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Centro Latin Kitchen chef Ian Clark is now in the brewing business. Clark is opening a nano brewery called BRU, a half-barrel brewing system located in his garage. According to Clark, “Brewing beer is just like baking, like making bread, it requires the same technique, the same passion, maybe just a little more science.” Specific beers haven't been announced, but the beer chef will start offering handbuilt ales beginning in April.
Our beer isn’t just a beer. It’s great beer, and a great beer isn’t just about malt, barley, water, yeast, and hops. A great beer is about the people that make it; it is an expression of who we are. Our craft, our passion, and our love captured in a bottle (or a glass) for you to enjoy. First, it starts with writing the recipes and the thoughtful selection of the ingredients that go in them. Ingredients only a chef would know, because our brewer, or beer chef, as we like to call him, spends his nine to five life (or ten to ten in the restaurant world) in a kitchen, as the Executive Chef of a seriously delicious restaurant called Centro Latin Kitchen.
Beer Chef Ian Clark uses ingredients that aren’t unique for unique sake, but ingredients that bring out the best flavors in our beer. As any great chef knows, great recipes take patience. Our beer has the flavor only time can bring to it because we don’t believe a great beer can be made without allowing carbonation to occur naturally. That’s why we bottle and keg condition all of our beer. We also don’t filter or pasteurize it because after we’ve put in all of that good stuff, why would we take anything out?
And finally, our beer is great because not only does it go beyond the typical beer experience by using the skillful ingredients and the fine-tuned techniques that only a chef would know, our beer also has our values in it; like using wind power and eco-friendly chemicals, as well as composting, recycling, and donating 1% to the planet.
So while we may list all of the ingredients on our label, we’ve left out a few; passion, joy, honesty, creativity, technique, sleepless nights, and a whole lot of love. We hope when you’re in one of the restaurants or liquor stores that carry our beer you’ll buy one, and that this time your tilt, tip, and sip is followed by the bubbling flavor of handbuilt BRU.
· Chef Ian Clark to Open BRU, Handbuilt Ales [Fermentedly Challenged]
Chef Ian Clark [Photo: BRU]