Where to Look for Increases in Quality

Since switching from Red Brick Brewing back to the Atlanta Brewing name, the 25-year-old brewery has made more than an image change. Getting to the root, the quality of the beer, was a factor as well. New brands were one thing. Improving some of the core products and looking into the little things added up to big changes explained Director of Brewing Operations, Gavin McKenna.

​”Everything from guaranteeing yeast health and investing in a laboratory to looking at microbiological,” he said. “Going through and doing more sensory, spending a lot of time in recipe design, focusing less on how many pounds of Crystal malt and talking more about pH targets and water chemistry targets and just tightening up the windows that we were aiming at.”

​McKenna said that he’s constantly​ ​continuing​ to try to eliminate margins for error.

​”​I think a lot of it is just about focusing on retraining the staff because it​’​s not just me​,” he said of the adjustments made early in the evolution of Atlanta Brewing​. ​”​We need to think about the terms of how they think about the process​.​​ I’m trying to be a teacher and trying to demonstrate learning and get better every day. ​

“T​here’s not one thing I can point to and say this is how we’ve made out beer better.​”

Instead, McKenna believes that​ professional brewing is about finding a bunch of ways to make your beer a tenth of a percent better and aggregating that​ for success​.

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