BEAR-ly Getting Started 8.2 - American Wheat Ale

Wheat Ale is as American as it gets, and this episode gives you what you need to know about this popular style. Jason and Craig open with a talk about the craft brewing timeline. Later, covering the peaks and troughs of the industry. In the mean time, you hear about the yeast characteristics that make wheat ale what they are. Featuring Oberon Ale from Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, MI.

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Transcript

The Buffalo Brews podcast. So barely getting started is brought to you by clean trays and yeah, you know, we had a little, a little just accident, you know, professionals here at the table, a little spillage of the beer, a little, little foaming and that might've just, uh, come from a variety of things, but, uh, we're moving along in the cheers to American beers. I got in one of the classes that I host every now and then here, but it's really focusing on the American beer culture. 

So quick recap, if you're joining us and didn't, and you have to go back and listen to the previous episode, we drank a cream ale. We were talking about a prohibition 1920s, I mean, to go even farther back 1800s is when you really had lager production and lager brewers here in America from the German immigrants. And, you know, that was kind of the big beer. 

Everyone's just drinking lagers because they came over through immigration and the homeland. But then prohibition comes along, you have now present use ale, uh, which basically means here's the beer to drink right now. So people are trying to get a light, easier drinking beer out to the public, uh, but they're using ale, uh, ale yeast and some slight brewing techniques of the lager yeast. 

So you're kind of a hybrid beer. And then from there, you know, we are now getting into the 1950s and that is when, you know, we're at peak advertising and marketing and, you know, things like the microwave come out and TV dinners and, uh, you know, everybody is happy to be American, you know, kind of the, uh, is, is that, you know, part of like the greatest generation? Cause they gave birth to the baby boomers. And, um, that was kind of, Hey, how do we, you know, just take it easy and enjoy life. 

And that's like wonder bread. And just, you just eat sliced bread, sliced bread and it's perfect every time. And, and I've got frozen vegetables now and I have a freezer at my house and I, I have beer that I can get from anywhere. 

It doesn't have to be, um, you know, present use. This beer is made specifically, um, a certain way, you know, a lot with quarters and cold filtered and this, that, the other, but now it's being shipped in the transportation. So now this is like the rise of the macro brewery. 

This is in the fifties. So those local kind of breweries are starting to diminish a little bit and you're not getting so much, you know, you don't need to get so much off of your friend. That's home brewing down the street. 

You are, uh, or you're not home brewing yourself. It's like, wow, I can kind of get a reasonably priced beer, um, from anywhere because transportation is now a thing. Refrigeration is readily available. 

Um, you know, not like it, you know, it's been readily available, a little bit more economical in the beer industry. So we were able to get these mass produced beers. So a lot of people are just used to lagers now. 

So then, uh, you know, home brewing was actually illegal up until I think 1978, but you had tons of home brewers that still wanted something, uh, with a little bit more flavor. You know, you had cream ales come out right around prohibition, but then it was just lager, lager, lager, uh, mass produced macro lagers, you name it. They're coming at you with their different marketing techniques. 

And, you know, then the light beers came out, you know, Miller Lite with the L I T E versus L I G H T, you know, all of this different stuff. And you kind of just went with the flow and you thought that that's what beer was. And when someone gave you a home brewer, someone's like, oh my God, what is this? You know, it's not what I'm used to. 

It's kind of like, all right, all I, all I really drink is, um, green tea. And then someone comes with this Robost or whatever it is. And there's all these like, wow, there's a lot of stuff I didn't know that could go on. 

And I'm kind of okay with my simple stuff. And, you know, there needed to be kind of a gateway, gateway beer into fuller flavored beers because everyone, you know, that doesn't know a ton about craft beer. Uh, and again, we, we legalized 1978. 

So now 1980, you've got some, and this is Anchor Steam, this is Sierra Nevada's. These are some of your now, you know, the quintessential, uh, American breweries that kind of have nostalgia almost, uh, even though it's only been, you know, 40, 50 years, these, these breweries are the ones that came out and are offering something different. You know, obviously they have their flagships and they're going to produce some sort of lagers, but we're offering something different, but you gotta, you gotta look at, okay, well still mass majority of beer drinkers are used to light lagers and, you know, anything that's simple in flavor is going to sell. 

