What's Brewing - December 21

A lot has happened since my last entry.  We are back to having full availability of all our beers and we've added a number of new outlets in both Portland and Yamhill County.  We've also added another person to the staff.  My daughter Lisa has joined me.  Lisa is a aspiring winemaker and will be helping me out when she isn't making wine.  She's already been a huge help around the brewery, and I'm looking forward to working a little less than the current seven day a week schedule. 

I'm still figuring out the Oregon beer market, but I have learned that the fall is seasonal beer time.  Bobtoberfest flew out of here, and Sandy Paws was a big success as well - 130 cases bottled and sold within 2 weeks!  I expect to spend more time and effort on the seasonals next year, maybe even see if we can get in the Holiday Ale fest...

December will be a record month in terms of production - 42 barrels.  Certainly that's not sustainable with the equipment we have - I'd be really happy with something in the high thirties.  We now have Hugo (our Bock) mainly in lagering tank and are working on brewing Smokey Bob - a Rauch Marzenbier that should be released in mid-March.

What's Brewing - October 20

My how time flies...  I'm back brewing like mad.  I'm surprised how long it's taking me to refill all the lagering tanks.  I probably won't have them all full until around Thanksgiving.  We had a huge response to Bobtoberfest - we sold all 100 cases in a week and a half!  Sales have been strong enough that, combined with our glycol chiller fiasco, we have almost no beer left at the brewery - just a little Pils and Schwarz.  We're bottling Pils and Dunkel  next week, and that should help a bit...  Next up is Sandy Paws - a Baltic Porter.  It won't be quite as big as last year's monster, but will still tip the scales at 6.3% alcohol with lots of malt and roasty character.

I'm currently looking to slightly change my labels.  They'll still be smaller than most, but they will be more easily readable from the front.  I've also done some experimenting with shipping.  So far, so good.  I hope to have that option available in time for Christmas... 

What's Brewing - August 30

I'm still having issues with the glycol chiller, so I decided to get a new one.  I haven't been brewing as much as I should because I'm afraid the the damned thing will die again and I'll lose a bunch of beer.  The company I ordered the chiller from hasn't gotten back to me as to when the new chiller will be ready - not a good sign.  Hopefully we'll have it up and running by the end of September...

I've decided that I'm not going to sell my larger kegs to retail customers for the time being.  Why?  Well, for one, I never know when I'll get the keg back.  Plus I usually provide the CO2 and tap, and you won't know when that's coming  back either.  Add to that the fact that I don't have enough beer to do even a decent job of getting visibility in Portland, and I'm convinced.  The other thing is that in most cases where I provide a big keg, the customer orders way more beer than they need.  If I can talk folks into using multiple mini-kegs, they can at least bring back the ones they don't use.

I just got the new Bobtoberfest label back from the label designer.  I really like it.  Unfortunately for me, we're bottling Bob tomorrow, and I'm probably at least a week away from having labels printed and ready.  Just means a little more work using the manual labeler.

What's Brewing - July 8

One of the things I learned from my previous career was the concept of continuous improvement.  I know that I'm a better brewer today than I was a year ago, and I fully expect that I'll be better a year from now.  While I think that I brewed really good beer before, the beers I'm brewing now are better.  Why?  Well, I have a much better understanding of my equipment - what I can trust, what I shouldn't trust.  I also have a better grasp on carbonation than I did before - both how to carbonate, how to keep carbonation at the right levels, and a full appreciation of how much better beer tastes when properly carbonated.  I understand yeast better (although I have a long way to go) and I understand the impact of evaporation better (but still have occasional issues).  I figure that as long as I can keep learning, I can make even better beer, and that's my goal.

I am utterly amazed at how much interest there is in my beer now that it's summer.  I drink about the same amount of beer year 'round so this has taken my by surprise.  Needless to say, I don't have enough beer to keep everyone happy.  The increased refrigerated space helps a lot, but it really impacts the amount of beer that we'll have for sale in September.  I do know that next year I'll make sure that every tank and keg is full by next Memorial Day!

I'm not a big beer festival guy, but I decided to enter the Great American Beer Festival.  I entered 5 beers - Pils, Coastal Common, Dunkel, Schwarz, and Bobtoberfest.  It should be an interesting experience.

What's Brewing - June 15

We're just finishing work on the new cold room.  This will make our lives a lot easier, as we really haven't had enough room to keep everything cold up until now.  We have compromised the beer, but it has limited production.  For example, I was scheduled to brew a batch of Pils today, but I don't have room in the old cold room to move the beer that's in the fermenter I want to use into a lagering tank.  So the new cold room should be finished Tuesday and I'll brew the batch on Wednesday and put the beer coming out of fermenter there. 

My temperature sensor is back working right - after I spent $100 on a stand-alone unit.  I've been using both instruments at the beginning of the batch just to make sure that the two are in synch.  so far, so good.

I'm still trying to figure out the vagaries of the Portland market.  I'm beginning to think that I need to be more aggressive about selling my beer to retailers.  Since I'm self-distributing, I'm sure that some folks view me as a pain in the ass.  Their time is probably better spent talking to the guys from Maletis or Point Blank, where they can be ordering beer from dozens of breweries in one fell swoop.  If you don't see my beer at the retailers, I've listed, please ask for it.  They can get it if they (and you) want.   In the meantime I'm still trying to get more beer into the hands of pubs and taverns so more people can try it.

