own beer. The experiment ended when his bottles exploded. Perhaps a bit too much yeast.
Before him, Worona’s Ukrainian grandfather brewed up his own vodka.
So Worona was simply carrying on a family tradition when the then-19-year-old brewed up his first batch of beer while attending Penn State University.
“I was too honest to get a fake I.D.,’’ he quipped.
Worona eventually got his master’s degree in hydrogeology at the University of Oregon and then worked as a faculty research scientist at Oregon State University for three years.
Then, on his way home after a job interview related to his degree, he stopped in for a beer at Stoudt’s.
He had learned a lot from the many microbreweries in the West and convinced Stoudt’s he wouldn’t leave them with a bad taste in their mouths.
Worona has been working at Stoudt’s and drinking Stoudt’s brews ever since.
He loves contributing to the creativity and science required to produce different varieties of quality beer.
But the best move sometimes is to avoid a new beer variety.
“We got a catalog of flavorings and it had a beer that tasted like a hot dog with mustard,’’ Worona said. “That didn’t get that far.’’
(The Voices column is written by a rotating team of New Era staffers. It appears Mondays.)
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