Founder/Co-Owner Carmine Parisi, Head Brewer Thomas Muhs, Assistant Brewer John Garner and Local Patron/"Midnight Trucker" Inspiration Glenn Haynes talk to Travel Track about approach, collaboration and evolution in regards to their brewery in Ball Ground, Georgia: RockSolid Brewing Co. Their brewery was only one in the state of Georgia to bring home a gold medal for their "Midnight Trucker" dark lager.
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00:36 - You're the only gold medal bearer.
00:43 - Yeah.
00:44 - In Georgia.
00:44 - Yeah.
00:45 - Right this year.
00:46 That's insane.
00:47 - Yeah.
00:48 - But can you, you know,
00:49 'cause you can't sort of expect that, you know.
00:51 - Oh no.
00:52 - Was it just, you know.
00:53 - I mean, I couldn't believe it.
00:55 Honestly, it was still hard to believe up until
00:58 I kind of had the medal in my hands
00:59 and then I like knew that it was,
01:01 that I knew it was real.
01:03 I'll be honest, I had forgotten that the awards ceremony
01:06 was taking place and it was actually another head brewer
01:09 that sent me a congratulations text.
01:12 Said, "Hey man, congratulations."
01:14 And I was like, "For what?"
01:15 He's like, "Dude, your beer won."
01:16 I was like, "Really?"
01:17 - Yeah.
01:18 - But so, I mean, obviously I'm thrilled with the win.
01:23 I'm honored that it was recognized for, I mean,
01:26 being one of the best.
01:28 I actually prefer more West Coast style IPAs.
01:30 I do.
01:32 The reason for that is just because,
01:34 at least for my own personal palate, I like bitter things.
01:37 - Okay.
01:38 - And so West Coast in style and an origin
01:41 tend to be a lot drier and a lot more
01:44 of that bitterness shines through.
01:45 Whereas like hazy IPAs have been designed to have actually,
01:49 typically even more hops than you would find
01:51 in terms of volume in a West Coast style.
01:55 But with different processes and, you know,
01:58 with water chemistry, we've figured out a way
02:02 to essentially kind of mute that a lot more
02:04 and really just have kind of more of the aromatics
02:07 and like more of the flavor actually come through
02:09 as opposed to the bitterness.
02:11 - What are you drinking right now?
02:12 Just ask me.
02:13 - This is my wedding beer.
02:15 - Oh, is that the wedding?
02:16 - It's over right now, yeah.
02:18 - I never asked you about that.
02:19 What is your wedding beer?
02:21 This won't air till afterward.
02:23 - Yeah, so what we did was we took Linger Langer,
02:26 which is a Munich style Helles lager.
02:28 We used that as the base.
02:30 And then we added some wildflower honey from Missouri,
02:33 which is where my fiance grew up and is from.
02:36 We added some Michigan hops, which is where I'm from.
02:38 And then we met in Georgia, so we added peach.
02:40 So what we came up with was a peach lager.
02:43 - Wow.
02:44 - So, you know, it has a really, you know,
02:46 distinct like peach aromatic.
02:48 There's definitely more, there's like a peach flavor,
02:50 but it's not sweet.
02:51 Like the puree that we use, you get kind of more of like,
02:54 you know when you bite into a peach
02:55 and you kind of like taste the skin of the peach
02:58 and then there's like that area of like where it like
03:00 sits nicely in your pit.
03:02 - Yeah.
03:02 - So it's a little earthy, like a little woodsy.
03:04 You definitely get some of that.
03:05 - You know, when I submit to competition,
03:07 I never do it with the expectation of winning.
03:11 More than anything, I'm really just looking to get feedback
03:14 because the judges are all like verified and like certified
03:18 with a certain level of like education and knowledge
03:21 and knowing what to look for from a sensory standpoint,
03:25 depending on the styles that they're judging
03:27 and what you're submitting for.
03:29 So more than anything else, I'm just looking to get feedback
03:32 when I submit to competition.
03:34 And really I just, I take that feedback into consideration.
03:37 And you know, if we decide like, oh,
03:40 if we want to try and make this beer again, you know,
03:42 it gives me kind of a launching pad to start working with
03:47 as far as like, okay, what did they like about it?
03:50 What did they think could use improvement?
03:51 Or did they not like it at all?
03:53 And you know, and do I need to think about
03:56 completely scrapping what we did and start over?
03:59 - The peach is not so overpowering that like,
04:01 you can't tell that it's just like a light lager
04:04 that has its base.
04:06 So that's what's in the bright tank right now.
04:09 - But that's how it looks, right?
04:11 - Yeah.
