Brad Bergman: Background of a brewing chemist

PETOSKEY — To stand out, breweries are bringing in the big leagues to push their flavors over the competition.

Locally, Petoskey Brewing’s head brewer, Brad Bergman, is a “mad” scientist both in the brew house and in real life.

Bergman attended college at Appalachian State University in North Carolina earning his bachelors of science degree in chemistry. During his education, a professor gained Bergman’s attention and friendship over they’re combined fondness for craft beers.

“He (the professor) was a really interesting guy, we hit it off really well and he influenced me into getting into brewing,” Bergman said. “It was a great practical application of some of the things I was learning in chemistry.”

Bergman and his professor began to tinker with their home brews and experiment with technical skills and flavor complexity. He began to use some of the technical detailed science he had gone to school for and get hands on experience.

Bergman began to home brew on his own and started a career in the food industry shortly after graduating college.

“I desperately tried to get into brewing in Asheville, North Carolina, where I lived at the time, but competition was fierce for people and I didn’t have the experience,” Bergman said. “I continued to home brew on the side, I took online courses through the Siebel Institute in Chicago, and I did all the reading and studying on my own I possibly could.”

After working in the food manufacturing industry, Bergman landed a job with Sam Adams in Cincinnati.

“I started off making cider and eventually moved on to a supervisor role, managing the brewery,” Bergman said.

He continued his education taking online courses with the Siebel Institute.

I grew kind of tired of the large scale, I wanted something more small scale, more local, more based on a community and I happened to stumble on the opening for head brewer at Petoskey Brewing,” Bergman said.

Using his background in chemistry, Bergman is thriving at the company. He attributes his success to some of the processes he learned with his science background.

“It’s more so, not just the technical knowledge of chemical reactions. It’s more the mind state of being a chemist,” Bergman said. “It’s about being really analytical and thorough, and detail-oriented, wanting to improve every part of the process and taking meticulous notes and trying to make sure what you’re doing is the same every time with the same attention to detail.”

The brewery process itself is complicated enough as competitors seek out new flavors and styles to push their brews to the top. Bergman’s background in science and work at a large-scale brewery helps give Petoskey a leg up on competition as he can better comprehend and visualize the reactions that are taking place in the fermenting tanks and in the lab.

“Having the lab background has helped set up our own lab here, and then working at a larger brewery that has a very large sophisticated lab, I got the experience in learning what the crucial tests were to run and how to do them in a cost-effective manner,” Bergman said. “It helps with being able to add flavors and try things on a small scale. It helps to have that lab experience and working with small quantities of flavors and additions.”

The brewery process itself far exceeds the final product. Bergman’s background also helps in keeping the facility running smoothly by keeping up on the science behind janitorial work and clean tanks.

Bergman and the rest of the Petoskey Brewing staff are working to produce quality brews for the people of Northern Michigan.

“ It’s been really fun helping spread beer knowledge to this area, being up here and being more isolated from Grand Rapids and Detroit, more popular beer cities, the knowledge when I first came here wasn’t as high as those areas,” Bergman said. “It’s been really fun working with locals and having them in the tap room and expanding their knowledge base of craft beer and seeing their excitement when we have new beers on that they haven’t tried, thats been really fun.”

Bergman has enjoyed the rewarding experience of becoming more a part of a community and uses that when brewing some of the local favorites.

“The new Juicy IPA, our New England-style IPA, has been a lot of fun, we’ve incorporated a lot of new process and new hops and its been fun trying to make that beer the best that it can be while working with new ingredients,” Bergman said.

Some of his favorites to brew, however are the kettle sour beers, because of their more extensive process.

“We use a little different process with a little more risk and it could turn out to be a failed product, but we’ve finally tuned that and honed that through a lot of research and a lot of practice. It’s a really fun process to see unfold doing the sour beers we’ve done in the past,” Bergman said.

The brewery keeps things local by working with local vendors to produce beer and dinner pairings in the fall and winter months.