Brewery Operator-Iowa City

Big Grove Brewery•Iowa City, IA

11h

About The Position

Join the Big Grove Iowa City production team as a Brewery Operator and help produce the exceptional beer we’re known for. This role supports the full brewing process—from raw materials through fermentation to cellar work—while maintaining our gold medal standards for quality, safety, cleanliness, and consistency. If you’re passionate about craft beer, thrive in a fast-paced, innovative environment, and take pride in doing things the right way every time, we’d love to meet you. Core Values Big Grove only hires and retains people who exhibit our core values. Our Core Values are: 1. Set the Tone 2. Thirst for Improvement 3. We Care 4. Practice Candor 5. Passion Driven You will be given a culture deck explaining these core values. The goal of our culture deck is to show you who we are as a company, and then you can decide if you personally align with us and are excited to begin a career here.

Requirements

High school diploma or equivalent
1-2 years of related experience or training in a production/brewery facility environment
Passionate about craft beer
Must be able to operate a forklift and bucket lift- can be certified after employment.
Must be legal drinking age
Production and Operation: Managing all stages of brewery operations. Monitoring fermentation, tracking gravities and managing yeast health, dry hopping and carbonating finished products.
Mechanical Aptitude: Proficiency in troubleshooting pumps, valves, boilers and other brewery machinery as necessary
Forklift Operation: Certification in safely handling forklifts for material transport.
Quality Control: Ensure product meets company standards and regulatory requirements
Cleaning and Sanitation: Executing Clean In Place (CIP) procedures for tanks and equipment to maintain quality standards
Packaging and Logistics: Filling kegs and managing raw material inventory like grains, hops and malts
Troubleshooting: Ability to identify and resolve equipment issues quickly to minimize downtime.
Attention to Detail: Accurate record keeping for brewery logs and adherence to standard operation procedures (SOPs).
Collaboration: Work effectively with all parts of the brewery team.
Clear Communication: Report issues, inventory levels, and operational concerns in a clear and timely manner.

Responsibilities

Ability to perform and troubleshoot all functions of the brewery and cellar per standard operating procedures.
Responsible for maintaining and operating the brewhouse. Operation involves using automation in the millroom, mashing in, mash transfers, lauters, boils, wort transfers, and sending wort to fermentors, dumping cones, pitching yeast (cone to cone and from the yeast propagator), CIPs of brewhouse vessels and equipment. Preventative maintenance such as oil checks, pump seal replacements, and general cleaning.
Responsible for maintaining and operating equipment in the cellar. This includes the use of pumps (centrifugal and diaphragm), the MaxLupp (for hop recirculation), CIP Skid for sending caustic and water around the facility, The Alfa Laval Brew350 centrifuge, carbonation skid, and hop elevator connected to the catwalk.
Responsible for Cleaning In Place and maintenance of Fermentation Vessels, Yeast Propagator, MaxLupp, and Cleaning in Place of brite tanks under pressure and at ambient pressure. Also responsible for cleaning exteriors of tanks, scrubbing floors, sweeping, and general cleaning of the production floor.
Responsible for accurate data recording on brewlogs, cellar logs, and centrifuge logs. This includes taking pH readings, wort gravities, RLU scores, lot numbers, tank volumes, etc.
Ensure a safe work environment through safe work habits, understanding of risks, compliance with regulations, and following corrective action plans for any identified safety hazards and risks as directed by brewery management.
Communicates any known mechanical, raw material, and/or beer quality issues to brewery management immediately.
Report, evaluate and interpret wort and beer quality daily, including analytical results, process consistency, and taste. Implement changes to improve processes, recipes, beer flavor and consistency as directed.
Ensure that Production areas are always clean and organized. Organize and Rotate Hop and Grain inventories.
Continuous problem solver- we will have problems and we need people who don’t stop at the problems, but find the root- cause and take action to solve them.
Managing all stages of brewery operations. Monitoring fermentation, tracking gravities and managing yeast health, dry hopping and carbonating finished products.
Executing Clean In Place (CIP) procedures for tanks and equipment to maintain quality standards
Filling kegs and managing raw material inventory like grains, hops and malts
Report issues, inventory levels, and operational concerns in a clear and timely manner.
Be a high performing Big Grove team member with ability to look at business as a whole, communicate with all people, collaborate with all departments, work to solve organizational problems, and accomplish goals. Contribute to and exemplify Big Grove values, vision, standards, and culture.