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[narrator] On "Tomorrow's World Today," we explore the cutting-edge

advances that are shaping four different worlds.

The world of inspiration, where the wonders of

the natural world amaze and inspire us.

The world of creation,

where ideas come to life from traditional arts.

The world of innovation,

where ideas and inventions move us all forward.

The world of production, where innovations

are mass produced to improve our lives.

From Inventionland World Headquarters, here's your host,

George Davison.

The brewing industry's recently seen incredible innovations,

transforming how beer is made and enjoyed.

But tradition dates back thousands of years.

You see, it all began with ancient civilizations like

the Sumerians and the Egyptians, who brewed beer in clay pots

using simple techniques and natural ingredients.

Now, if you fast forward to the Middle Ages when monks

refined their brewing methods, beer became an essential part

of life in European monasteries.

Today, though, beer has evolved dramatically,

with high-tech breweries and advanced brewing techniques.

Now, as we look toward the future, we see that

the rise of craft brewing has spurred creativity, leading to

unique brews and flavor combinations

we may have never imagined.

You see, the science of how flavors are explored

and brought to life in laboratories offers us a chance

to see and taste a piece of that future.

The creative process behind beer brewing,

marketing, and flavoring is truly an art form,

and it involves a blend of science,

tradition, and innovation.

From experimenting with unique ingredients

and brewing techniques, to crafting compelling brand stories

and designing eye-catching packaging, every single step

reflects a dedication to craft and creativity.

So I'm gonna send Greg to the world of production to

explore the innovative spirit and creative journey behind

one company's seasonal beers.

Stay tuned as we take you behind the scenes of

the brewing process, where every sip tells a story.

From innovative brewing techniques to renewable energy

solutions, breweries are having a positive impact on

the environment and crafting some unique

and delicious beers.

I'm at the Elysian Brewing headquarters in Seattle,

Washington, to explore how one particular beer has brewed up

a community festival with its roots in sustainability.

Let's head inside now.

We're gonna talk with Joe Bisacca and Dave Buhler,

the founders of Elysian Brewing.

-Hi, Joe. -Hey, how are you?

-Great, nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you.

So, Joe, I am curious to find out about the beginnings of Elysian.

What inspired you to create this whole brewing company?

So, I was a home brewer.

My partner, Dick, was a brewer over at Pike Place Brewery.

Dave was a beer sales guy.

And all of us loved beer,

and kind of wanted to do it on our own.

It came from love of beer, which I think most breweries

kind of started the same way.

For us, I think it was that opportunity to explore a little

further, to break the boundaries, to kind of try

some things people haven't tried before, just sounded fun.

Right, and that's one of the things that Elysian is known for.

Like, you brought a lot of groundbreaking beers

and flavors to the market.

[Joe] For me, brewing's like baseball.

If you strike out 70% of the time, you're an all-star,

one of the best in the biz.

That opportunity to invent something new, to kind of

create new beers, some new styles and things,

that was huge for us.

That lack of fear to try new things, to explore a little bit.

You may fail, but you learn from it.

Right, do you think that's one of the things that has really

helped with the evolution of the company, that attitude?

[Joe] Absolutely, not only in the beers that we brew,

but also graphically, we've always had internal

artists create all our stuff, so I try to inspire art as much

as we inspire beer with the whole thing -- you know, events too.

[Greg] Right, which is one of the main things I'm here to learn about

today, which is the Great Pumpkin Beer Festival. -[Joe] Sure.

So I'm gonna head downstairs, David's down there,

and he's gonna tell me all about the actual creation of

the pumpkin beer. -He's right down here.

OK!

-Hey, David. -Hi, Greg.

-Nice to see you. -Good to see you.

So, this is the perfect setting for me to ask a question

that's just been burning in my head.

What prompted you to create a pumpkin beer in the first place?

Well, in the late '90s, we had opened

a second location, and we had a small pilot brewery.

Our assistant brewer, Marcus, decided,

"I'm gonna brew a pumpkin beer."

And no one said, "Eh, don't do that."

