Posted By: Stevie Caldarola

As the president of Ladies of Craft Beer, I get the pleasure of meeting many amazing women who are a part of the craft beer industry. Each woman has great stories and amazing insight into the world of craft beer. This has inspired me to start a “Women in Beer” interview series. Whether brewing, blogging, selling, marketing, or advocating craft beer, women from all over the industry will answer the following ten questions to share with your their thoughts and experiences with craft beer. I hope that these little glimpses into the minds of these great women will inspire you.

If you know or have heard of a woman in the craft beer community that you think deserves to be highlighted in this series, please send me your suggestion(s).

Cheers!

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Kelly McKnight is an Assistant Brewer at Watch City Brewing. 

1. What was your first beer experience?

I grew up in Fort Collins, CO and Odell and New Belgium were everywhere. Appreciating craft brew was ingrained in us as Coloradoans and showed in my first sips of a New Belgium Sunshine Wheat on a camping trip. My older brother drank Sunshine, so I definitely was inspired by him and his brew wisdom. There’s something special about sitting around a campfire with great friends drinking some incredible beer – I’m fortunate for that first brew experience.

2. If you brew/homebrew, what or who inspired you to start brewing? What do you do in the industry and what or who inspired you to get into it?

I moved out to Seattle to attend University of Washington for undergrad and, in the Northwest, hombrewing is what people do. I met a ton of kids whose parents brewed when they were growing up, and the smell of boiling wort in the morning was just as common to them as bacon and eggs. I immediately bought a kit from Bob’s Homebrew (he started off the guys from Mac n’ Jack and Georgetown Brewing) and brewed up a pumpkin hefeweizen, which was definitely not common up in the Northwest. It turned out great- I was hooked! From there, I brewed insane IPAs, chili beers and basically anything that I was hungry for. That was 11 years ago and now I’m Assistant Brewer at Watch City Brewing Company in Waltham, MA. I also owe a lot of credit to my former bosses Suzanne Schalow , Kate Baker and Ginger Castrios at craft beer bar Cambridge Common in Cambridge, MA. I worked there throughout grad school and they exposed me to a ton of great brews and taught me about the B to C aspects of selling beer.

3. What is your favorite beer to brew and why? What is your favorite beer to drink and why?

I’ve really turned a corner in brewing and have become pretty near obsessed with brewing Belgians. There’s something about the yeasts and trying to perfect the malt and aromatic components that keeps me coming back. I also appreciate the endless possibilities when working with spices in all stages of the process. Granted, all of these are involved when brewing other beer styles, however, I feel Belgians afford more freedom as the term “Belgian” incorporates many micro-styles.

4. What is/was your favorite beer event to attend, and why?

I love GABF for all of the brewing nostalgia but I’d have to say that the Vermont Brewers Festival in Burlington, VT. I went up last year to help out Peak Organic BC and the fest was unreal. It’s right on Lake Champlain and the breweries that show up are insane. There’s a mix of tiny Vermont breweries, the big guys and many French Canadian breweries pouring some of the best beers I’ve ever tried. Overall the crowd is awesome and everybody is in an amazing mood – last year we jumped in the lake between shows and relaxed thinking about what beers we were going to try next!

5. Have you taken any tasting and/or brewing courses? What are your thoughts on such courses?

No official brew courses for me- most of my brew knowledge came from homebrewing and drinking numerous beers on vacations, brewery visits and at home. I moved out to Boston to finish up Pre-Med at Harvard where my chemistry and biochem background broadened and allowed me to see deeper into the whole brewing process. I wish that I had known I wanted to brew before I spent “an arm and a leg” on grad school, as I would have gone directly to a brewing academy. I admire the brewers who have attended these institutions and believe the classes there prepare strong brewers for all types of brewing.

6. What advice do you have for anyone interested in getting into your aspect of the beer industry?
Do it! The best day of my life was the day that I decided not to go to med school and to become a brewer instead. It’s a lot of hard work and nobody can fully be prepared for all of the nitty gritty one has to deal with, but it’s worth every minute. There is no better feeling than spending months of hard work designing a recipe, working your butt off to brew it and then seeing a person take the first sips and enjoying it!

7. What beer would you want to brew/ want to see brewed?

I draw a lot of inspiration from my annual trips to Kauai and enjoy a lot of Waimea Brewing Company’s Brewmaster Dave Curry’s beers. I’d love to see more tropical brews out here in New England. In fact, my first brew recipe is our Hawaiian pale ale with hibiscus and toasted coconut. I’d love to brew more using tropical fruits and spices – maybe a guava triple or a an allspice porter.

8. What has been your hardest challenge in the industry? What has been your greatest success?

[My biggest challenge-] understanding the beast we call yeast! Yeast is a delicate monster; yes, delicate because you must coddle and protect it, yet it is a live as a raging machine. Yeast also has numerous properties and can effect so many facets of the brew that I am working to continually educate myself and get in tune with all of the strains. I think it will take years to have a comprehensive understanding of what each strain can achieve. My greatest success in brewing has been taking the leap of faith that I did when leaving behind my medical career and hitting the point at which I am at now. It is never easy to leave the comfort of what you know, and making it through the gauntlet to become a successful Brewer has made me proud. I owe a lot to my brewery owner Jocelyn McLaughlin, Brewmaster Aaron Mateychuk and beer writer Jen Harmon for giving me my first brewing opportunity at Watch City Brewing.

9. Tell us your most fun beer story.

I spend my free time traveling to breweries and beer fests and love discovering new types of beer or brew techniques. On a recent visit to Montreal while at an amazing brewery Dieu du Ciel I had fatefully learned that La Fete Bieres & Saveurs was happening in Chambly nearby. It was amazing! Dozens of tiny breweries that I had never heard about dotted the festival and the beers were insane. Talk about inspiration! I’m not fluent in French but the flavors that were coming out of those artisan breweries were awesome. Over here in Boston we don’t get many French-Canadian brews and to be thrown into a giant fest with hundreds of them was an amazing treat!

10. What is your take on the craft beer industry? What is your favorite thing about it? What could stand improvement?

The Craft Beer Industry rocks! People are helpful, mellow and we are all on the same team working for the greater good. My favorite thing about the industry is working in an environment that’s growing and where creativity can be expressed. As far as improvement goes I think that we’re all working as hard as we can to expose people to quality beer where each glass contains labor and love – I hope more people catch on!

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Related Posts:

• Vicki Stowe – Brewmaster (Part 32)
• Women in Beer Series – Hanna Laney
• Women in Beer Series – Megan Parisi
• Women in Beer Series – Karen Walker, Colette Johnson and Krista Homiak
• A Beer Drinking Woman in a Beer Man’s World