How do we transition them? How do we get them into a, a little bit more full flavored beer and cue American wheat ale. And I chose this beer because American wheat is pretty different from, you know, the wit beers or wheat beers of Belgium, you know, a wit translating to white, white really meaning wheat. And, uh, those always had a curacao or, you know, orange peel as well as coriander. 

So they had Belgian yeast as well. So there's a lot going on in a wit beer. And if you never had a wit beer, if you want a mass produced version, think of like a blue moon or a shock top. 

And that has a lot of yeast characteristic to it. There you go. And there's a lot of cool flavors. 

And there's a lot of people that come and ask me, do you have any blue moon or anything like that? Because it is still a light flavored beer, you know, standard strength alcohol, but it's got different flavor to it. It's not just light, crisp lager. Um, and I always keep saying that light, crisp lager, light, crisp lager. 

Well, what I mean is it's not just your plain showcase of malt and hops. Okay. We got malt hops. 

Now, American wheat, you're going from barley to wheat. And if you think about the German famous wheat beer, it's a Hefeweizen. And that's got a lot of clove and banana flavors. 

And we don't like clove and banana flavors. So we're, we're going off of the fact that, yeah, you can brew beer with wheat, but we're not necessarily taking the Hefeweizen or the wit beer and, you know, making it our own. We now are just making a beer with wheat. 

And one of the things that comes with wheat is it's a little bit more acidic and that's the grain itself. It has a little higher, um, you know, is it lower pH or yeah, no higher pH, a little higher pH. So that is a natural, like tart, refreshing kind of taste to it. 

And that makes it good for summertime. And then it also is a great base because it's got that tart, refreshing, very light flavor to it. Uh, great for adding fruit additions. 

So your cherry wheats, your blueberry wheats, your tangerine wheats, you name it. And it makes for just a great thirst quencher. That's why in Germany you had the beer gardens with the Hefeweizens, um, just a very good drinking warm weather beer. 

But really I see wheat beers selling all year long. People like it because it's an easy beer and it's not, it's not hopped as much as your pale ale and your IPA. So, so where do I go if I want a beer that's not a lager and is basically just malt and hops, but I don't really want something dark and roasty yet and I don't really want something super hoppy. 

Well, that's where you kind of fall into this American wheat. There's the blonde ale or known as the golden ale. There's the cream ales. 

There's the German kölsches. You know, you have these beers that are light in flavor, akin to lagers, but there's more going on. And the wheat beer that we are going to try today is one of the quintessential in this country as well. 

It's from Kalamazoo, Michigan, from Bell's Brewing. Um, they have very good beers across the board, but their Oberon, I'll let you kind of speak to Oberon a little bit, but Oberon is, uh, what I will say about it is it's kind of like the coming of the sun and the coming of the summer. So there's, I think Oberon festivals where a lot of bars just have Oberon on until it's, you know, basically winter. 

But you, uh, you know, it's, it's kind of the, kind of like we talked about the pumpkin beer and that's the unofficial or official sign of fall. Oberon is kind of the official sign of summer. Yeah. 

And I'll crack and pour and let you join in on some facts. Yeah. So Oberon was first known as soul son when, uh, when it was created in 1992, uh, it started the revolution of craft beer in the opinion of many because, uh, as it became one of the most iconic brands and it introduced a generation of beer drinkers to the craft industry, uh, the Oberon release day, whenever that is, uh, you know, obviously it varies when, when they decide to kick things off is actually a big deal. 

It's a, it's a huge event in Kalamazoo, probably rivals that to let's say celebration IPA from Sierra Nevada to know that the holiday season is kind of the, uh, the unofficial kickoff there. Uh, so when you're talking about, um, warmer weather started the baseball season, then, you know, kind of rewinded a little bit, Larry Bell, who is the founder of, of Bill Bell's brewery. And then he had a deeply rooted home brewing background dating back. 

And I was wrong. I thought it was the seventies. It's 1983 is what I had written down here. 

So he opened a home brew, I'm sorry, in the eighties, but he opened a home brew shop in Kalamazoo in 1983. And then he, when he opened, uh, and started, uh, Bell's well, Kalamazoo brewing company, which became, uh, Bell's brewery, uh, was serving beer out of a 15 gallon soup pot. Now that that's, that's saying something that's, that's from home brew to you. 