So we brewed our first beer using the type of pumpkin meat

that you would buy in the store,

and we brewed four barrels, which is 31 gallons per barrel,

so 124 gallons of pumpkin beer -- that was year one.

Put the beer on tap at our pub. People loved it.

Year two, we did double the amount.

We took it to a beer festival.

We had a line really long, sold out of the beer really fast.

So the next year, we took it up to our main brewery.

At that point, it was a 20-barrel system,

so five-fold growth, and that's the beginning.

[Greg] Well, and now you actually brew different

varieties of the pumpkin beer.

It's not just the one that you started with.

Well, batch 1,000 ended up being the Great Pumpkin.

So we needed to brew something special.

And once again, Marcus -- when I said, "It's batch 1,000,

what do you want to brew?" And he said, "Double Night Owl."

So having now two pumpkin beers started the ability to do more.

And we were already doing festivals.

We were doing a winter beer festival, a Belgian festival.

So we did a pumpkin beer festival.

What were some of the biggest challenges in creating a beer like this?

Because that was really new at the time.

Well, in the beginning, we were buying pumpkin meat

from the store -- we were going like you would

buy pumpkin meat in a can for your pie.

We now use 75,000 pounds of pumpkin puree per year,

so we contract out to farmers years in advance.

So the supply chain side of it has gotten more intense,

but it's still working with farmers, and we love to do that.

Wow, so as all of this has grown, now you even have the festival around it.

The festival has grown the same way,

organically, serendipitously, and it is huge.

Thousands of people, lots of beers, lots of harvest beers.

It's kind of pumpkin mayhem.

[Greg] Excellent, well, I'm gonna go find out more about that mayhem from

Dan-o, your cellar master. Thanks a lot, David.

You're welcome. Cheers.

[Greg] I'm talking to cellar master Dan-o Beyer

at Elysian Brewing about their Great Pumpkin Beer Festival.

So Dan-o, let's go back a little bit.

Tell me a little bit about the history of

the Great Pumpkin Beer Festival.

You were there basically from the very beginning.

Yeah, I was there for the first one.

We had four pumpkin beers,

and that was already kind of ridiculous.

So we invited four friends' breweries,

and that first festival was just eight beers.

And then the boss was like,

"Figure out how to put this beer in a pumpkin."

So we've done that since the first year.

[Greg] Tell me about that evolution -- how has that process taken place?

[Dan-o] Well, I mean, it's just grown.

We've taken it from inside the restaurant out to

the loading dock, out to part of the parking lot,

the whole parking lot, and now we host it at the Seattle Center.

Wow, and the pumpkins have grown as well.

Yep, I'll be filling a pumpkin anywhere between 15

and 1,700 pounds this year.

[Greg] Are you surprised that a pumpkin can hold that much beer?

[Dan-o] I've always had great faith in

the structural integrity of a pumpkin.

Wow, well, tell me a little bit more about the evolution of the festival itself.

To grow that much, there's got to be a lot more involved than just beer.

Yeah, I mean, now our spent grain farmers show up

and have an info booth.

We have other vendors and other beverages available.

So there must be a bigger opportunity, then, for

community engagement.

In the last several years, we've always been involved

with a nonprofit.

This year, it's presented by The Vera Project.

What do you think sets the Great Pumpkin Beer Festival

apart from other festivals?

I mean, definitely the harvest vibe.

It's, you know, it's a very themed event.

Having such a centerpiece, like a giant pumpkin full of

beer that everyone's waiting with anticipation to tap.

Excellent, okay. Let's get on out of here.

Cheers.

Next, I met with innovation brew master, Chris Murakami,

to discuss the brewing process.

Hey, Chris.

-Hey, Greg, how you doing? -I'm doing great.

-So, Chris, walk me through the basics of

a brewing process.

Absolutely, yeah, we all start with malted grain, so either

malted barley or malted wheat, traditionally.

That goes through our mill, which is right behind us,

that cracks the grain open, and then it drops into

our mash tub, which is right behind us.

