Podcast Episode 295: Barn Town Enjoys Making Hazy IPA and Tart Fruit Beers that People Enjoy

Welcoming flavor is the name of the game for Barn Town Brewing in West Des Moines, Iowa. Whether it’s their top-scoring hazy IPAs or their non-gluten fruited sour beers, they’re earning a reputation for building savvy balance into bold flavors.

Jamie Bogner Mar 20, 2023 - 6 min read

Podcast Episode 295: Barn Town Enjoys Making Hazy IPA and Tart Fruit Beers that People Enjoy Primary Image

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Barn Town popped up on our radar in 2022, with a number of beers across styles that scored well with our blind panel of judges, but the best of the bunch was their Neon hazy IPA with an impressive score of 98. In our upcoming Spring 2023 issue, focused on IPAs, they did it again with another 98 for their hazy double IPA Stink, Stank, Stunk. So, naturally, we felt the need to ask some questions and understand how they’re making such consistently impressive beers.

In this episode, founder Pete Faber, head brewer Grant Brower, and brewer Cody Guyer cover a range of topics, including:

  • updating recipes over the past half-decade to adapt to changing customer tastes
  • building stability in hazy IPA with malted oats, wheat, and pilsner malt
  • why Citra is “the bacon”—good with everything
  • chilling the whirlpool and optimizing for survivables
  • dry hopping after crashing to minimize less-desirable flavors
  • consistency and variability in hop varieties from lot to lot
  • brewing fruited sour beers without gluten-containing grains
  • the impacts of thickness and gravity on batch pasteurization

And more.

This episode is brought to you by:

G&D
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AccuBrew announces the addition of Specific Gravity to our suite of brewing tools! AccuBrew is a revolutionary fermentation monitoring system. Our mobile app and stainless steel, CIP ready sensor work together to predict specific gravity every 15 minutes! Detect problems before they ruin the batch, share data, make notes, control access, and schedule reminders anywhere, anytime. AccuBrew is your set-it-and-forget-it solution to tracking every batch, no more samples, no calibration, and virtually zero maintenance. Join the AccuBrew community today and experience 24/7 peace of mind! Visit with the developers at booth (#2935) at the 2023 CBC BrewExpo America!

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From the rotatable pick-up tube on Rogue Brewing's pilot brewhouse to the integrated hopbacks on Sierra Nevada's twin prototyping brewhouses, Ss Brewtech has taken technology they invented working with world-renowned industry veterans and made them available to every craft brewer. To learn more about Ss Brewtech's innovation list, head over to SsBrewtech.com


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Jamie Bogner is the cofounder and editorial director of Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine®. Email him at [email protected].

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