That's, that's the good soup. So, yeah, so that's what they've been, uh, that that's where everything started. So now Oberon, this is this annual thing now, uh, it is one of the most, I mean, I don't know, it's probably the most recognized American wheat ale, uh, in the craft industry, uh, like you mentioning something like Blue Moon or Shock Top, you know, commercially distributed beers, I think on a craft level, I think this is probably the most recognized that I know of. 

As for a basic wheat ale as well, you know, it's not fruited. Um, there's plenty of well-known fruited wheats. Uh, the only other one, and it's not as well known as Oberon, but you know, it's one of the ones that they have you like, oh, when you want to try a quintessential American wheat, there's this Gumball Head from Three Floyds. 

I think Three Floyds is, um, they're not Chicago, are they? They are, uh, well, you got me on that one. I don't think I've ever heard of that one. Yeah, no. 

Three Floyds Brewing Company. They were, they got really big with their Zombie Dust Pale Ale, and then they have a ton of different IPAs, but Gumball Head was an American wheat. Uh, that one's a little bit more hopped. 

So it's got a little bit of a, you know, a bitterness to the end of it. Where, you know, as I mentioned before, you know, your quintessential, you know, originator, now we're talking early nineties here, right? So first breweries are opening in the eighties because now it's legal to brew. And these are people that were home brewing or, you know, as you brought up with, uh, Mr. Bell, he's got a home brew shop, you know, raising some capital next thing you know, it's like, oh, I'm going to make a brewery now. 

And you've got a name for yourself in the industry and you have the ability to serve your beer to other people and in a legal capacity now, well, those would start to grow and it's like, all right, as tastes change, or can I, um, see how the landscape of craft beer is, is altering and how do I help alter that as, you know, one of the forefathers. And then you got a bunch of people that start opening up. So there's this craft beer boom in the early nineties and beer's just becoming abundant. 

Um, but the problem with that is, you know, now bad beer is also becoming abundant and there are definitely great breweries that were opening up, but then there were a lot of not so good breweries. So by the two thousands, you saw some breweries kind of start closing down, going through a little bit of a consolidation and you would have, uh, the, the true quality controlled beers out there. I mean, we're talking Bell's Brewery, Founders out of Michigan, go to the West Coast, the Anchor, the Sierra Nevadas, the Lagunitas, the Stone on the East Coast, the Brooklyn Brewery, uh, you know, all over the country, you've got different breweries that not only are standing the test of time, cause they are making good beer, but then a lot of breweries went out of business. 

So now they're picking up some cheap equipment, they're doing this and they can make a few extra beers now, or they can kind of expand because now they're like, okay, people didn't stop liking beer. They just had a little bit too much options. And, um, you know, people vote with their dollars and some places had to shut down. 

And, you know, we're seeing a little bit of that here right now in America. There's, it's the first time I think in the last few years where there's more breweries closing than opening. Yeah, it's the, the industry has, it's, it's been a discussion within the podcast. 

And then a lot of people that we talked to on the outside is where this is all stemming from, cause we knew that the industry was falling flat in 23. We knew it was going to affect Western New York, uh, even out to Rochester. We've seen some impact and now we're seeing some impact as Syracuse and Albany way too, uh, with, uh, it's just kind of a ripple effect and it's, we keep bringing up the term niche breweries where, where if you're, you know, if you're the only one that's, um, around and you make good product, people are going to come because you're going to have a regular flow customers cause you're bringing a welcoming atmosphere. 

Uh, I think what we're seeing now is I think people getting a little big for their riches. Um, unfortunately I think that people think that they're challenging somebody bigger and they found that they find they just don't have the stuff when it comes to that. So they survive a few years and then they, unfortunately they have to, they have to hang the keys on the hook and that's it. 

And you know, people, people are going to go to a new brewery cause that's still a fun thing to do. It's like, let me check this out. Haven't been there. 

I want to check it off the list. And if you're not making, and it's not even not making great beer anymore because you can make great beers. It's just, there's so much great beer out there. 

It's like, what else do you offer? If you don't have, you know, full on restaurant or you're not offering something else, um, you know, an amazing beer garden or activities for the whole family or, you know, what name you, there's going to be places that are closer to you that you're probably going to go to because they've got good beer as well. And then when you're out in the area, you might stop by again, but they're not as much destinations outside of that first visit or so, and when they first open up and even, even then, you know, it, it all depends on what's going on in the economy and, uh, the social climate for everything. So, you know, definitely some, uh, challenges, but history repeats itself. 