This is where we mix it with water, we keep it at a nice,

warm temperature, and this is kind of the key process

that I think separates brewing from a lot of other alcohol

fermentations, where you're keeping it at a perfect

temperature, time, hydration rate,

that the enzymes that naturally occur in that malt break

the starch down to sugar, and that sugar is what

eventually our yeast will consume and turn into alcohol

and carbon dioxide.

So if you were making wine or making a cider,

those already have sugars in them from the fruits that you're using.

With this, you're making the sugars from scratch.

Correct, yeah.

You know, you have apples, which already have sugar in

them, you have your grapes, so you basically just crush it, get the juice out.

You can add yeast, and then you're off to the races.

But with beer, we have, again, the multigrain. It's all in starch.

It's kind of entwined sugars, if you will.

They're really all locked up and bound to each other.

And so the, again, the process of mashing is to

basically free up those sugars, break them apart, make them

accessible for our yeast to consume.

Now, when you make a flavored beer, say, because we're

talking a lot about your pumpkin beer, all of those are -Yeah.

natural ingredients, as well. -That's right, yeah.

Whenever possible, source natural fruits,

fruits or vegetables, or whatever we're gonna put

into our beer, and so pumpkin beer is no different.

We get pumpkin puree, and it's grown down in

Corvallis, Oregon.

We get a pumpkin juice concentrate that comes from

Eastern Washington here.

Our malt's actually made out of Vancouver, Washington.

So a lot of our ingredients are coming from local sources,

as well as we're trying to source the natural fruit

anytime it's possible and avoid chemicals

or essences when possible.

As you work through your brewing process here with

Elysian, how much of this is, in your estimation,

traditional brewing and what's new, what's the innovations

that you're using? -[Chris] Well, really,

brewing has changed surprisingly little

over the thousands of years that it's existed.

So again, we're pretty much using the same four ingredients,

of course, when we innovate and do pumpkin beers

or something like that, but the process has really

remained unchanged.

What has changed is the technology that's allowed

us to brew more efficiently,

more consistent and sustainably.

So, for example, heating beer or heating the wort, I should

say, to make beer, has been around since the beginning of brewing.

That's what's made it safe to drink for a thousand years

and made beer a very safe product.

We're just using a steam kettle.

We're not using chemicals to have to add to kill any

pathogens or any harmful bacteria that might be already

present in the water or our ingredients. -[Greg] Great.

Well, I know that you have some other innovations that are

a part of your bottling and packaging process.

-So can we go take a look at that? -Absolutely.

-Let's go. -All right.

All right, Greg, I'd like to show you one more thing before

we hit packaging here.

I'd like to introduce you to our quality manager.

-This is Morgan Hazard. -Hi, Morgan.

Hi, Greg. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too. Looks like you're having a good time here.

We're sampling Great Pumpkin.

This is our final sensory before packaging.

I'm excited -- so tell me what's going on in this vat.

Well, Greg, these are our break tanks.

So basically it's finished beer.

It's already been fermented, clarified, and carbonated.

Now it's really just waiting for packaging.

So there's no process going on in here.

This is all just getting ready to head out to the bottling

and packaging center.

As you'll notice, this red line, this hose that's coming

out from underneath is going to our keg line,

and that's what we'll be adding to next.

Now this is all beer that is ready to drink.

-That's correct. -Ready to drink.

Which brings us to our next...

So we're ready to drink it, all right.

-Yeah. -Absolutely.

-The most important step, right? -[Morgan] The most important.

And this is actually Great Pumpkin Beer.

-Correct. -This is Great Pumpkin.

This is one of our beer, our pumpkin beers.

It's an imperial pumpkin beer, clocks in at 8.4%,

but again, tons of pumpkin, lots of natural spice. -Right.

-Well, cheers. -Cheers.

That is like fall in a glass.

[Greg] I'm discussing Elysian Brewing's bottling and canning

process with Morgan Hazard, Quality Assurance Manager.

So Morgan, what do you think is the most important thing to be

aware of when you're in the bottling

and canning process?

Reducing the amount of dissolved oxygen in our beer.

Well, how do you do that?

Both the bottle and can line utilize counter-pressure

filling, which purges the can or bottle with CO2,

pushes oxygen out, and then fills with beer.

