Brewers, it’s been said, don’t make beer—they make wort. It’s the yeast that transforms the sugary liquid into beer, and brewers are mere shepherds once fermentation is underway. While winemakers need only crush grapes and collect the sugary juice, brewers must liberate the fermentable sugars locked inside the kernels of grain during the mash. This controlled steep in hot water hydrates the crushed grains and allows the enzymatic transformation of starch into sugars before the sweet wort is separated from the leftover grain solids—a process called lautering—and then boiled to complete the process.
Most American craft brewers and homebrewers approach lautering by leveraging an important characteristic of the barley kernels: their fibrous husks. But, as the homebrewers who employ the brew-in-a-bag technique will tell you, there’s more than one way to make wort. Brouwerij West in Los Angeles is turning to Old World techniques and a new piece of equipment to shorten their brew times, increase the efficiency of their brewhouse, and allow for more flexibility in their recipes.
Brian Mercer, founder of Brouwerij West, has always been inspired by Belgian brewers. Before launching the brewery, he ran a business that imported authentic Belgian candi sugar for American brewers. When it came time to build his own brewery in the Port of Los Angeles (prior to 2016, Brouwerij West’s beers were brewed at established breweries around the country), he decided to employ a bit of brewing technology that he first saw at Chimay Brewery in Belgium: a mash filter.