So we, we had this boom in the early nineties. Then we had a consolidation going into the early aughts, things closing up this, that, the other. And then, you know, the next few beers we talk about, we'll, you know, we'll get into how there's a boom that starts again in like early 2010, 12, and then craft beers up 20% in 2015. 

And that's the boom we've been writing until okay. 2020 and 20, you know, the pandemic actually helped beer. I mean, you needed, you needed some beverages and it really helped with distribution because a lot of places were shutting down their tap rooms for the time being. 

So it definitely helped with sales. Um, but then by the time, you know, things opened up and more breweries opened up and you had all this rapid growth, 2023, you start seeing a decline. And, you know, we're, I think we're just going through some consolidation. 

The tried and true places are going to stick around and you kind of need this a little bit. You know, it's kind of, um, you know, the ability for those that are doing, you know, good beer practice as well as good business practice, it's their time to shine and, you know, it's the time for other people to decide whether or not to keep going forward. One thing we can, you know, be rest assured of is that Bells is not going anywhere with her and they're not going anywhere with their Oberon. 

So again, let's, you know, we're always barely getting started and we go on these awesome tangents, but that's part of, uh, uh, what's great about podcasts as well as, you know, this podcast in particular, it's, it's meant to, you know, get your information, but it's, uh, entertainment at the, at the very base. And again, we are now trans, uh, you know, transitioning from pure malt hops, water, yeast flavored beer with barley being the showcase hops being the balancing act and suppressed yeast notes to, Hey, let's make a little bit more acidic, tart, refreshing wheat beer. It's definitely going to be a little cloudier and it typically is a little bit more carbonated, but a really good refreshing beer that has more flavor, but is not going to scare away somebody that has been drinking light, uh, flavored beers for a while. 

So Oberon, take a look. Uh, it is, you know, a lot of wheat beers are pretty hazy. You know, your Hefeweizens and Wit beers are always hazy beers. 

So I look at this beer, it's actually, you know, more clear than the Cremal we had previously. Um, and it's definitely lighter than the Cremal. I mean, we're still in the realm of gold. 

Um, and this is, uh, you know, and it obviously comes off as a little lighter gold cause it's more, it's less opaque. You definitely can see through it a little bit better, but it's not a deep gold. It's nowhere near Amber. 

Um, it's not light enough to call it straw, but I would say this is, you know, yellow bordering gold, if not a light gold versus the last one was kind of just gold, definitely past yellow, not near Amber or dark gold, but the other one was gold. And to me, this is light gold. Um, if we're talking SRM there, you know, and a little opaqueness, you know, better than the Cremal from last episode. 

Yes. Yeah. So again, nice little head retention. 

Let's take a few sniffs, a couple of swirls and a couple of sips. Yeah. I grew up, uh, in the country and I worked on farms during haying season and it's giving me a little, uh, give me a little throwback to haying season. 

Just a little, a little, a little grassy, a little, a little bit. And you know, not a lot of, uh, aromatics coming from any yeast notes. Um, nothing too fruity, but I mean, you do get kind of that like hay like, and you know, it's, it's a majority wheat based and, you know, all grains are different types of grass and that, that wheat base, um, is going to, you know, that acidic nature of that wheat is going to provide a little citrus, but yeah, nothing, nothing too major. 

I mean, not that sweet has an aroma, but it, it, it has kind of this, I think maybe it's a little bit of that citrus coming through. Um, you smell that and kind of like we were talking about that cream ale where when you have a little bit of sweetness and you smell something a little fruity, it kind of just, you know, turned into something in your mind and in your brain. So I have yet to sip it, but my thought is I'm going to have a nice tart, a slightly citrusy wheat beer here. 

Yeah. That's a, that's a good wheat ale right there. Yeah. 

I mean, you know, if you were drinking this, it's like, okay, it's not a lager because there's more going on, but there's not a lot more going on. It's a basic, easy drinking beer. It does have a little bit more of refreshing quality and now we're splitting hairs, you know, and that, and that's what you do when you have very light golden beer with, you know, not many additional adjuncts or, you know, things added to it out of the core four ingredients. 

You know, in this one, it's not barley. It's, you know, there's some barley in there, but it's going to be mainly wheat. The difference of refreshing versus like a thirst quenching. 

