After three years of working at Highland Brewing Company, Hannah Motter has developed a unique relationship with their brews.

“I started working in Highland’s packaging department part time for something to do at the beginning of Covid,” Motter said. “I slowly built up to more and more hours, then moved into the Lab Assistant position, and when the opportunity for Quality Control Technician became available, I moved into this job.”

Motter said that she starts her days early, around 5:00 or 6:00 AM, collecting the data that will influence the day’s tasks for other departments. She said brewers need data from the lab in order to make appropriate adjustments to fermentation tanks, and to know when  the right time is for certain beers to be dry-hopped or have fruit added. 

By checking each fermentation tank daily, Motter said she is making sure that the yeast is doing its job and that the beers are processing in just the right way. She said there is a data analysis aspect of her job as well as a sensory aspect, and each side is unique and equally important.

The data comes from a machine that is calibrated each morning, and provides information determining each brew’s ABV (alcohol by volume), original gravity, density, calories, amount of sugar, and other details. According to Motter, the data collected affects so many different parts of each beer’s journey, and she is with each beer every step of the way.

“There is an app called DraughtLab where we have specific descriptions built for each beer at each stage,” Motter said. “We have taste panels daily, and the day’s selection depends on the order of what is currently fermenting and what needs to go out. Tasters are trained to pick up certain characteristics of our beers including look, taste, and mouth feel. There is a quiz for each brew, and with this app, we are able to make sure that the characteristics match each one appropriately.”

Tastings for beer are similar to tastings for wine, according to Motter. She said that tasters typically begin with lighter beers and move to darker, more full-bodied beers, and there is usually a maximum of six types per panel. 

“After about six, you get palate fatigue,” Motter said. “Salt-free crackers, though hard to find, can help cleanse the palate between tastes, and strange as it may sound, smelling your own skin can reset how your nose picks up scent.”

After working in the lab for over two years, Motter said her personal relationship with the journey of each brew has grown so that she is now able to tell by the smell and the color what each beer is. She said she has gotten used to each of them, and learning new brews and seasonal varieties keeps her on her toes.

Every batch, small or large, gets tested in the same way at the same stages of brewing. Data from machines and the sensory panels gets input into spreadsheets with built-in graphs to ensure consistency. 

“We’ve got to make sure we are always putting out good beer,” Motter said.

“I like collecting all the data and finding answers to all the questions,” Motter said. “I also enjoy working in the lab by myself and listening to music while I work. My favorite task is forced fermentation, a process involving adding extra yeast to a sample of beer that allows the yeast to eat the sugar rapidly. The data resulting from this process allows us to be aware of predictive factors that tell us quickly if adjustments need to be made in the larger tanks. Plus that yeast has a texture kind of like play doh, which is pretty fun.”

While Motter said drinking beer is fun too, it can be a challenge for her to drink beer every day. “It can get to be a lot of beer,” she said. “I really only have two to three sips of each sample, though, so it’s enough to get the necessary data without clouding my data for all of the samples.”

Motter said she can see herself sticking with this position and with Highland for a long time. “As the company gets busier, there are more opportunities to grow and diversify,” she said. “There are always new ideas that can influence all departments and bring up the company as a whole.

Hannah Motter is the Quality Control Technician at Highland Brewing Company. Learn more at HighlandBrewing.com.