We Love Craft Beer are pleased to welcome a new member to our team. Bill “Swannie” Swancott, aka The Alechemist. I guess the first question most people would be thinking, is WTF is an Alechemist? Well it is a bit of a play on words really with the obvious being an Ale-Chemist and the less obvious being a reference to the term Alchemy. One definition of Alchemy is “any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.”
Well if you have tried any of Swannie’s award wining beers, you will soon realise that he does have the power (not sure if it is magical or not) to transmute (change in form, or nature) the common substances of hops, malt, yeast and water into a substance of great value.
Anyway, that is enough of an English lesson for now, let’s get on with introducing him.
According to Swannie he started his beer journey back in 2010 when he tried his first American style pale ale and was instantly hooked, He says “I found myself reading everything and anything beer related”. Frustrated with the lake of lagers in his local beer scene, he decided to try his hand at brewing his own beer in the styles that he wanted to experience. In a short period of time, he progressed from kit brewing, to extract brewing and then in to all grain brewing.
After mowing to Canberra in 2014 he began working for Zierholz Brewery and joined the Canberra Home Brewing Club. That same year he was also involved in the Australian National Homebrewing Conference 4 and watched good friend and fellow Canberra brewer Kevin Hingston take out the Australian Championship. Kevin went on to set up PACT Brewing and has become an inspiration to many home brewers and had a strong influence on Swannie’s brewing over the last few years.
Swannie, is no slouch himself when it comes to brewing and has won awards for his beers, with medals for his Russian Imperial Stout, Brown Porter, Southern English Brown, Australian Premium Lager, American Pale Ale, American IPA, American Barley Wine, American Brown Ale, Fruit Lambic, Schwarzbeir, Kölsch and many specialty and wood aged beer’s. To his credit he has won a medal for EVERY beer he has entered into a competition which gives him a 100% medal rate, something which he is very proud of and other brewers aspire too.
Recently he has moved away from competition brewing “because of the constraints it places on your creativity” he says. ” I love experimental brewing and have a passion for Sour beer and wild yeasts and anything out of style’. It is in this area that he hopes to start his own commercial enterprise, first as a yeast wrangler and farm then on to creating a 100% Funky/Sour outside the box brewery.
Reflecting on his beer journey to this point is one thing, but Swannie says his journey has evolved again, with the next stage of it being all about education. He now wants to help educate people in the science of beer and brewing, and that is why we are very pleased to have him part of the We Love Craft Beer team. We are also very keen to help educate people about beer, and help them move along their beer journey, no matter what part they are on, from newbies, to nerds and everywhere in between.
So with that in mind, we welcome The Alechemist, presenting serious beer science, in a lighthearted easily understood way. Stay tuned for his regular posts called the Sunday Session where he will review one beer, as well as his blogs on a range of other beer related topics.
We hope you enjoy hearing from Swannie and encourage you to ask questions and make comments on any of the posts.