474: Brian Hink of Wander Back Beerworks Breaks Down Their WBC Gold Medal-Winning Helles

The founders of South New Jersey’s Wander Back Beerworks are no strangers to the beer world, but the industry veterans had modest expectations for the young project—barely two years old—when they submitted entries to the 2026 World Beer Cup. Winning a medal in one of the top-five categories, Munich-Style Helles, with over 150 entries, would be an uphill battle. But as the awards were announced, they found themselves on stage accepting a gold sash for the core beer named after the brewery itself, and a beer that they’d envisioned from the start as an expression of their passion for beer making and a celebration of local agriculture and malting. The beer, Wander Back Lager, is brewed with 100% locally-grown and floor-malted pils malt from Rabbit Hill Malt , and cofounder and head brewer Brian Hink is convinced that this malt—often kilned just days before they brew with it—is responsible for the fresh and vibrant malt flavor that defines the helles. In this episode, recorded the day after their win, Hink discusses: being inspired by local ingredients to start the brewery exploring the idea of freshness in malt and the brightness that it contributes to pale lager nibbling at the margins to improve recipes and process closely monitoring pH through the sparge to avoid over-extracted tannins stepping up dry 34/70 pitches with IPA before harvesting and pitching into lager, for optimal generation flavor mash-out decoction for body without sweetness West coast pils dry hop approach with Krush and Motueka And more. G&D Chillers G&D now offers their Elite 290 Micro-series with 5H chillers—bringing even more flexibility to their propane-powered lineup. In fact, they’re building one right now for Red Clover Ale Co in partnership with Efficiency Vermont. It runs on a Natural Refrigerant with near-zero Global Warming Potential—projected to deliver around 10% more efficiency than A2L refrigerant systems. 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474: Brian Hink of Wander Back Beerworks Breaks Down Their WBC Gold Medal-Winning Helles is an episode from Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine Podcast by Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine.

This episode is 1:05:12 long.

This episode was published on Apr 24, 2026.

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