In 1998 Regan Dillon and Olin Schultz of Beer, Beer & More Beer along with Mike Rose and Mike Cullen set the world record for brewing beer at the highest elevation when they fired up an all-grain Pale Ale on the top of Mt. Whitney at 14,491 feet of elevation. In late April 2005, in celebration of MoreBeer's 10th anniversary, we came back to set yet another brewing record. This time we headed in a different direction - down!  On April 28, 2005 Olin Schultz, Darren Schleth, Chris Graham, Regan Dillon, Jason Petros, and Cindy Rae from MoreBeer along with long time friend and customer Mike Rose descended 282 feet to the lowest point in the Western Hemisphere, a spot called Badwater in California's infamous Death Valley.
We woke up on the morning of the brew to rain beating down on our tents.  Rain is a normally a rarity in Death Valley, where the average rainfall is under 1” per year. The rain soon subsided, we shook off mild hang overs – mandatory for a world record involving beer, and Regan began cooking his famous Atkins diet approved artery cloggers, eggs dropped into a pool of boiling bacon fat.  

After soaking up the nutrition we loaded the trucks, broke camp and headed down the valley to our drop off point, Badwater California. The sun came out during the drive down the valley and when we arrived at destination Badwater we were treated to the nearly blinding vision of a huge, pure-white, salt flat framed on both sides by towering mountain ranges. Way up on the side of one of the cliffs overlooking the salt flat, was a sign that read “Sea Level.”

At 10:00 AM we piled out of the trucks with a nervous excitement and perhaps even a case of the brewing jitters. Thoughts of “will I brew up to my own expectations” and “I hope I remember to pull out the hops at the right time” must have been creeping through everyone’s head. But times like these are no time for panicking so we had to stick together. Fortunately Olin had some previous experience and provided a little direction, “Regan you grab the system”, “Darren you grab the grains”, “Jason you grab the lounge chairs”, “Chris you grab the beers.”

Amazingly, the same two-gallon, all-grain, record setting system Regan designed for use on the top of Mt. Whitney was used again for this endeavor. We had also decided to brew the exact same Pale Ale recipe in what will become the first experiment of the affect of altitude on beer flavor.

One of our first concerns were gusty winds traveling up the valley from the south.  As an experienced outdoor brewer knows, wind is not your friend.  However, as usual, Regan had no fear and lit his mini butane camp stove. The decision was made to seek shelter behind a cement wall during the boil, but to venture out to the valley floor for the mash and sparge.

At about 11:00 Mike Rose showed up. It was great to see Mike again because he is such an up-beat, great guy. We immediately started giving him a bad time for no reason because it is very easy to do that with Mike.  However, he halted us in our tracks when he produced three bottles of vintage 1998 Nifty Whitney 1.050 that had been stored cold for seven years (except, according to Mike, for one week in 2001 when his refrigerator was on the blink.) The beer was amazingly crisp, with still evident malt and hop flavors, which was amazing for a Pale Ale this old. The decision was made to save one bottle for the next, yet to be announced brewing record. It is really yet to be thought of, but give us time.