So there's like a thirst quench of a beer and then there's refreshing, you know, all beer should be refreshing. You don't really want to drink a beer. I mean, you start getting into some of those heavy stouts and sours. 

It's not something that's like, oh, I just ran a race. I would love to drink this, this heavy stout or this, uh, blueberry marshmallow beer, um, this is meant for a refreshing, like summer vibe, whereas the refreshment I get from a lager is more of a thirst quenching and kind of takes you back to almost like Saison's and, and, uh, Beard of Guards and stuff that were the farmhouse sales in Belgium and in the France region where it was made for refreshing the farm So like they would use, if they had wheat or they had rye or spelt, they would use that because that's what they had, you know, you use your indigenous ingredients. So in this case with the wheat, um, you know, you get that little hay-like aroma, but it's, it's refreshing in that, all right, I feel like, you know, I'm not drinking Gatorade here, but if it was a hot day or, um, you know, I just got done working on a project, whether it be cutting the lawn, this, that, the other, this is one of those beers that really kind of is like, all right, okay. 

You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm no longer perched. I've been refreshed, you know, my thirst is quenched, you know, and a light lager Pilsner was going to quench your thirst, um, because it's not going to be too residual, but it, it doesn't have to me as much of a refreshing aspect. And I think that a lot of that comes with the slight acidity, that tartness, kind of like how lemonade is refreshing on a hot day, um, stuff like German Gose's and Berliner Weisse's, you know, those are just true sour beers that have, I mean, even Gose with that little bit of sea salt in there, it's just kind of this refreshing take on a light beer. 

One which I keep coming back and having more sips of, I mean, Oberon, I've had it on draft at least once. I don't know if I had a, it's one of those where, all right, you know, I'm just going to stick with this beer. You know, sometimes you go to a place and you're trying a bunch of different five ounce pours, or you try a 10 ounce, or even if you get a full pint and then you try something else, me, I'm always like, all right, let me get a lager, maybe an IPA now, if I'm feeling like it, I might stop in sour territory or if they've got something really good, but then usually I go to something a little darker, maltier, and I call it a day, you know, two, three beers, if I'm staying there for a while, or if I'm doing flights or smaller pours, I might try four different, this is one where you'd be like, you know what, give me another, you know, I'm just, I just want another one of these. 

It's that refreshing take where, it kind of just scratches all the itches and checks all the boxes. And this is exactly what craft brewers wanted to do when they were saying, okay, we want to give you something to kind of transition you into, you know, segue into our next episode of like an Amber Ale. So this does not have a huge malt profile. 

Let's talk a little bit about that wheat profile because, you know, you think about barley, barley to me is a little bit more bread and bread crust, and it's malty in the sense that it tastes more baked, where flour almost has more of a doughy kind of flavor. It's, it's not like raw flour, but it's a little bit like, all right, if you tried bread dough, that's the softness and light flavor you get from like the base malt of wheat beer, you know, tied in, you know, with the low hopping rate on this one, I was talking about that gumball heads a little bit hoppier. And to me, it's like the hoppiness, the bitterness does refresh as well, but kind of in a different sense where this one's just such an easy drinker, but a lot of flavor that, you know, I, I welcome that slight tartness because it's such a easy, like kind of blank canvas of a malt, you know, you just have this very, very light flavor, nothing too caramelly or caramelized or rich to it. 

But this, you know, kind of, you know, the next step here would be, all right, how do we take this and then, you know, add a little bit more malt flavor maybe, and get people more into the amber category, you know, cause you don't want to go from here and be like, okay, try a stout. It's like, whoa, all right. I was, I was drinking my apple juice and you just gave me black coffee, you know, or here we are, you know, we're drinking kind of like an orange juice and, you know, I don't want to start from here. 

And I finally get in this and someone gives me like a West Coast IPA that's just going to pucker me up with bitterness. And now I'm like scarred. I'm like, all right, just give me my Miller Lite. 

Give me my Coors Light. I'm going back. Um, so yeah, this good gateway, good transition beer. 

To me, I, you know, I was asked, I was in a couple of articles. Um, we don't see enough wheat beers. I feel like people think it's only summertime, but I think every draffler should have something kind of like a wheat beer and that could be your Whitbeer, your Hefeweizen, but it's one of those that light without being too malty and that appeals to a lot of people I've found here at Magic Bear. 

