About two months ago, I reached out to Devon Randall, head brewer for Imperial Western Beer Company and Arts District Brewing Co. in Los Angeles, to talk about the popular hazy IPA style. We ended up chatting about a lot more than that, though, and I felt like I wasn’t doing her justice by including just one little quote in The SOMM Journal’s April/May Beer’d Science column. Additionally, for all of you beer enthusiasts out there who are considering a career in the industry, it might be helpful to know how a dynamo like Randall carved her own path. So read on for an in-depth Q&A with one of L.A.’s most respected brewers, and click here to read the corresponding Beer’d Science column.
Jessie Birschbach: Tell me about your career path to where you are now and how you got into beer to begin with.
Devon Randall: I worked at tap bar in college in Berkeley as a beer server in 2005. I quickly learned about breweries like Anchor Steam, et cetera, and got into buying imported Belgian beer. Then, when I moved back to L.A., I got involved in the Pacific Gravity Homebrew Club, and that was really fun. I didn’t enter a lot of competitions but realized I really like brewing beer. So I started looking around, but at that time there were not a lot of L.A. breweries, so I went down to San Diego and started knocking on doors. Lost Abbey let me watch them for a day but I just started showing up every day. Eventually they needed a few hands for bottling, and after a few months I asked if I could start getting paid. I was working with my mom in real estate, but I spent all my free time at the brewery. Eventually I wiggled my way into a full-time job, but not before I took a bartending job at Pizza Port—which was interesting because I eventually brewed there. I’ve been very lucky to gain brewing philosophy at both Lost Abbey and Pizza Port. I love the way Lost Abbey was sort of a mix of . . . meeting production goals as well as trying to be creative and do lots of one-offs. At Pizza Port, you get the chance to take the reins of everything, which was amazing as a relatively inexperienced brewer.
I moved up to L.A. in 2015 and started Arts District Brewing a year later. It’s been fun to partner with 213 Hospitality (now Pouring with Heart). They’re enthusiastic with new projects. Then we opened Imperial Western in winter 2018. All Season Brewing should be coming soon. We’re partnering with Chicas Tacos.
What are your thoughts on Hazy IPAs?
I’m surprised you want to talk to me about them because we don’t treat hazies like the golden gods that others do. I do recognize hazy as a style, but what I have a problem with is [when it starts to dominate brewers’ attention at the expense of other styles]. I wasn’t especially fond of when people were always doing West Coast IPA either. I believe there’s a time and place for all styles, especially as a brewer, because I wouldn’t want to spend all of my time on one style. I don’t mind making a hazy, but it’s not my everyday beer, though I’ve definitely had some great examples. Judging at the Great American Beer Festival last year was really eye-opening. Talking to a lot of the other judges, they thought that most of the entries poorly represented the style. You know those beers sit for a month before they open, so at best you’ve got month-old beer, which is challenging for [the hazy category].
What do you look for in a hazy and how do you achieve that character as a brewer?
Proper mouthfeel is really important. Achieving that is something you can do with calcium chloride [used as brewing salt to soften the texture of the beer]. You can also do so via dry hopping [adding hops to the wort after it has cooled] by ramping up the dry hop profile by 25% and ramping down pot side [during the wort boil] by about 25%. We also use a technique that’s a little bit different. Mashing a little bit warmer [imparts a little more of a] mouthfeel to it.
We also use a course filter. It’s important to filter out hop matter and not allow trub (leftover debris) and yeast through. Those things might keep [the beer] hazy, but they’ll end up contributing negative flavors. The yeast has a particular bitterness that’s recognizable, and that vegetal hops matter will end up having a really off aroma quite quickly as well that’s almost like decaying dumpster. So just in trying to make a hazy appear the way you want it, a lot of negative flavors can end up happening.
At Imperial, I use the term “unfiltered.” Unfiltered is not a total Northeast, disgustingly thick hazy beer. The filter is so course that it really wouldn’t filter out anything but solids and a little bit of yeast. So it should allow that haze, but we’re not as strict on how hazy it needs to be. Mild haze is just fine, so it sets an expectation to say unfiltered rather than hazy. We don’t usually filter any of our IPAs here—we do fining.
Since you’re not that into hazy IPAs, which styles are your favorites?
Sours feel the most magical—maybe because they’re the most unpredictable. We’ve got a small sour program at Imperial. We have a couple of foudres in the main dining area as well as about a dozen barrels in the basement. At ADB, we have 50 barrels and two larger 15-barrel foudres.
What should a beverage director know about beer?
I’m always pushing people to learn about how to take care of the beer [through things like] clean glassware and making sure the lines are clean. How beer is served and cared for is important to me and should be to others. So many bars do not know how to treat their draft systems. They know about cocktails and wine, though, so the same mindset should be applied to beer to give it the respect it deserves and make it taste the way it should. The more you take care of things, the more people trust you. It’s good for business.
