'It's about what the customers want': An inside look at how Susquehanna Brewing Company operates

Jul. 9—JENKINS TWP. — The smell of fruity flavors and spicy hops wafted through Susquehanna Brewing Company on a warm spring afternoon as Phillip Davidson journeyed around the facility.

Davidson, the company's brewmaster, noted the process for establishing new brews includes the combination of imagination and attentiveness.

"There are no set, hard rules," he said. "There are things I personally want to do and goals of the organization. (But) it's not really about what we want, it's about what the customers want. We're listening to what they have to say and then trying to come up with creative ways to keep them engaged."

Fred Maier, co-founder and vice president of Susquehanna Brewing Company, noted the company makes about 80 different varieties of beer per year, but stressed they do more than create the frothy beverages.

"It's really like three businesses in one," Maier said. "Our main act is brewing beer — but we also produce and sell our own brands. We do contract brewing co-packing for a number of other breweries and we also operate our tasting room, so we have a retail arm, too."

Davidson enjoys concocting innovative brews but also recognizes the significance of mastering current favorites.

"My job is to make sure we honor the expectations our customers have," he said. "While I get to create new beers, it's very important that I keep making the beers we're known for very well and improve them if we can."

Specifically, Susquehanna Brewing is known for making shandies, he said.

"We put juice into the beer to make sure there is not so much alcohol in it," Davidson said.

The required time to prepare beer for consumption varies depending on the variety, Davidson said.

You can typically brew, ferment, condition and package ales in about two weeks, he said.

Lager beer, which is brewed and fermented a little slower, and at a lower temperature, takes a minimum of three to four weeks, and up to four months, Davidson said.

As Davidson began a tour of the brewery, he paused to point out giant bags of malt.

"It kind of starts here," he said, before offering a step-by-step rundown of the brewing process.

—Malt the barley grass and turn on its metabolism. It creates a bunch of enzymes inside the plant as if it was going to become a brand-new plant. As soon as it makes those enzymes, the malter dries it out. All the starch you would use to make flour or bread is there.

—Run all the grain through a mill which crushes it into a grist — a very course flour.

—From there, it goes into a grist case and then gets incorporated into the water and mixed into a vessel called a mash tun.

—In the mash tun, the grist and hot water get mixed together and the enzymes get activated at specific temperatures.

"We're basically making very thin dough," Davidson said.

—Those enzymes chop up all the starch and turn it into sugar which dissolves into the water, creating sugar water.

—Pump the sugar water from the mash tun to the lauter tun which has a screen on the bottom.

"The reason we use barley to make beer is because barley has a hull," Davidson said. "There is a cover on the grain and when we run it through the mill, the flour inside the hulls pops out and gets crushed into a coarse powder and the hulls stay together."

—A screen is used to trap all the hulls behind and drain the sugar water out.

—From there, it goes into the kettle where it's boiled and sterilized, and hops are added.

"Hops are a plant we use as a spice," Davidson said. "It adds aroma and flavor and balances out the sweetness of the malt with the bitterness."

—Once it's boiled and sterilized and has the right amount of hops, it's pumped into a whirlpool.

—The wort, or sugar water, gets spun around and all the hops get clumped into the middle. It's put through a heat exchanger to cool down before being sent to a freshly cleaned fermenter.

—In the fermenter, yeast is introduced to the cooled-down, freshly sterilized wort. The yeast consumes it and makes the beer.

"We don't actually make the beer, the yeast makes the beer," Davidson said.

—Once the yeast consumes all the sugar, it makes carbon dioxide which bubbles away as a gas and alcohol and leaves behind only a little bit of sugar and all the water.

"Now we have 'green beer' — beer that needs to mature," Davidson said.

—It's cooled down very close to freezing and sits for a while after the yeast falls out. This process is called conditioning or lagering.

—After measurements and a taste test, and the beer is ready to be packaged, the filtering process depends on the type of beer. To make a hazy IPA, it's only run through a centrifuge. To make bright, crystal-clear lagers, it's run through a centrifuge and a filter.

—From those tanks, it goes into the packaging hall and gets packaged into cans, bottles and kegs.

Maier noticed a significant spike in beer production during the past decade.

"The first year we started, I think we did less than 1,000 barrels," he said. "We went to 4,000 then 8,000 and then 17,000, up into our sweet spot of 24,000 to 26,000 a year."

Good water quality serves a critical piece for producing tasty beer and the Wyoming Valley boasts some of the best, Maier said.

"Our water around here is clean, soft, surface water," he said. "It doesn't pick up any of the chemicals. It's a good, blank canvas."

Maier also finds the beer making operation a fascinating experience.

"Every batch of beer is tested three times for microbiological activity," he said. "It's a living product which makes it so fun."

Contact the writer: rtomkavage@timesshamrock.com; 570-348-9131; @rtomkavage on Twitter.

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