[Greg] So why is that so important?

I mean, there's oxygen everywhere.

Well, it reduces our shelf life and causes the beer to taste

old and oxidized. -Nobody wants that.

Nobody wants that.

Well, I mean, I'm amazed at how much science is really involved

in the brewing of beer, and I'd like to get a little bit more specific about it,

maybe look at pumpkin beer in particular.

Yeah, let's go over to the pilot brewery where we're

actually brewing a pumpkin beer right now.

-Lead the way. -All right.

Well, Greg, I'd like to welcome you to our pilot brewery here.

This is our one-barrel innovation system.

So it's the smallest brewery that Elysian runs,

but it's where we experiment with a lot of

new recipes and ingredients.

So you get inspiration from just about anywhere, like a lot

of employee inspiration, as well.

And this is where you try that out.

What's Brian working on right now?

[Chris] Brian is actually making a pumpkin beer for us right now

called Absolutely Chuffed, and it's kind of loosely

inspired by a cake recipe, actually, he saw on TV.

[Greg] All right -- now, but Morgan,

you actually have a recipe that's gonna be brewed

for Pumpkin Fest, as well -- tell me about that.

It's called Porter Pie, and it's a pecan,

tassie-inspired beer named after my daughter,

who's nicknamed Porter Pie. -Wow, that's excellent.

Now, there's a lot of science involved here.

What are some of the different disciplines that come into play

in the brewing process?

[Morgan] So we've got microbiology, chemistry, food science,

and that's just the short list.

Now, say this recipe of yours is gangbusters.

Everybody at Pumpkin Fest loves it.

Now you wanna scale that up into production.

You need to get that into all of your pubs and your regular distribution system.

What do you do to make that happen?

Well, we're gonna first look at things like consumer feedback,

rate of sale at our pubs, kind of employee enthusiasm,

and does this fit in with Elysian's portfolio?

If it meets all these metrics, then we'll take that recipe,

we'll start working on scaling.

But the biggest thing we gotta look at is are the raw

materials sustainable?

Can we actually provide raw materials for years to come if

this recipe actually does scale?

So you have to deal with all of your suppliers, including local

farmers and the folks that you work with in the community

to make sure that you can make that happen.

Well, I want to find out more about that.

-I know you've got to go. -I do.

-Well, good luck with your pumpkin beer. -Thank you.

I'm sure it'll be a big hit. Let's get on out of here.

All right, let's go.

So, Chris, you mentioned using local sources for

your raw materials, and these are them. -That's right.

These are some of them. Yeah, this is a lot of our malt.

In fact, a lot of our malt that we use here at the brewing

process is malted in Washington.

Of course, Washington is known as a huge hop growing region

too, so we're extremely fortunate.

It's just right over the mountains in

eastern Washington.

I mentioned that our pumpkin for our pumpkin beers is grown

down in Corvallis, Oregon.

So really a lot of our raw materials are coming from

within the state or one state away, and that really helps

reduce our carbon footprint

in terms of shipping our raw materials to us.

That's really just a function of where you're

located geographically. -That's right.

Now I've heard about this concept called

circular brewing -- explain that to me.

Yeah, we have a very cool partnership here.

Essentially, our spent grain is sent to a dairy farm here,

and that's fed to the dairy cattle.

Of course, that becomes manure, and then that is eventually

turned into compost.

And that compost is actually used by some local farmers here

to grow these giant pumpkins that we feature at

the Great Pumpkin Beer Festival.

And we take a couple of those giant pumpkins, cut them open,

and fill them with beer.

So it's a really great way to reduce waste and work with

local farmers and partners here in the area.

In fact, Leann Krainick, who runs the Krainick Dairy,

is here, and you're gonna meet her now.

Great.

So, Leann, tell me a little bit about your partnership with Elysian Brewing.

We have a dairy farm about 35 miles southeast of here,

and we collect all of Elysian's spent grain and yeast,

and we take it home, and we feed it to our cows.

Wow, now, this would typically be waste, but you're making

a really good use of it.