04:12 - Beautiful.
04:13 - I'll just pour a little more off the,
04:15 off the spickle here.
04:16 Get a better shot of it.
04:24 - The town of Ballground is all about like,
04:26 lagers and light ales.
04:27 I don't know why, it's just the culture of the town.
04:29 So people strayed away from it and we were like,
04:32 oh, we're kind of worried that it was just going to be a,
04:35 bomb, just a, just going to bomb.
04:37 And then all of a sudden, we send it off
04:39 and it apparently is amazing since we got the gold.
04:43 I thought it was amazing myself coming out of the batch.
04:45 - What did you taste coming out of the kettle?
04:47 - Coming out of the,
04:48 coming straight out of the kettle in the fermenter,
04:50 I got a lot of roast up front, obviously.
04:52 It's a dark lager, but not too much.
04:54 It's, tastes roasty and then it finishes out light.
04:57 It's kind of hard for me to explain personally,
05:00 but that's the easiest way I could explain it.
05:02 - Beautiful.
05:04 - Yeah, there she is.
05:06 - Happy wedding day, there we go.
05:10 - Happy wedding day.
05:10 - Yeah.
05:12 - She's the one that designs like all of the,
05:15 all the can labels, all the bottle labels.
05:17 And this is the label that she came up with
05:21 for the wedding beer.
05:22 So it's called Always Forever.
05:25 And so that's the design that she came up with.
05:29 And the barn is actually the,
05:31 that's the venue that we're having our reception at.
05:33 - Wow.
05:34 - In North Carolina.
05:35 So then she just did a background
05:37 that's kind of watercolor and style,
05:39 you know, with like a full foliage kind of theme to it.
05:42 You kind of see the mountains in the background too.
05:44 - Feedback, education, all these things
05:47 make you a better brewer.
05:48 So you heard all those sort of strengths,
05:51 you know, maybe, you know, obstacles, criticisms, whatever.
05:56 Could you talk about how that affects you going forward?
05:59 - I mean, my mindset now is obviously that
06:02 I know that we are capable of making award-winning beer.
06:06 It's like they say in sports,
06:08 your goal is to get another one.
06:10 You know, if you get the first one,
06:11 obviously you want to try and win another one down the line.
06:15 - But you're not trying to pressure yourself.
06:17 - No, no, no, no, absolutely not.
06:19 It's, you know, the feedback is simply to, you know,
06:23 that's kind of what drives me being in the position
06:26 that I'm in is that you never want to, you know,
06:29 get too comfortable with like what you do
06:32 and what you're making.
06:33 I mean, being a brewer is,
06:35 you have to go into it really every day
06:38 with the approach of being a lifelong learner.
06:40 I mean, I will be the first one to tell you
06:42 that I certainly don't know everything about brewing,
06:45 about all of the science behind it.
06:47 I mean, I'm still learning now.
06:50 And the goal is really to always just like,
06:53 with every batch that you make,
06:54 whether it's something new,
06:55 whether it's something I've made a hundred times before,
06:58 the goal is always to make it
07:00 just a little bit better that next time.
07:02 So she designed that.
07:04 - Oh, and the GF, Gold Mill, and then the F.
07:08 - Yep, here, our Polish label,
07:10 which is kind of done in like a Western steam pump style.
07:14 - Is that one on?
07:15 - It is right now.
07:16 It's on technical 10.
07:17 - Oh, a little bit of heavy metal there.
07:19 I like that.
07:20 - My idea for collaboration is to create a big family
07:23 all around Georgia and over, you know,
07:27 like create a big spiderweb.
07:29 That wherever you go,
07:32 you have someone to collaborate with,
07:35 and that you can mix your beer with their beer,
07:39 their client with your client,
07:41 and you get to know each other.
07:44 And to support each other, to support them,
07:47 it's a great thing.
07:48 Yes, we need to support them.
08:06 They need our support, they need our trust.
08:08 And whenever they come up with a recipe of something,
08:13 we always work with them.
08:15 There's always that kind of trust,
08:17 that kind of idea to say, let's do it.
08:19 Let's see what we can do.
08:20 What's your idea?
08:21 How can we make this happen?
08:23 And what do you need from us to make this happen?
08:26 - That one, everyone pulled,
08:27 like it was a three-way collaboration
08:29 with us, Talking Rock Brewing in Talking Rock,
08:32 and Penly Creek, which is on Main Street in Jasper.
08:34 So the three of us, since we're the three,
08:36 we're kind of like in a small little area,
08:37 we've all become friends.
08:39 And so we decided, oh, let's do a three-way.
08:42 Collaboration, collaboration.
