If you’ve been keeping tabs on us over social media, you know we’ve had a steady stream of beer updates starting with our Double-Dog-Dare Rye IPA, our cider along with it’s naming contest (“Old Gnarly Bones” for the win!), and most recently, Black Cat Porter.  This process of small batch brewing and sharing results along with the subsequent label artwork is our grass roots version of research and development.

Now, what we do in a small batch version doesn’t necessarily “scale up” as we begin brewing on the big equipment and our recipes won’t match exactly.  However, this process does give us a chance to experiment with certain flavor profiles for our individual beers.  Take our My Girl Blonde Ale, for instance.  We just finished brewing this beer and Shawn made the decision to utilize Huell Melon (pictured on the right) as our premier hop choice versus some of the more standard hops you find in other blonde ales.  The Huell Melon is a German hop variety that will impart…wait for it…hints of melon along with tropical fruit and  citrus.  Now take it easy, beer lovers.  This doesn’t mean we’re brewing a watermelon beer.  It just means for those of you with a developed palate, you’ll be able to pick up those notes as you’re enjoying the brew.  As far as our evaluation goes, we’ll give it a run and see if those flavors play well with the malt characteristics.   This will ultimately help us decide on the right hops for our final version of My Girl Blonde Ale. 

Moving on to Old Gnarly Bones, I’d just like to say thanks to everyone who participated in the naming contest over social media.  Naming a beer is perhaps one of the most entertaining parts of the R and D process…well, aside from drinking, anyway.  Thanks to social media, we get to share that entertainment with our fans.  In terms of the brewing process, hard cider isn’t really beer.  Technically it’s wine because we don’t “brew it” per se.  Unlike beer, where the brewer has to work to pull the different flavors and starches out of the malt (grain), the apples have already given us all the flavor and sugar we need for the most part.  As far as research goes, we’re essentially figuring out what type of yeast to use (many ciders are made with champagne yeast while we elected to use an ale yeast), and what other ingredients make sense.  In our Old Gnarly Bones cider, we added wildflower honey, which imparts a bit of flavor but also added a few more sugars, bringing our ABV to a comfortable 6%.

Our final bit of R and D this month came in the porter category.  Now, I love dark beer and quite honestly the sky is the limit when it comes to experimentation here.  From Russian imperial and oatmeal stouts to coffee  and chocolate porters, if you like roasty flavors, there’s a dark beer out there with your name on it.  Some are quite dry and light like Guinness, while others are almost a meal unto themselves, like Founder’s Kentucky Breakfast Stout.  Shawn put together our Black Cat porter as the perfect in-between.  It’s not too heavy but the undertones of deep roasted coffee and a nice chocolatey finish come together to make a great beer.  Shawn has won medals with a number of his dark beers and this one could stand right next to the others.  He decided to add some oats to the grain bill and the result is a silky smooth mouthfeel and a beautiful brown head that goes right along with the coffee and chocolate flavors.     

Stay tuned for some VERY exciting updates as we’re finishing up the architectural plans and getting set to begin renovation.

Happy Halloween!