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Business & Tech

Made-In-El Cerrito Beer: Elevation 66 Brewer Describes New Pub's Approach

David J. Goodstal, head brewer at El Cerrito's soon-to-be-open Elevation 66 brewpub, talks about his craft with food columnist Renate Valencia.

With El Cerrito's first modern brew pub, Elevation 66, set to open this Thursday, Sept. 1, El Cerrito Patch sat down with brewer David Goodstal for a beer Q&A. Chef Joel Coleman also offered a preview of the food.

Goodstal co-owns the business at 10082 San Pablo Ave. with his wife, Esther Goodstal, and former colleagues Brian P. Kelly and Kayvan Sabeghi.

Q:  Let’s start from the beginning. How did you get into brewing beer?

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A:  I started out home brewing, and then I was at a point in my life where I wanted to change directions, and heard about a Master Brewers program at UC Davis. I applied, got accepted and went through that.

Q:  Where did you hone your craft?

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A:  My first job out of UC Davis was at Sudwerk. I’ve only worked at production breweries, never in a brewpub atmosphere. You think of Sudwerk as a brewpub. They have a little 15-barrel system in the front by the bar, but the 65-barrel production brewery is in the back and that’s where the bottling line is. I learned there — I was a cellarman. I moved beer and ran yeast off and kegged and worked on the bottling line. Next job I was a brewer — Beermann’s Beerwerks in Roseville. Then I worked at Trumer for about two years, then Pyramid for about two and a half years.

Q:  In a nutshell, how is beer made?

A:  Hot water and malted barley (dried, partially germinated barley), or grist — you know, it’s milled — are steeped in a tank. At the bottom there’s a screen, kind of a false bottom, and the mash makes its own filter bed. The grain is held up in there and the liquid filters down through it. It’s like you’re doing an infusion. The hot water is absorbing the sugars and enzymes from the grain and runs off into another tank called the kettle. The liquid that runs off is called wort, and is what becomes the beer. The mash, or spent grain, becomes cattle feed. The wort is boiled in the kettle with hops. When you’re done boiling you usually whirlpool it — stirring it just like it sounds — spinning it so that all the particulates settle in the middle. Then you let it rest, then run it through a heat exchanger to cool it off because it’s over 200 degrees at that point, knocking the temperature down to about 65 degrees for an ale, around 55 for a lager. Then you aerate the cool wort, and it goes into a fermentation tank with yeast to ferment and mature. During fermentation, the yeast eats the sugar in the wort and creates the alcohol content and carbonation.

Q:  What are hops?

A:  They’re cones — called hop cones. People will call the plant a “vine” with a “v,” but it’s really a “bine” with a “b.” They grow very quickly. It’s an unusual plant and I think the closest relative is cannabis. Different varieties provide different characters to the beers.

Q:  What’s the difference between ale and lager in terms of flavor?

A:  Most people think ales have a little more bite to them, and lagers tend to be smoother. Lagers take longer. They’re fermented at a colder temperature and matured longer at a colder temperature and everything’s slower — the chemical reactions are slower.

Q:  What kinds of beer will you offer when Elevation 66 opens?

A:  Ales to start with, and some guest handles, like Sudwerk Hefeweizen and Black Diamond Belgian Blonde. We’ll initially make only ales: Golden Gate Ale, East Bay IPA, Contra Costa Red and Esther’s Stout. We’re going to have to tweak our beers. I’ve never brewed on this system before, so we’re going to have to see: “Is that the flavor we’re looking for?” “Did that come out exactly the way we wanted?”  “Should we change the hop?”  “Should we change the malt bill a little bit?” They’ll evolve, and we’ll try to get everything dialed in. I’m going to taste it, you know, like a wine maker. When we find something we like and the customers like it, we’ll stick with that.

Q:  How much beer can you make in one batch in the restaurant? 

A:  Seven barrels. A barrel is 31 gallons. What you see as a regular keg — 15.5 gallons — that’s a half-barrel in brewer’s terms.

Q:  What’s one key difference, other than batch size, between craft beer and mass-produced beer?

A:  If you’re talking about any of the big boys, they don’t make all-malt beer. They use rice or corn as an adjunct. An adjunct is a cheap form of starch that the yeast can consume. Malted Barley’s expensive. But you can’t make a beer out of just rice, because you need the enzymes from the malted barley. There’s a limit to how far down you can go into that cheap adjunct state. I don’t deal in adjuncts — mine is all malt.

Q:  Tell us something about beer we might be surprised to know.

A:  No human pathogens grow in beer. Salmonella, things like that, they don’t grow in beer.

Q:   What are some of your favorite beers?

A:  American-style IPAs. I liked hopped beers.

Q:  What kind of beer would you suggest for a novice?

A:  Maybe a Belgian blonde. It’s not particularly hopped, not super over the top, and crisp and refreshing.

Q: Talk a bit about your menu and how it complements and incorporates beer.

A:  We’re trying to do artisan beer and artisan food. We’ll have burgers and sandwiches, including something I was adamant about: a gourmet grilled cheese. Fresh, local cheeses, fresh avocado or prosciutto — something like that. Our chef is Joel Coleman, from Santa Fe, who has lots of knowledge about beer. We gave him our initial four offerings to work with: the golden ale, IPA, red ale and stout. He’s going to have a new market salad, and he’s got a white beet salad with arugula. We’re trying to do some small plates. He’s definitely creative.

Executive Chef Joel Coleman:  It’s a brewery, so everything revolves around that. It’s finding that balance of things that will pair well with beer but also things that aren’t typical. We’ll have our staples, like fish and chips and shepherd’s pie, but I wanted to have some things people wouldn’t expect. To start it’ll be a straight-forward, one-page menu and then we’ll have specials and the menu will change seasonally. Once we’re open and going, we’ll play around a lot more. There’ll be a good amount of beer used in the menu, like braising liquids, and we’re going to have a stout panna cotta. We’ve been playing around with making a vinaigrette with beer.

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