peter boettcher, brewmaster at pacific western brewing

thanks to justin who kept the province for me because it had this article in it:

Just as the German footballers shone at last month’s World Cup, so did Pacific Western’s German brewmaster at the recent Canada Cup of Beer with his new hefeweizen.

If there’s anything those conservative Germans get worked up about, it’s soccer and beer. But Peter Boettcher’s enthusiasm for his work is insanely infectious.

At the Cup of Beer, held out at the University of B.C. last month, Boettcher was excitedly engaging beer-lovers with his knowledge of the brewniverse, doling out samples of Pacific’s organic Natureland brews left, right and centre, and demonstrating the perfect hefeweizen pour.

“I like good beer,” Boettcher says when I catch him during a rare break at the festival. “I just think . . . Life is too short to drink cheap beer. If I have a bad beer in my glass, I'm not a happy person.

“Beer is a wonderful world,” he adds. “Once you get to know beer and not just your regular mainstream brand. Beer is a world to discover sometimes.

“When I go to a beer store, I'm like a kid in a candy store.” He starts pointing at imaginary items. “There is the good chocolate, there is the marzipan, there are the gummi bears, what am I going to get today?
“That's what I think about beer, I appreciate beer and the entire beauty that beer has to offer.”

Boettcher brought his 25-plus years of brewing experience to Pacific Western earlier this year and has already stamped his mark on the Prince George brewery with his Natureland organic hefeweizen.

Unsurprisingly, it’s a very German-tasting beer, one that fully illustrates his lifelong love affair with his country’s national drink -- from his “fascination” with the huge tanks and kettles at the breweries close to where he grew up, through the inspiration and guidance from his brewer uncle and his apprenticeship at the Ganter brewery in Freiburg, south-west Germany.

The key lesson Boettcher has learned over the years is one of those stereotypes we associate with the Germans: Perfectionism. Turns out, this is why their beer is so good.

“To make a really good beer, the process has to be perfect from beginning to end,” says Boettcher. “You have to keep a close eye on the process and make sure it runs like a Swiss clock. Then you have a consistent product, and quality.

“I'm all about quality, consistency, professionalism. I don't like sloppy, crappy work because that means a bad product. You have to be alert every day.

“There’s not one single day that I do not spend time at the brewery. I talk to the guys, have my hands in the malt . . . I sample beer every day. So I'm very involved in the process.”

Pacific Western hopes Boettcher’s perfectionism can take B.C.’s largest independent Canadian-owned brewery to new heights, following a 53-year-history of achievements that include B.C.’s first canned beer (1965), Canada’s first certified organic lager (1997), and a gold medal in the Brewing Industry International Awards for the Natureland organic amber ale in 2005.

The brewery now produces almost 20 kinds of beer including the popular Pacific pilsner, Canterbury lager and Cariboo draft and honey lager. But Boettcher believes they can do more.

“I would like to see our brewery playing a bigger role than what we are," he says. "We have great potential, we already have success as is but we have more to offer and we can expand on what we have.

“Again, quality is number one, consistency, and we want to show the wonderful world of beer, what it can be. Bring it to the people.”

A dedication to responsibility shines through Boettcher’s enthusiasm. Not just in delivering a consistent, quality product, but also to the environment and the community. It throws up yet another German stereotype -- that of the sandal-wearing eco-warrior -- but, as it turns out, this commitment was in place at Pacific Western long before Boettcher joined.

This is due in no small part to the brewery’s owner, Kazuko Komatsu, a Japanese entrepreneur who introduced stringent quality control when she took over in 1991, and also started looking into ways to giving back to the community.

This has been illustrated most recently in the brewery’s vow to plant 150,000 trees in the region to help replace those lost to pine beetle infestation and fire, along with funding water clean-up projects across the province.

“As a regional brewery, we take the region serious,” says Boettcher. “If you are a small regional brewery like we are, we take care, we are concerned about what happens in our neighbourhood, in our woods. This is personal to us. . . . We want to pass on to our next generation a clean environment.

“You can’t just simply produce, you must also have responsibility,” he adds. “You can’t just simply dump your crap and byproducts. You have to be responsible when you produce.”

And staying up-to-date with ecological trends is important to that end, Boettcher adds.

“In 10, 20 years maybe now there will be different standards. In Germany they’re working on aright now. They’re not there yet but they think they can do it. And maybe someday that’s a reality. And then that’s also a goal for us to go in that direction.

“Right now, we do what we can to eliminate waste water. We are very careful with our resources, we are trying to be efficient.

“[The pine-beetle infestation] is a natural disaster that happens, and it’s just trying to not turn your back on it, not turn a blind eye: 'We’re here, we’re with you, we’ll do what we can.' We’ve always done that and we’ll continue to do that.

“That’s the benefit of being a regional player. You’re not just somebody, you are in the region. We are part of that area, we take responsibility and we do what we can.”

It means that Pacific Western can push its expansion while keeping a moral high ground and reputation for quality over Canada’s largest brewing concerns.

The corporation-dominated Canadian beer industry is in itself a weird concept to anyone from Germany, where hundreds of local brewers share the market. (Boettcher actually laments the current state of the brewing industry in Germany, where he feels there is too much focus on pilsner. The end result is that every brewer’s beer starts to taste the same. If German brewmasters were to start revisiting other traditional styles that have been taken up by craft brewers in North America -- Alt, Doppelbock, Koelsch, for example -- then watch out world. Because when it comes to beer, says Boettcher, “nobody beats the Germans.”)

And while it’s a stretch to say Pacific Western could challenge these brewing combines -- yet -- Boettcher thinks success lies in offering the consumer different options.

“When I see the big conglomerates, you have, say, Molson and Labatt, those two own an insane a mount of market share,” Boettcher says. “That’s what’s wrong, it shouldn’t be like that. I’d rather see 10 mini-Molsons, ten mini-Labatts than just two.

“That’s why we have to fight the good fight and make sure we do what we do. We want to make good beer. Not just one or two, but the world of beer. Then the consumer has a choice.
Then the consumer is like a kid in the candy store.”

But why go straight to dessert and skip the entrée?

“The consumer knows what he wants, he has his [favourite] beer, I have my [favourite] beer too.

“But you don’t always feel like filet mignon. Sometimes you want to have prime rib, sometimes you want to have some chicken wings. But you want to have it good. You don’t want to have the McDonalds crap, you want to have the real deal.

“And to me that’s what life is all about, and this to me is what beer is all about. It’s all about quality of life. When you have something in your glass that’s well-made and true and authentic and high-quality, life becomes better.”

For more information on Pacific Western Brewing, go to www.pwbrewing.net

jzeschky@theprovince.com
twitter.com/jantweats