Skip to main content

The Allagash Pilot System

innovation fueled by our entire brewery staff

PILOT BEERS AT ALLAGASH

EVERY IDEA COUNTS

When it comes to innovating new beer, we rely on every single person that works at Allagash. Doesn’t matter if they’ve been at the company for ten days or ten years. That’s how our pilot system works: anyone at our brewery with an idea can propose the next big Allagash beer.

Savvy readers will see that we said “propose” an idea. Not every beer idea gets brewed, it’s true. But quite a few do. In fact, a majority of the new beers coming out of our brewery start on our pilot system. Each year, our staff get the chance to sample and rate around 100 pilot beers—so there’s no lack of new ideas flowing here at Allagash. Below, we’ll take you through the pilot system process from idea to releasing a branded beer out to the world!

”“Instead of getting ideas from our seventeen brewers, we’re actually able to draw from all 130 people who work at Allagash."

Jason PerkinsOur Brewmaster

THE ALLAGASH PILOT BEER PROCESS

To show how it works, we’ll follow one particularly successful beer from start to finish. The beer is a dark ale that combines notes of roastiness with some hints of coffee and chocolate, coming from the malt in the beer.

First, this employee would have submitted their idea. We have an internal form where employees lay out the broad strokes of what they want their beer to be. For this employee, the broad idea was that their beer would combine some of the drinkability of our brewery-only House Beer with a particular dark Irish beer from this employee’s country of origin.

Our Pilot Team received that submission and gave it a look. The Pilot Team itself is made up of a group of knowledgable employees from across our brewery—some who work in our lab, some who work on our canning and bottling lines, some who work in our tasting room, and some who brew our beer. The team meets once weekly to talk about newly submitted beer ideas. And during that meeting, this employee’s dark beer sounded like something they also would love to drink, so they assigned the person a brewer to work with.

Our employee then met up with that brewer to work out ingredients and the nitty gritty of her beer. What ABV should it be? How much carbonation? What sort of mouth feel and aroma? What grain bill and yeast, exactly? How would they get just the right balance of roasted malt with hops?

TIME TO BREW

Once they worked out all of the details, the final recipe went back in front of the whole pilot team for final sign-off. After they got the thumbs up, they scheduled the brew day. On that brew day, Mariah got to take the time off to brew her beer with her brewer mentor. She brewed it on our ten-gallon pilot system, which we had custom-designed to scale up to our larger brewing system.

The head of Allagash HR Celine joins Patrick, one of our head brewers, for a pilot brew.
A member of the marketing team adds yeast to his pilot beer idea.
Two members of the Allagash team brew a pilot beer: a smoked saison.

RATE, ENJOY, RELEASE!

After the employee’s beer was brewed and fermented, it then went on tap for our employees to sample. Whenever a new pilot beer goes on tap, employees are encouraged to taste and rate them. On top of more detailed ratings (aroma, mouthfeel, flavor, etc.), the ultimate test tends to be word of mouth around the brewery. Something along the lines of “did you taste that dark pilot beer yet?”

This employee’s beer was one of the very good ones. Luckily for us, our internal enthusiasm for her beer translated into enthusiasm from Allagash fans. We released a batch in our tasting room, and the year after released the beer to our full distribution footprint.

And that original idea is now known as Haunted House, part of our seasonal House Series of beers.

Joining Haunted House are two other pilot beer graduates. Surf House is a dry-hopped lager suggested by one of our brewers, and Ski House is a festive, Belgian-style white beer brewed with fresh ginger, also suggested by a member of our brewing team. You can find out more info about each of these beers through the links below!