Brewing Exceptional Beers Behind the Scenes

All About Beer Magazine - Volume 36, Issue 5
November 1, 2015 By
Bryan Selders of the Post Brewing Co.
(Photo by Dan Rabin)

Bryan Selders

The Post Brewing Co.

Lafayette, Colorado

Bryan Selders is a stickler for quality. This is no doubt partly his nature and partly a hangover from his former job running a large production brewery. Before arriving at The Post, Selders was head brewer at Delaware’s esteemed Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, where annual production reached 125,000 barrels during his tenure.

In the nearly two years since he launched the brewing operations at The Post—a wildly popular “chicken joint” and brewery—Selders has nearly filled a file cabinet with data collected from his brewhouse lab. Believing there’s always room for improvement, the brewer gathers reams of statistics, far in excess of what’s standard practice in a 15-barrel brewpub brew house. This information has resulted in recipe tweaks, modified cleaning procedures and a change in the house ale yeast (after it was discovered that the original yeast displayed “consistent inconsistencies”).

The Post brew house, which Selders designed, is also atypical for a brewery of its size, incorporating a variety of expensive high-end components such as flow meters and specialized grain handling hardware to maximize efficiency, consistency and, ultimately, beer quality.

Selders’ brewing preferences have deviated sharply from the “off-centered ales” that built the reputation of his previous employer. Ask the chronically upbeat brewer about his current beer portfolio and he’ll fire off descriptors such as “approachable,” “balanced,” “drinkable” and “extremely food-friendly.” His unwavering commitment to quality has garnered tangible dividends. The Post’s Howdy American Pilsner was a 2014 GABF silver medal winner in a difficult no-place-for-flaws-to-hide category.

–Dan Rabin

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