A while back I mentioned that my time as a post-doctoral fellow in Dr. Stephen Goff’s laboratory would be coming to a close at the end of this year and I’ll be looking for my next career move. I’m super-excited to report that I will be taking a position as a senior scientist doing vaccine development for a large pharmaceutical company, Merck. The job, and Merck as a company, is exactly what I was hoping to land. The position involves figuring out the most efficient method to make parts of vaccines (antigens) using human cell lines. Not only will I be working with amazingly talented scientists, but I will have the chance to make an impact on preventing the spread of infectious diseases.
It is important to note that I also considered a career in the brewing industry. Unfortunately, I was unable to marry my love of science and brewing to sustain my family. Getting into the brewing industry is incredibly difficult and would involve an extreme cut in pay, long hours, and possibly losing the passion I have for my hobby. To me, it seemed there were so many reasons against “going pro”. However, I’m not ruling out the possibility. Depending on how my career is going, producing rare artisanal beers commercially on a small-scale is very attractive to me. One scenario involves working in a small space near my home to supplement my income (many years from now).
My start date is October 1st and I will be moving my family to the Lansdale or Doylestown area of Pennsylvania (Merck is located in West Point, PA). Between closing out my experiments at Columbia and house hunting, I will post a few more times before a longer than usual hiatus to get acclimated to our new lives. This includes:
- Fermentation Temperature Experiment Results. This experiment was to look at beer flavors at two extreme fermentation temperatures for Wyeast 1388 (Duvel strain).
- Petite Spelt Saison tasting. This beer came out great and I’m looking forward to reviewing it.
- Kim’s Berliner Weisse bottling and tasting. I decided to go authentic cork and caged bottle conditioning.
- Post yeast class. I know I’ve said I’ll do this in the past, but I will get to this soon.
Once things settle down with my job, I’ll have to get back into brewing. Any homebrewers reading this blog and live in the Doylestown area? We need to meet up and share some homebrew! Get at me! Some other things to do when I start brewing in Penn:
- Finally start working on some wild/sour beers with two strains of Brettanomyces that I isolated from Cantillon, CB-1 and CB-2. The only thing I have done with these critters is to collaborate with Michael Tonsmeire, an incredible brewer of sour ales who is known as the Mad Fermentationist. I sent him some yeast to bottle condition a belgian ale, along with several other Brettanomyces strains. Read the post on his blog here. With these strains I plan on making quick and slow fermented ales in various combinations.
- Yeast class? I had a lot of fun teaching the yeast class at Brooklyn Homebrew, that I’m up for doing it again if anyone wants to hear it. Local homebrew clubs? Supply stores?
- Maintain a yeast laboratory in my home. Although I’ll be working in the lab on vaccines, I won’t be able to take advantage of equipment in Merck like I have at Columbia. I may consider purchasing a microscope and need to figure out how I’m going to transfer my frozen yeast bank.
- Upgrade. I’m considering the purchase a Blichmann Top Tier and an extra chest freezer as a dedicated temperature controlled fermentation vessel.
- Of course – brew more beer.
Thanks everyone for reading my blog and posting comments in the past. I’m sure there will be more to come in the future!
Cheers,
Jason
Congratulation Jason!..
Dad
Congrats on landing the new Job you wanted. That takes priority. After all, brewing is just a hobby. I too wen on a hiatus for more than a year b/c job and family kept me too busy.
Kai
Thanks! I’m going to try and get back into brewing (and the blog) soon I hope. We will see how everything plays out in the next two months.
J
Glad to hear the good news.
I’ll look forward to the posts whenever you get to them. And enjoy living near Philadelphia, I’ve heard great things about the area (It’s on my short list for a Beer-cation).
congrats on the new job… Going pro brewer would have been sweet, but about the only role for a serious microbiologist would be for a macrobrewer anyway. Keep your options open though – the yogurt industry, especially in upstate NY – keeps growing and growing and maybe the micros will soon be looking to professional scientists to pick up economies of scale.
Is the yeast class available on youtube? There’s a couple good videos on youtube but really a shortage of information from decent sources.
Congrats on the new job. I just discovered your blog and have browsed a few posts – not bad! I work for a biotech company that makes specialty selective media for yeast strains. We are working on improved selective media for Brett, Lacto/Pedio, and a few specialty projects like a WL that kills mold but lets everything else grow. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear about them.
