Lessons Learned

Randy Mosher knew that BJ Pichman made good beer before he asked him whether he was interested in making early test batches of Forbidden Root. “He did a great job, and as we developed the project, he decided he wanted to play a bigger role, and that eventually turned into the head brewer role,” Mosher says.

Asked to pick three vital lessons he’s learned, Pichman needed only as long as it took to pour a glass of beer to choose: » “What I lacked going in was language. It’s still an ongoing lesson, getting the language to describe what I am tasting and smelling. And that is huge.” » “The art of prototype bench tasting. My way of doing that was a six-week process.” » “Using ingredients in concert with each other.” He also talked about the importance of understanding the target (or destination). “You have to be careful. If you say it [list an ingredient], people expect to taste it,” Mosher says. He doesn’t expect consumers to pick out honeybush— which is imported from South Africa, where it is used primarily in tea—in Sublime Ginger, “but you miss it when it isn’t there.”