*What can beat a good beer drinking experience?*
The answer is best Beer drinking experience preceded by a brewery tour education.
If anyone ever thought “a beer is a beer is a beer, so what dear?” a trip to Geist factory is all you need… to be clear!
It happened almost unplanned. Ashok had asked for a smaller lunch meeting (four of us) before the evening gala he hosted. I wasn’t sure if we needed it. We spoke and then Ashok called back to say we are going with Mohan for a brewery tour. Exactly what I wanted! Mohan had deferred his joining a weekend getaway with friends to accommodate the brewery tour.
I am a beer drinker. I know what goes in a beer. That is what I thought. But as Mohan took us through the various stages of beer making, my elementary education precipitated like the unwanted residue after the beer brew is ready, and my knowledge was aglow like the golden liquid of Geist beer. Sparkling too!
In short, this is what happens in the brewing process. Malt is the basic ingredient of a beer. Malt is nothing but a grain (barley, wheat for instance) that has been allowed to germinate, but stopped prior to full sprouting. This -stopping of continued germination- is done typically by roasting the grain. Malting allows the releasing of grain’s sugars easier. The next is the process of mashing when the malt is mixed with water and is heated and churned. The resulting sweet liquid obtained is called wort (a new term I learnt yesterday). Then the wort is moved to another large vessel where it is mixed with Hops. (Hops is a herb, a plant that is a cousin of marijuana). It is heated and treated. Then removed to a final container where the yeast is added. Before it moves to this final container is a heat exchanger where the liquid is cooled down rapidly to the desired temperature. It is in this final container where the yeast acts on the sugars in the liquid to release alcohol and carbon dioxide. And then it is bottled and moved to cold storage.
If you ever read a laddu recipe and thought you could make great laddus first time or everyone following the recipe would end up making similar laddus, we know we would be far from right, right? It is much more intricate. It depends on the quality of the ingredients, the consistency of the batter mixture, the frying time, temperature, the sugar syrup’s consistency, and the right flavoring.
Then… getting it right is one thing, and making it special is another! How do Mohan and his partner Narayan (_what a delight it was meeting Narayan_!) make Geist special?
All of the malt is imported from Bavaria, Germany. Bavaria is the citadel of beers as we know. They add absolutely nothing else to the wort. In most commercial beers, if you have noticed the labels, you will find mention of sugar and other ingredients like corn syrup. The water is sourced from the same compound. It is RO’ed and then minerals added. The hops are the other special ingredients imported. It is the hops that lend the distinct flavor. One of the varieties that lends a citrus flavor was so delightful as Mohan let me take a sniff inside the walk-in cold storage where it is kept at 5 degree centigrade.
Geist beer, depending on its variety takes anything between 11 days to 22 days from the water and malt mixed stage to the bottle. In regular commercial beers it could be 5 days! Good art takes time. Best dal (yes, the innocuous dal) is the one that simmers overnight!
The carbonation in entirely natural! They don’t infuse the fizz!
Above all, they make their own yeast! A laboratory in house for this purpose. Mohan says “*Yeast is everything is a beer*!”. No using of commercial yeast!
Geist is Vegetarian! In order to hasten precipitation, breweries typically use some compounds, a main ingredient of which is obtained from fish. Geist doesn’t use this. My vegetarian conscience, that too on a Saturday, was gratified.
Geist beer once cased, is stored at a temperature of 5 degrees and transported to the outlets in refrigerated vehicles.
Apart from making the beer great, what else Geist does?
The “spent grain” - the residue from the beer making is supplied to cattle farmers. This proteinaceous feed evidently improves milk yield by 20% and above. They also dispense with the other residues that go as manure.
Finally down to the real: that is, drinking beer!
I had a taste of five varieties of beers, under the perfect setting of a big banyan tree and a Pipal tree. On a sunny afternoon a perfect quencher to start with. The beers endear you and the names too! Weiss Guy for instance. If Kamacitra is intriguing (the citrus flavored one) JamesBlonde is gripping! I am not giving any more on this subject, experience it yourself! You may realise those trees are Bodhi, like I did!!
Last but not the least!
Come April, there will be a restaurant! In the same compound adjoining the Bodhi trees. *I am going!!*
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