344: Marble Brewery’s Josh Trujillo Finds Success at the Intersection of Hops and Lagers

Josh Trujillo didn’t set out to become a brewer, but after 16 years at Marble—the last eight of which he’s served in the top brewing role—he’s found it to be a perfect vocation given his mix of technical and tasting aptitude. Over the years, Marble has pursued ways other integrating hops into both traditional and modern lagers, and their judiciously dry-hopped Pilsner even won 2014 World Beer Cup gold employing a quarter-pound-per-barrel dry hop at the time. Now, Marble is stretching out in the hoppy lager space with West Coast pils, and mirroring that smaller beer with their approach to cold IPA, while their MavLab R&D brewery continues to rack up medals for both traditional ales and lagers as well as more progressive styles.

In this episode, Trujillo shares their approach to brewing lager, including:

• Brewing rice and corn lagers with two row pale malt and a single infusion mash
• Managing runoff to avoid astringency
• Extending boils to manage DMS production
• Designing subtle yet characterful hop blends for dry-hopped Pilsner
• Moving hot side hops to the whirpool for more hop expression
• Marrying the classic with the contemporary in West Coast pils
• Brewing hoppy beers with new twists on classic hops

And more.

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