Brewmaster seeks perfection

PRINCETON-BY-THE-SEA — The acrid smell of fermenting yeast filling the air of Alec Moss' brewery doesn't bother him at all. It means his beer will soon be ready to serve. Moss, brewmaster for the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company's restaurant and bar, is the mad scientist at the center of an overgrown laboratory of gleaming stainless steel and copper tanks, each creating a different, rich concoction.His soft voice, jeans and ponytail suggest a laid-back approach, but Moss, 62, is constantly on alert, checking the tanks' gauges for pressure and temperature settings. He studies them as they blow excess carbon dioxide into buckets of water. Heavy sacks of malt are stacked nearby and empty beer bottles line a shelf below the ceiling.
The Brewery Company relies on Moss, a Pacifica resident, to replicate all the signature beers he created when the restaurant opened in 2002 — from the much-requested Pillar Point Pale Ale to Mavericks Amber, the company's bestseller. Moss' brewery — the only one in San Mateo County — produces just 1,000 barrels a year. But he said he enjoys the vigilance required of him to complete the 14-day process that transforms beer's raw ingredients — malt, hops, yeast and water — into his brew of choice."It's too busy to be meditative. You're thinking about the process, paying attention tothe sights, sounds and aromas. There is a part of the process that requires you to be extremely picky and anal," he said.
"Picky" and "anal" are two good words to describe Moss, who spent two years perfecting his pale ale with different combinations of hops (the flowers of aromatic, green climbing plants that give beer its bitter flavor).The amount of ingredients used can yield thousands of different aroma compounds that determine a beer's sweetness, bitterness and body.
Malts differ by color and taste and are derived from barley, wheat or oats. Chocolate malt, which tastes like coffee beans, is used for stout beers, whereas a pale ale is made with pale malt. Malt is also used to determine alcohol content.When Moss begins a new beer, he adds malt to a tank called a mash ton, where boiling water converts the starch into sugar water. An adjacent kettle brings the mixture to a boil and hops are added in. The mixture is then pumped into a fermenter, with yeast and oxygen introduced along the way.Over six days, the yeast feeds on the oxygen and metabolizes the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
The CO2 and yeast are later removed from the tank. In the final week of beer-making, Moss said a gelatinous material called finings, made from the swim bladders of fish, is added to cleanse and clarify the liquid.

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