Not All Glitz and Glamor

Long day today.

Cleaned 19 kegs.
Kegged off Amber
Cleaned/Sanitized the Serving Vessel
Transferred and Carbed the K.K. Weisse
Cleaned the fermenter
Set up to brew Kolsch tomorrow

Yikes!

The good news is that the Weisse will be back on tonight.  Also, if you haven't tried the Chocolate Hazelnut Porter since the 12/5 tapping, I would encourage you to try it now.  It's delicious.

Brewery, Tea Shop or Bakery??

The popularity of our tea-infused cask ales has grown to the point that I've had to buy my Chai and Rooibus teas in bulk.

Also, the Chocolate Hazelnut Porter will make it's annual return in time for the Holiday Season.  I'll be brewing it up on Tuesday, so if some chocolatey goodness wafts into the dining area, it's just me.

The “forecask” calls for ale!

 

We’re selling the cask beer faster than I can make it.  That’s a good thing.

 

Here is a list of the next several casks I have planned:

Triple red

I took our “Double Red” ale—a strong red ale—and added Jamaican Red Rooibus tea.  Malty, red, spicy, fruity, strong and delicious.

(I’ll be a) honey’s dunkel

This is our Heimkehr Dunkelweizen combined with a lot of locally harvested Orange Blossom honey.

Oak-aged chocolate porter

Our Christmas Ale this year will be our Chocolate Hazelnut Porter.  Before I add the Hazelnut, I will pull one cask and add some oak spirals which will infuse a nice oakey, bourbon flavor.

Chai amber

This one tends to be pretty popular.  I’ll bring it back for its third go-around.

I've Been Lax

As if that's any surprise to you.

Yes, I've been terrible lately about updating the blog.  It's not intentional.  But, I won't offer up a lot of excuses.

This summer has been a bit of a whirlwind since I returned from Germany.  To start, I had to brew two quick batches of our IPA and Nut Brown Ale for the State Fair.  The entire quantity of both were kegged off and sent to the Fair, and from what I've heard, they sold very well.

I also had to get our Oktoberfest brewed and lagered.  Unfortunately, this ties up one of our three fermenters for at least 40 days, so I've been scrambling a bit to keep our house line-up fully stocked.

Finally, this is beer festival season and the St. Francis Brewery has been well-represented at several festivals:  Firkin Fest, the Milwaukee Brewfest, and the Great Taste of the Midwest so far.  We'll also be appearing for the first time at the Great Lakes Brewfest in Racine.

I've noticed that cask-conditioned ale has been the newest trend in beer festivals.  With that in mind, I currently have a fun line-up with the cask ale at St. Francis brewery.  We are currently featuring a Raspberry Weisse beer.  This is our K.K. Weisse with a very generous addition of raspberry puree.  Next in line is a Chai Amber, followed by a Dunkelweisse and a Jamaican Red Rooibos Weisse.

We are currently featuring our "Givum Helles"--a light German lager, and there's a little bit of Saison left.  I also brewed up a batch of our Envy IPA which should hit the taps by the end of this week.

In my next post, I'll let you know what's happening with our annual Oktoberfest celebration.  There are some significant changes this year.  What remains the same is that there is no official Mug Club Tapping in September--same as years past.  However, you will have the opportunity to enjoy some complimentary beer in September.  Again, details will follow.

I'm baaaa-aaack

I wonder if anyone even gets that subject line reference anymore?

Well, though I was sad to leave Germany, I'm happy to be back in the States, this time for good.

I've also been terrible about getting this blog updated, so I'll type a few lines in the middle of a cleaning cycle here at the brewery.

So much is happening, I don't even know where to begin.  First off, I tapped the Summer Night Saison last Wednesday, and I'm very happy with the results.  Sweet, spicy and very tasty. 

Second, I experimented with a new dark beer--a recipe of my own design--which I called the "Heimkehr Dunkelweizen".  This is a black wheat beer which looks heavy but is surprisingly light.  Using our weisse strain of yeast, this black beauty has a bit of the banana/clove characteristic of our KK Weisse.  Well, it seems you liked it too, as it sold out very quickly.  I will brew this one again this month, and you can try it again in early August.

Thirdly, I'm happy to report that our distributor has secured us two tap handles at the WI State Fair.  You'll be able to try our Envy IPA and our Nut Brown Ale at Benno's at the fair.

Last Friday, I brewed up a batch of our August seasonal, "Givum Helles".  This is a Munich style lager.  Essentially, this style of beer was Munich's answer to the Czech Pils which was sweeping Germany by storm and was making German brewers nervous.  To regain market share, the Germans developed their own style of a pilsener which leaned more toward the malty side, rather than the traditional hoppiness of a Czech pilsner.  This style was called Helles which means light-colored.  The beauty of this beer is its simplicity:  two types of pilsener malt and two German hops--Tettnang and Hallertauer.  This is also my trick-of-the-trade beer, as it provides a vehicle for ensuring I have enough lager yeast for the Oktoberfest brews coming later next month.

