In addition to being the leading supplier of yeast for fermentation of beer and other alcoholic beverages, Miramar’s White Labs has been a bastion for beer geeks seeking nth-level ale-and-lager education and experiences since opening a tasting room with an abutting classroom in 2015. For the past half-decade, getting a taste of beers produced at the company’s on-site brewery required a trip to that tasting room. Then came the pandemic and a familiar pivot. Like so many local brewing operations, White Labs started canning its beer more regularly, but it went a step further, aiming to provide its events to fans on a virtual basis. The sensory-driven nature of those happenings made for numerous challenges, but Education and Brewery Experiences Manager Erik Fowler and company have been able to overcome them all.
“White Labs, as a yeast purveyor, has had an extensive online presence through workshops and classes held with our customers in the brewing, winemaking and distilling communities, but when it came to bringing online events to the beer-drinking public we were hesitant,” says Fowler.
White Labs’ most popular series of events over the years has been its Fermented Pairings, during which instructors take guests through the symbiosis in beer and food with items ranging from chocolate to cheese to kimchi, while covering other topics dealing with the fermentation sciences. The challenges of conveying the same points in a virtual format are obvious, so Fowler and his colleagues developed an all-new type of event called Challenge Your Taste Buds, which utilizes app-based technology to foster the back-and-forth that is so prevalent at White Labs’ public events.
“Such a large part of our events is based on interaction, so we really wanted to take time to incorporate ways for individual contribution to the event,” says Fowler. “To do this, we’ve used the app SampleOx, which was developed by the team behind the professional sensory app, DraughtLab. With this app, attendees are able to use the same tests our in-house panel uses.”
As with all White Labs events, Challenge Your Taste Buds affairs are presided over by staff who are certified Cicerones (the beer-industry equivalent of the wine world’s sommeliers) and certified beer judges. Those individuals guide participants through tastings with a side of beer-style history. As they taste through the beers, eventgoers enter descriptive terminology for each into the SampleOx app. Those adjectives are later compared against descriptors developed by White Labs’ in-house panel of sensory professionals. In addition to seeing where their opinions overlap with trained experts, this practice helps laymen develop their ability to identify aromas and flavors as well as their vocabulary for communicating them.
White Labs’ increased packaging efforts are key to the viability of the Challenge Your Taste Buds events. Prior to 2020, the company had only hand-bottled a pair of releases of its imperial stout, Frankenstout. Last year saw several, more everyday styles of beer released in four packs, all of which included two 16-ounce cans each of two versions of the same beer fermented using different yeast strains to show the significant role yeast plays in the overall character of a beer. This model will continue with White Labs’ Better Haze Ahead hazy IPA and a dark lager, both of which will debut in early-February. Other releases scheduled for 2021 include a breakfast stout, pilsner, hefeweizen and multiple IPAs. All of those beers figure to make their way into future editions of Challenge Your Taste Buds.
As of now, Fowler plans to hold Challenge Your Taste Buds on a monthly basis. The next of those events will take place on January 28. Tickets are available online and will likely sell out.
White Labs’ headquarters and tasting room is located at 9495 Candida Street in Miramar