Exactly, and as you learned in the brewing process,

Greg, they take all the starch and the carbohydrates to make

beer, but what's left over is spent grain,

and it's 20% protein.

There's one other thing in here, and that's yeast.

And because cows have a four-chambered stomach,

yeast acts as a probiotic, and so it helps them

digest their nutrients. -That's excellent.

Now, let's talk a little bit more specifically about

the Great Pumpkin Beer Festival.

That's kind of why we're here today.

Do the cows get to enjoy the festival?

They really do, but they enjoy it the day after.

So after the festival, we bring home all the giant

pumpkins, and we put them out in the field, and the cows get to enjoy them as a treat.

-[Greg] So it's a win-win for everybody, including the cows. -[Leann] Absolutely.

All right, well, I'm heading off now to talk to Kean Mervis.

He is the president of Elysian Brewing to talk more about

community engagement around the festival and how

everybody wins. -Great.

[Greg] I'm talking to Elysian Brewing President Kean Mervis to

explore how brewing is a circular process.

-Hey Kean. -Hey, how's it going?

It's going great, man. This has been a really good day.

Yeah, thank you so much for coming out and spending time

with my team and telling the story of Elysian.

I've heard nothing but great things about the conversations you guys have had.

Yeah, everybody has been really awesome today.

And I was just speaking to Leann, and she was telling me

about how Elysian has partnered with her dairy farm and how

beneficial that has been for both of you, especially in

the concept of the circular brewing concept

that's so important to you.

Now, when it comes to that kind of community engagement

and getting involved with the folks in this area,

how important is that to you?

Creating a sense of belonging is something that's super

important to everything we do at Elysian, and Pumpkin Fest is

an amazing example of that.

We've had the pleasure of growing it from a small

brew pub event, all the way to a 7,000-person event down in

the middle of the city at the Seattle Center under

the Space Needle.

[Greg] I was talking to Dan-o earlier, and he was saying that he's

been around for the Pumpkin Fest from the very beginning.

Now, he's not the only employee that you guys have that's been

here for a couple of decades. -Yeah, Dan-o's not the only one.

Of course, our founders who you've met so

far, have been here for our entire 28-year history,

but several employees have been here for over 20 years.

And that sense of community is something that we believe is

really important to everything that we do, and we believe it

rubs off on events like Great Pumpkin Beer Fest or on

the beers that our consumers are enjoying across the U.S.

Absolutely, that's excellent.

Well, I've got to get back to Pittsburgh, and I guess you're

heading that way too, because you're gonna hook up with

George at Inventionland. -Yeah, I am.

-Let's get out of here. -Sounds good.

Hey, Kean, welcome to Inventionland.

Thanks, I'm happy to be here.

Well, hey, what a great team you have.

They sent me these pictures, and I thought, I have a lot of

questions about this, because I think it's some kind

of kitchen, isn't it? -Yeah, this is like our kitchen.

It's an innovation-experimental brewing system that we use to

work on some of our innovations.

And you can see here, Brian has some samples out in the front

here where he's testing different parts of the brewing

process throughout the day to make sure that we're

hitting our specifications. -Interesting.

All right, so you have an R&D kitchen.

How about this one?

Because that vessel in the middle caught my attention.

I'm just curious, what's going on here?

Yeah, so Dan-o and Brian are getting ready to add some

ingredients to some of our secret recipes that

we unveil at Pumpkin Fest.

So you're not gonna let me know what's going on in there?

Sorry, you'll have to come to the festival to find out what they are.

All right, so then share with me what you think is gonna

happen to the brewing industry, let's say in tomorrow's world.

For us to be ready for tomorrow's world in brewing,

we need to listen to our consumers and make sure

that we're brewing the right beers that they wanna drink in the future.

And we need to invest in the circular brewing process to

make sure that we hit our sustainability goals.

Sustainability goals, I like that.

Well, everybody, thanks for tuning in.

And that's another edition of "Tomorrow's World Today."

So Kean, you wanna check out some more innovation

in Inventionland? -Yeah, let's do it.

And remember, tomorrow's world is where inspiration

and creation drive innovation and production.