Welcome to Mudshark Brewing Company
in Lake Havasu City, Arizona

Our beers are different -- not just because they're handcrafted, but because they're made from the finest ingredients in the most traditional way, by people who really care about good food and good beer.

Our Brewmaster, Justin West, not only has a wealth of brewing experience, but he's always experimenting with new recipes that are based on the old traditional beer styles.

Freshness is what makes a great beer delicious.

Our beers are made in the kettles you see in the bar area. We serve our lagers and ales at their peak of freshness.

All of our beer is made with only the four basic ingredients allowed under the German Beer Purity Law of 1516 (known by its German name, Reinheitsgebot).

Beer is the perfect combination of pure water, malted grain (either barley or wheat), hops, and yeast.

It all starts here...

The Barley Field is harvested. Mudshark uses a variety of grains for it's brews, mostly varieties of Barley, but also Wheat, Rice, and Oats.

Our grain is then floor malted. Malting is the process of germinating (sprouting) the grain seed. Grain is hydrated to 35%-45% moisture content and kept at 50°-70° and turned.

The type and quantity of Grain, Hops, & other ingredients used in a batch of beer determines the style of the beer. The style of the beer is dictated by the Color and Flavor Profile the beer exhibits after brewing.

Malt and Water The brewing process begins with the milling of the malt. The different malts are weighed, blended, and fed through a mill where the grains are cracked. The cracked grains are fed through an auger (a pipe with a corkscrew) to the Mash tun (another name for tank) which is filled with hot water. This process, known as "mashing," is much like the making of tea. The grain steeps in the hot water, creating a sweet liquid called "wort." • The utmost attention is paid to cleanliness of all equipment, and during every process insuring the highest quality of beer!

The total amount of grain varies for each style of beer. UpRiver Lager uses 700 lbs., while Scorpion Amber Ale uses 1200 lbs.

The sweetness comes from the enzymes, which occur naturally in the grain, converting the starches and complex sugars to simpler sugars that can be fermented by the yeast. The wort is drained or "lautered" to the Brew Kettle, rinsing all the sugar out of the grain (which then becomes an excellent feed for farm animals). In the kettle, hops are added to the wort and brought to a full rolling boil.

Hops

Hops are now the dominant flavoring agent for beer, although this is a fairly recent development. For thousands of years, other ingredients ranging from date juice in Egypt to herbs and spices in Europe were used to flavor fermented grain beverages.

Hops are a flower cluster that grows on vines. They give beer its bitterness, much of its flavor, and its aromatic nose. Hops were first known to be cultivated in Bavaria. Popular varieties include Hallertau, Saaz, Kent Goldings, Cascade and Willamette. We use pelletized hops here at Mudshark.

After a 90 minute boil, the wort is whirlpooled to settle out all solids and pumped to a Heat Exchanger to cool the hopped wort from 212 degrees Fahrenheit to a proper yeast pitching temperature of 60-70 degrees for ales and 45-60 degrees for lagers.

Yeast From the heat exchanger the wort is pumped to the Fermentation Vessels where the yeast is added. During the fermentation process the yeast converts the sugars in the wort to alcohol and carbon dioxide. Yeast is the natural substance that enables beer to be fermented. The type of yeast used has a significant impact on the flavor of the beer. Top fermenting yeasts are used to make ales. Bottom fermenting yeasts are used to make lagers.

An old saying in the brewing biz:
Brewers only make wort. Yeast makes beer.

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