My reading, I find that wheat ale gets commonly compared to as like the, I don't know, like a cousin to the Hefeweizen just without all of the, you know, the banana flavor from the, uh, from the yeast profile and then the cloves that's all missing out of there. Um, one of the things I did read about, uh, Oberon as well is that they use a signature house yeast for this particular beer and what would that mean to you? Signature house yeast. Is it, uh, like a specific strain that they, well, what you could do is, you know, and I, I don't know specifics. 

I'm kind of just talking broad here. Well, I mean, specific to Bells and then Oberon. So house yeast, we talked, you go to the Belgian and the sour power and we talked lambics, I mean, there's yeast in the air all the time. 

Okay. There's yeast on every wall in this room and on our shirt, just, you know, in different levels of concentration. It's not as gross as it sounds pretty. 

No, I mean, and what does he said? It's micro, uh, biological level. I mean, I don't think that's the right word, but, um, it's a fungus. Okay. 

And it's a whole kingdom of its own. So how she used is, you know, they probably got a yeast from somewhere. Cause I don't think they were doing wild fermentation or open air fermentation definitely would have a different yeast profile. 

But you can do, it's called top cropping or you can re utilize the yeast that your beer's making. And if you really like a beer and it's got this healthy yeast production, you know, a lot of times, um, I think the Germans call it crowsoning where you take some of the still active yeast and that's kind of like what kickstarts your next batch. Um, a lot of people don't seem to know that they just think you just make beer. 

I mean, it's people, you know, in my opinion, not in my opinion, in my past, like before I really went down the road of beer, I mean, we all think of things that are just made in the laboratory, right? It's like Kool-Aid. Okay. You got this packet, you add this sugar, you stir it up and now you've got something. 

Um, but you know, beer is an art. It's an artisan product because you can really, you know, mess it up. And you know, when you are doing a product very well, and you're just like, wow, this beer is coming out really good. 

And the yeast is very viable, meaning that, you know, it's could be used to make more of this beer. It's like, let's keep using this yeast. And the next thing you know, that's when you can get to a laboratory microscopic level and it's like, let's isolate our yeast strain. 

And then there's, you know, there's companies that will hold your yeast for you and propagate it. And that's like, you know, just keeping it growing and everything. So some places can, you know, have enough money. 

I've gotten big enough to do that right on site. Some people are keeping their yeast strain because, you know, yeast is, uh, forever mutating, adapting, whatever you want to call it, but it's changing. It's a changing organism. 

And as it continues to be brewed in a certain atmosphere, I mean, that's one of the reasons sourdough bread, you know, people that I have a really good friend. That's a baker. And she's talked to me about sourdough. 

We had opened a bakery together in my last career. And, you know, people are like, ah, you know, here, I'm going to bring you a loaf of bread from San Francisco. And it's like, that's great. 

But the, the sourdough is an active starter. It's called to help start the fermentation of your bread. And it's a kind of a fermented bread. 

And that yeast has characteristics of the territory it's from. And if you take yeast or a starter from San Francisco, that yeast will mutate to adapt and survive in its current atmosphere of Buffalo or Western New York, and it will no longer taste like the bread you were getting at the brewery or sorry, at the bakery in San Francisco. So that's the same that goes for beer. 

You can take a yeast. And if you don't like start over fresh or use that yeast, you know, you can only reuse the yeast so much before it kind of changes again. And the beer doesn't taste as consistent as you want it to be. 

And with craft breweries, one of the nice things is a little inconsistency. You don't want huge shifts from, man, it doesn't taste anything, but that's why there's vintages in beer and wine because one year from another, they might be slightly different, but you know what to expect. It usually has to do with the weather we find out. 

Yeah. And in this case, when you've got it dialed in and now you're using your own house yeast and you know what type of grain bill that you want and what percentages, and then, you know, we've are to the point with our water, you know, we talked about Pilsner coming from Pilsen because of the soft water and you know, that kind of dictating what you can brew, but we can strip water down through reverse osmosis and add whatever minerals we want to add back to it. So you could brew a beer, having the water content and profile of any water in the world, as long as you know, what's in that water, you can kind of recreate that so you can replicate that. 

And then the yeast, you can recreate it, but you are buying that yeast from somewhere, and if you continue to use that yeast, it will change and no longer be exactly what you originally intended. So when people use how she's house character, it's like, Hey.