Chris Pasko.

Who Are You (please include a picture):
Chris Pasko

Home Town (City, State):
Salt Lake City, UT

Homebrew Club:
Lauter Day Brewers

I’ve been a homebrewer since:
2013

 Do you have a homebrewing disaster you’d like to share?
(See question re: first beer brewed.)

What is your favorite style(s) to brew?
I tend to brew beers with fresh ingredients like fruit, chilis, or fresh hops.

What style(s) will you never brew?
Lagers. Too hard, and I don’t like them that much.

What was the first beer you ever brewed? How did it turn out?
I brewed an apricot brown ale because I had an apricot tree and I was looking for more things to do with the apricots. I didn’t really know what I was doing and set up my secondary fermentation in my bottling bucket. In the end, the beer wasn’t that bad, except that it had a lot of fruit chunks in it and the bottles were all gushers.

Have you ever had a homebrew mistake that turned out great?
Not yet.

What is your favorite beer recipe?
I don’t tend to repeat beers, except for one. It’s called Horror Cow. It’s a chili milk stout. The chilis go really well with the creaminess of the stout.

Are you a BJCP Judge? If so, what is your rank and how long have you been judging?
Novice. Three years.

Do you have a good beer judging story you’d like to share with the rest of the homebrewing world?
It seems that they save the strongest beers for Sunday morning judging. I’ve ended up drinking tripels and whiskey barrel imperial stouts first thing in the morning.

Do you have a favorite homebrew trick or gadget that you’ve found to make your beer better/brewing easier, etc?
I’ve recently discovered the large hops bag that you can put into your fermenting bucket to strain all the hops out after you pour the cooled wort in. Much easier than the wire mesh filter I was using earlier.

Describe your brew system.
I have a large stainless pot (6 gallons). I use extract kits but rarely follow the recipe as written. A fermenting bucket, a glass carboy, a bottling bucket, and some bottles. I bottle condition everything. No kegs for me yet.

How frequently do you brew
(times/month or /year)? 6-10 batches per year. What is your favorite malt? Why? I don’t have one.

What is your favorite hop? Why?
Citra. I know it’s trendy, but it’s good.

Do you have a favorite or house yeast? What qualities do you like about that yeast?
Most of my beers use Safale US-05. A standard, versatile ale yeast. I’ll also use Belle Saison pretty often. I like Saisons.

Do you have a good homebrew club story you’d like to share?
I’m a scientist, so I like the controlled experiments. My first meeting was earlier this year at Dean’s house where he set up the same beer on 9 different woods. I loved that. Or the same beer on different yeast strains. Wonderful.

What haven’t we asked that you would really like to answer?
Yes, I would like to trade bottles of homebrew with you. Thanks for asking.

If you could serve your homebrew to someone famous, who would it be and what would you give her/him?
Barack Obama. And it would depend on the time of year.

Can you send a picture or two of some labels you’ve created for your homebrew? What’s the most unusual ingredient you’ve ever used in a brew?
Fresh horseradish root. I was hoping for a different kind of spicy beer. All I got was root vegetable. I don’t recommend it.

Do you have any pets or kids named after beer styles or ingredients?
Nope. But I have hops tattooed on my shoulder.

How many medals have you won from homebrew competitions?
Two. Both silver. One for Belgian Pale Ale, one for an Apricot Saison.

Do you brew alone, with friends or with someone you live with?
I brew with my friend Wendy. Here is us winning a medal last year. I also brew by myself.

My 8 year old son likes to help me bottle.

Are you an indoor or outdoor brewer?
Indoor.

List some of the names you’ve given your beers. Which is your favorite?

• Saison’s Greetings (black saison with holiday spices)
• Drye Wit (dry hopped wit with rye)
• HopScotch (a hoppy scotch ale)
• Neighborhood Red (a wet hopped red ale made with hops gathered from around the neighborhood)
• Malagayang Pasko (it means Merry Christmas in Tagalog)