Thanks!
I have more wishes than suggestions…
Its really too bad that there is no good selective media that will 100% isolate Brett from other yeast. In particular, it would be great to find some drug that differentiates between Brett species.
J
Congratulations on the new job. I am from Harleysville, so I know that area well. I live down around Springfield now. I started diving head-first into homebrewing just this summer. I have really enjoyed the science-based information you provide.
Would love to catch a beer sometime and pick your brain on improving my recipes and process. There’s a young brewery right in Lansdale that has been experimenting with some sour beers. I had their Belgian Trippel with Brett that was well balanced. It’s called Round Guys Bewery.
Awesome!
I’ll be in the area in October – we should share some brews!
Best of Luck with the move and the new job! I live in in the Lansdale area…if you have any questions or need any suggestions (living locations, housing, restaurants, LHBS’ (Keystone Homebrew, BTW is great and close to where you will be), homebrew club, etc. feel free to email me. -Jim
This is good to hear – I’ll be sending you an email once we’re set up in the area.
J
Great job! Vaccine awareness is kind of a side-hobby of mine, so I’m glad to see another talented scientist working in this field. In the meantime, I really enjoy reading your blog. I may be borrowing techniques you’ve discussed in my own beers in the near future! Cheers!
I’m a new reader of your blog and I’m happy to hear of your success. I hope you get acclimated soon so that we can enjoy more wonderful homebrewing excellence!
I found your site today while looking for a Brett selective medium. I did my graduate work on RSV (and some HIV) assembly. I was quite familiar with the Goff lab’s work in the early to mid 2000s. I’ve also been following the XMRV saga over the past few years. I work at a biopharma company in the area, and went to grad school with someone in the Merck vaccine department. I’ve got a pretty large yeast bank, shoot me an email and maybe we can exchange some.
Very cool. Yeah, the XMRV saga was quite unfortunate. At least I was able to publish something related to a xenotropic MLV
Who do you know in the vaccine department? That is where I’m working in. Actually, vaccine process development to be more specific.
Would love to exchange yeast strains, but everything is in a -80C freezer in Goff’s lab. At some point I need to have it shipped to me.
J
Tim Culp is his name. I’m not sure exactly which group or subdepartment he’s in.
If you’re looking for a brewclub, email me, and I’ll send you the email of someone I work with who’s in a club in your area.
Just came across your blog, really cool stuff.
I grew up in the Lansdale/Montgomeryville area, really a great place to grow up. Actually my Dad owns an office building right in West Point about a half mile down the road from Pizza Time, Merck is in the back yard of the building and alot of people from Merck rent individual office there.
I live in Philly now, like Jeff said really great beer scene. Our Homebrew club would love to have you teach a yeast class if youre interested. We meet at Barry’s Homebrew Outlet, the club is called Philadelphia Homebrew Club.
Jason, I just started my first brew. to control the temperature, I found a nice spot in an area of my home that is the center most room located in a closet with louvered doors. It is an old wet bar from the 70′s. Really cool. I have questions regarding proper temp.
I thought that I would be able to control the temp that “Mr Beer” directed: 68 – 76 degrees Farenheit. We had a really cold spell here in Oklahoma this week (December 28) and the temp was down to 67 in my wet bar. I started the brew on December 25 and noticed the activity of the yeast (bubbles) settled down a bit by today (Dec 30). I immediately wrapped the Mr Beer keg with a towl to conserve heat. I placed a bigger bulb in the ceiling of the wet bar to keep the heat a little higher.
1) Will this low of a temp adversely affect the brew?
2) I noticed the low temp today (Dec 30) and began the process of stabilizing it. Will this help or is it too late for my first brew?
Please advise: thanks,
Brian
louisblr@yahoo.com
Brian,
Thanks for posting.
I need a bit more information. What type off beer is it and what is the % of alcohol you are targeting? What was the kit?
Let me start off by saying that I’m pretty sure your brew is absolutely fine. If you started the brew on the 25th and it started slowing down on the 30th, that is normal beer activity. Most ales will start to slow in activity around this time. As for the temperature, if your fermentation was at 67F, I think this will be OK too. Keep in mind that the majority of ale yeast can withstand temps to 65F. Also, 76F is a bit high for most ale yeast. Better to target 67F, the temperature of the you are brewing in.
Hope this helps,
J