Finally, and if that weren't enough, you will find us at the Milwauke Firkin Fest this coming Saturday.  I'll be tapping cask-conditioned versions of our Dunkelweizen, Saison and a returning favorite--the Toasted Coconut Brown Ale.  Can't make that fest?  Worry not, as we will be at the Milwaukee Brewfest the following Saturday, July 28.  Details will follow.

Back From Reality

Time files.
 
Cliché?  Yes.

But how true it is.

After an event-filled ten days back in the States and the Brewery, I find myself being Mr. World traveler again. 

Backing up, I flew back to America on a Wednesday.  After getting back to Greenfield at about 3:30 pm and mowing the 18” tall grass in my back yard, there was no time to relax.  My boss sent me an email saying that he’d be at my doorstep at 5:00 am on Thursday for a business trip to Minnesota.  I tried to assure him that my presence was not necessary, and he assured me that it was.

He won.  (He signs the checks!)

So, our quick seven-hour drive Northward,  three hour meeting, and seven hour drive back yielded some very encouraging results, which I’ll write about at some future time.  Among the positives was the opportunity to chat with my boss on less of a business level and more as peers.  I am lucky in that we’re all striving for the same goals.  Too many people tolerate an adversarial relationship with their employers, and that’s unfortunate.  We’ve found a nice balance of mutual respect and everything seems to move smoothly as a result.

Finally, it was time to get back into the brewhouse and start brewing up some ales.  Not only did I get the fermenters all full, but we also pulled off a very successful Brewmaster’s Reserve “Tour of Europe” Dinner.  Chef Ron never fails to amaze me when he’s allowed to play fast and loose with a menu.  When I’m at a point where I can connect to the Internet for a good length of time, I’ll post some photos and descriptions of the event.

I flew back to Frankfurt last Friday, arrived at 8:30 Saturday morning and stayed at the airport.  I then flew back out at about 2:30 pm to Rome with a layover in Amsterdam.  My wife and son took a different flight to Rome and our flights landed within 30 minutes of each other.  We took a shuttle to a bed and breakfast and spent an “interesting” evening on the Italian hillside overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.  An early morning taxi ride took us to the Port of Civitivecchia, just outside of Rome.  From there we boarded the RCL ship, “Navigator of the Seas” for a seven-day Mediterranean cruise.

Our first port of call on Monday was Messina, Sicily, where we booked a shore excursion to the active volcano, Mt. Etna and the ancient city of Taormina.  Sicily has an interesting history which dates back to the pre-Roman times.  Throughout its history, the island has been occupied by the Romans, Byzantines, African Muslims, Normans, and Germans until its final liberation by the Americans.  You can see many influences of these occupations in the architecture.
As I write this on Tuesday, we are spending a day at sea before reaching Athens, Greece.   While I strive to make this a beer-centric blog, it would seem that more than half of my time in Europe is spent in wine country.  I will report, however, that there is Stella Artois on draft on the ship which is tasty.  I will also sheepishly note that I’ve had a couple of “oilcans” of Foster’s Lager from Australia.  An Aussie once said to me, “You know that Foster’s is Australia’s biggest export beer. 

There’s a reason for that…”

More to come.

Loosening the Reins

Many of you have met my assistant, Natalie, who has done an admirable job being my eyes, ears and hands in the Brewery while I’m away.

I must admit, I’m a bit of a control freak in the Brewhouse.  When I arrived at the St. Francis Brewery in June of 2009, I inherited an assistant who helped me learn the procedures that were in place at the time, and how the equipment worked.  From there, I modified those procedures and made the brewing operations my own.  As time went on, the necessity of an assistant diminished, and I had to let him go.  Fortunately, he moved on to bigger and better things and has become a fine brewer in his own right.

When the opportunity for me to study brewing in Europe presented itself, I knew that having an assistant would become a necessity once again.  Only so much can be done remotely, and I needed a physical presence in the brewhouse.

Enter Natalie.
 
Nat has an engineering background.  Like me, she decided that she wasn’t happy with her initial career path.  Unlike me, she came to this realization at a much earlier age than I, and that is to her great benefit.  I can honestly say that she has transitioned well into our little family, and I’m proud of the work she has done.  It is now with great confidence that I can leave the brewery for weeks at a time knowing that the sky will not fall in my absence.

I decided it was time to give her a gift.

A few months ago, she gave me a bottle of a beer she had homebrewed—an English Best Bitter.  It impressed me, as I’m a bit of a sucker for English Ales.  There was some room in the Seasonal schedule so I offered Nat the opportunity to take the lead on this one.  We ramped up her recipe to a full-scale commercial batch.  The June seasonal is all Natalie—she devised it, brewed it, fermented it and will be serving it tomorrow for our Mug Club.

So, if you’re a Mug Club member, stop in to the tapping at 7 pm Wednesday.  Everyone else can try theirs on Thursday.  Let us know what you think.