Last Thursday I spent my morning playing with caustic solutions, lugging around 30lb barrels of steel and directing gallons upon gallons of fermented, beery goodness.  Unfortunately, I had to spend that evening waiting tables, but the morning was my first step towards learning the fine craft of brewing.

After arriving at the brewery around 8am, I squeezed my feet into a pair of entirely too small steel-toe rubber boots and began learning the ins-and-outs of the brewery’s keg washer.  This metal beast is responsible for cleaning, sanitizing and, later, filling kegs. 

I followed around the assistant brewer as he patiently answered all of my questions and showed me the ropes.  Although keg washing could hardly be confused with any glamorous job, it’s the basic duties of any brewer—or in my case, wannabe brewer lackey.  Despite my toes cringing in pain against the unforgiving shell of steel, I glided through the day, happily manipulating the machine and sanitizing keg after keg.

Keg washing for a small scale brewery is actually a relatively long and monotonous process.  It begins by spraying and scrubbing the outside of each keg by hand, then manually working each keg through the machine.  This particular machine is capable of cleaning, sanitizing and rinsing four-kegs at a time, taking about 15 to 20 minutes.  At a large brewery like Anheuser-Busch, the entire process would be automated and controlled by a computer.  At the Chelsea Brewery however, this process was controlled manually by me.  Manipulating various valves and hoses allowed me to spray and rinse, sanitize and clean each keg. 

After we finished cleaning, my brewing guru showed me how to transfer beer from the 60-barrel bright tank to the awaiting kegs.  Again, we utilized the cleaning machine, which coincidentally can be used to filled the kegs as well.  The steel vessels were filled four at a time, then rolled and piled onto wooden pallets awaiting transportation to various bars in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. 

My arms ached, my feet were throbbing but my efforts supplied enough beer for 32 kegs.  That’s a hell of a lot of brew.