Our Intern Discovered Warm Beer And We're Pretending It's a Feature
An accidental thermostat incident reveals what may be the next great frontier in artisanal brewing.
It started, as all great innovations do, with someone forgetting to plug something in. Our intern Marcus was tasked with one job last Friday: turn on the cold-storage fridge in the testing room. He turned it off.
By Monday morning, 47 carefully selected craft beers had been sitting at a balmy 73°F for three days. Most companies would call this a tragedy. We're calling it BrewSync Hot Lab™, an ongoing research initiative into temperature-resistant flavor profiles.
Findings so far:
IPAs at room temperature taste like grapefruit-flavored regret. This is data.
The stout actually held up okay, which has unsettled the entire team and prompted a heated Slack debate about whether stout is even a beer or whether it's been a sentient pudding all along.
One of the sour beers, after three days of warmth, became so sour it triggered a phase transition into a small lemon. We have not yet decided what to do with the lemon.
Marcus has been promoted to Director of Ambient Fermentation. His first official act was to plug the fridge back in. We're proud of him.