08:45 And so literally we drew out of a hat,
08:47 who's going to pick the random adjuncts,
08:49 who's going to pick the main malt that we need to use,
08:52 and the hops.
08:53 So we got chocolate malt, lemon drop hops,
08:56 and we drew random adjuncts.
09:00 So we went with the vanilla extract.
09:02 And honestly, it's amazing how Thomas is able
09:04 to put that all together and make it blend so nice as it is.
09:07 And even if you're collaborating and they usually,
09:09 like, say we're visiting, I'll just keep using Penly Creek
09:13 and Talking Rock, say we're visiting them,
09:14 typically they'll come up with a recipe,
09:17 and then it's maybe something we've never thought of.
09:20 Like for our three-part collab,
09:22 we did the Belgian Pale Ale,
09:24 and Talking Rock did a Tropical Stout
09:26 with all the same ingredients.
09:29 And I would have never thought to do any of that together.
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09:34 So our goal is to have five signature beer
09:55 on the wall all the time.
09:57 And then the other five just mix what you can.
10:02 Just mix it up with flavor, different beer.
10:06 It depends even on the season,
10:08 because seasonal beer, sometimes they change.
10:10 We don't wanna bring, like, you know,
10:12 winter beer in the summer.
10:13 So those five, they change the phase of the recipe,
10:18 the menu, because that is seasonal.
10:21 - It's just about being willing to try things
10:25 and make small adjustments.
10:27 I mean, and really just tweak little things,
10:29 whether it's, you know, the amount of hops you use,
10:31 whether it's a certain salt that you use in your water
10:34 as part of the water chemistry profile,
10:36 whether it's you wanna try like a new malt supplier.
10:40 I mean, really, there's so many different things
10:42 that go into making the final product.
10:45 - It's just nice getting all the fresh ideas,
10:47 and everyone's so friendly and willing to help people out.
10:50 Like, I was especially seeing that going to places,
10:52 like we did a collaboration with Jugglebrewing.
10:54 And I went there, and I'm just asking questions away,
10:56 and no one's judging me as the young dude
10:59 who's got three years and no certification.
11:01 - But you have the experience.
11:04 - Now I have the experience.
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11:08 - Well, as fast as we're growing it,
11:21 we needed a place to go.
11:24 'Cause there just wasn't any places around here, hardly.
11:28 You had to go further south or further north or to Atlanta.
11:32 And so this, to me, I've enjoyed it.
11:36 I come out and just, and pretty much,
11:39 a lot of the same people come in, and a lot of new people.
11:42 But this is where I come around to socialize.
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11:51 - We always wanna grow, but grow slowly.
12:02 We wanna make sure that when we provide, we do things,
12:06 we're not over-rich, because there's gonna be losses around,
12:10 especially during this time.
12:12 But we don't wanna do really slow,
12:13 because we're gonna lose the opportunity
12:15 to create something more for clients.
12:18 So we always try to go to the next level very slowly.
12:22 So like, for instance, for this year,
12:24 we're gonna create three different stouts, okay?
12:28 Some barrel-aged stout we wanna create
12:31 for our anniversary with some cans.
12:34 And next year, we wanna just chip a little bit more,
12:38 do more canning and bottling.
12:40 But just bottling only like barrel-aged stout,
12:47 barrel-aged beer stout, can be barrel-aged.
12:50 We have a bee's knees in the barrel right now.
12:53 Yeah, and we have another beer in the rum barrel.
12:57 Amazing, can't wait for that.
13:00 It takes time.
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13:06 When, let's say we wanna, last year,
13:21 we decided to have three beers on the wall
13:24 for our anniversary.
13:25 So in the barrel, the beer takes 12 months, okay?
13:29 And those 12 months, we don't know if the beer stays well,
13:33 it can go bad.
13:34 So it's, it can go either way.
13:38 So last year, we created a six barrel,
13:41 thinking about to release only three.
13:44 For now, everything looks good.
13:48 The whole six barrel, they all look great,
13:50 they all look good, and we can inject with the coconut
13:53 or with the chocolate or with vanilla,
13:56 creating different flavors,
13:58 even though the base is the same,
14:00 but you can create different flavors
14:01 and different recipes with the base, yeah.
14:04 So that's what we want for our client.
14:06 And this beer, the Midnight Rocky,
14:08 is gonna be in the can.
14:11 Rock Soda, because,
14:12 I don't know if you know Oscar,
14:17 he was the owner of this place in Bogdan,
14:20 and this place used to be all rocks.
14:24 Really, we have a picture in the back.
14:26 And that's why we came up with this.
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