Ever wondered what it’d be like to have your very own, up-and-running science lab? Audrey Reid of Imbibe Solutions is no longer asking herself what it would be like, because the dream has become a reality: Imbibe now has a functioning lab, complete with white coats, oddly-shaped glassware, and perhaps most importantly, beer.
This Wednesday, she was kind enough to give me a tour of the space and tell me a little about her experience of becoming a scientist in her own right.
Reid, who has degrees in chemistry and gastronomy, moved to Charlottesville a year-and-a-half ago to be near the mountains when a chance conversation with the brewer at Champion Brewing Company led her to realize she could start a business Charlottesville really needed: lab testing for wineries and breweries.
“I loved science, and I loved food, but I had no idea how to put them together,” Reid said of her early thought process. “Then I started making my science projects food-related.”
In graduate school, she had the opportunity to do specialized work in food microbiology—particularly fermentation—and ended up studying yeast’s contribution to flavor in beer. (I didn’t know yeast had that much to do with it, but apparently it does. She also taught me the word “flocculate,” which is what yeast do in the beer.)
Now she’s come full circle, bringing her knowledge of chemistry and gastronomy together to provide testing for breweries, wineries and distilleries, who must legally test and publish their products’ ABV (and for wines, sulfite content as well), but who currently don’t have a way to do so in Charlottesville. Her lab brings that much-needed expertise much closer to home.
The space, which overlooks the well-treed Rose Hill neighborhood of Charlottesville, is furnished with a tasteful mix of recycled cabinetry and reclaimed blue countertops. It boasts top-of-the-line equipment she was able to purchase with the help of an investor, as well as items she acquired on her own and from U.Va.
Perhaps most impressive was the brand new machine she’s dubbed the “Imbibasaurus” (yes, that’s programmed into its computer), on which she did a demonstration for me. Injecting liquid gold dessert wine into one tube, she pressed a few buttons and we watched as the machine calculated the wine’s sugar and alcohol contents in a matter of seconds.
When asked how it felt to have her own lab, she said, “Unreal. Completely unreal.”
But it is real: and day by day, it’s becoming a space that brings together not only the wonder of science and the joy of food, but also enterprise for the flourishing of Charlottesville. And I’ll drink to that.