What's Brewing - May 18

I'm finally starting to get caught up on brewing.  The cold room is just about full, as are all the fermenters.  I've been a little unhappy with the last couple of batches of Pils that are just starting to lager.  They're not quite as "round" as I'd like, and today I found the culprit. I discovered that the sensor I've been using to measure the mash temperature has a rather large margin of error at higher temperatures, meaning that I've been mashing roughly four degrees lower than I want.  This may not seem like a lot, but it creates more fermentable sugar and less of the unfermentables that add that roundness.  I'll correct the error for the upcoming batches but the Pils will be a little drier for a little while in mid to late June.

So Miller has been talking up their "Triple hops brewing", and I'm scratching my head.  This is nothing special.  Almost all brewers make at least three hop additions.  We usually make four.  Dogfish Head hops continuously.  I've got to think that they should be able to come up with something better than that!

What's Brewing - May 6

It's a bit frustrating to brew lager beers because it just takes so long for things to be ready to bottle.  We won't be able to bottle the post-chiller beer until the end of this month, for the most part.  We did have a little bit of beer in the cooler that we're going to bottle next week - Pils and IsarWeizen. 

Yes IsarWeizen is back, and this year I'm hoping to keep it available from Memorial Day until Labor Day.  Once we get it bottled, we'll "recycle" the yeast and brew batch #2 of the same thing, and if demand is strong (I suspect it will be), we'll do it a third time.

I've decided to add a second cold room to the brewery.  When done, we'll have lots of room to keep bottled beer cold and we'll be able to start using the extra lagering tank that wouldn't fit in the other cold room.  This will allow us to brew more beer and give some long lagering time to our higher gravity seasonals. 

What's Brewing - April 10

After doing a little brewing, we ended up losing a bunch of beer to a glycol chiller malfunction.  What I've learned about glycol chillers (ours cools our fermenters) is that if they aren't chilling, they're heating due to the friction in the pumps.  We ended up with a bunch of fermenters with temperatures over 100 degrees.  We dumped the beer.  A number of people told me to re-label or blend the beer, but I suppose that's easier to suggest when your name isn't on the label.  Anyway, I back brewing like mad - Dunkel yesterday, Pils today, Coastal on Monday, and IsarWeizen on Wednesday.  I'll start on Bobtoberfest in a couple of weeks.

I've had a number of people stop by looking for jobs.  Most are looking for a job brewing.  The dirty secret is that brewing is the most fun part of the job, followed by talking with customers and retailers.  At this point I'm really enjoying everything that I'm doing, but as I grow the business, it may be nice to get someone in here to clean kegs...  

Since this is the first year that I've had beer at this time of the year, it's interesting to see the conversion from dark to light.  Not the daylight hours but the increasing demand for paler beers and the declining interest in dark beers.  I'm still learning, but I suspect that I'm going to be brewing a lot of Pils over the next couple of month and not nearly as much Schwarz and Dunkel.

What's Brewing - March 7

We haven't been brewing for a couple of weeks while we updated a few things around the brewery - better plumbing and better lighting.  I hope to get started again next week.  It has been a little frustrating recently because we've basically been out of all our beers except Pils.  This week we'll rectify that by bottling Pils, Coastal, Dunkel, Schwarz, and Mediator - the new dopplebock.  Look for them at stores, and of course, at the brewery.

I've been taking a brewing class for the last couple of months - just to pick up some ideas and better understand how we're different.  One thing I've figured out is that I'm probably one of the lowest tech breweries out there.  That's not good or bad, just different.  From hauling hoses to mashing in from drums we're just very low tech.  I think it gives the brewer a better 'feel' for the beer, and certainly more of an attachment.  I also got a better appreciation for the differences in base malts - North American 6-row versus North American 2-row versus European 2-row.  Let's just say that I'll be sticking with European malt for the time being.

Last week a brewer from Germany stopped by.  He and his wife (and baby son) were driving up the coast, and he'd heard about this crazy lager brewery in McMinnville.  It was really fun to talk to him, and it reinforced how much like Germany my brewing process is.  One funny note is that I gave him a taste of my Dunkel, and he thought it was too roasty!  He asked if it was more like a Schwarzbier.  I said that if he thought the Dunkel was roasty he should try my Schwarz!  It is true that, except for Schwarzbier, Germans use dark colored very sparingly.  Anything over 1% of the grain bill is probably too high.  Our Dunkel is 2% roasted malt, so he picked it out.  I'm looking at the recipe and thinking that I may try to get under that 1% number with mine...

What's Brewing - February 2nd

After some discussion with Hans from Laurelwood Brewery, I'm going to make my first smoked beer this month.  Look for a Rauch Marzenbier sometime in April or May...  I'm also going to add a little bit of smoked malt to the Schwarz - not to materially change the aroma and flavors, just enough to add a little more complexity to the beer.

I've been learning a lot about managing inventory.  Over the last couple of months I was making more beer than I was selling.  Now we're getting things more in line, first by cutting back a little on our brewing, but more importantly, adding a number of new retail outlets (check the Where to Buy tab).  I expect to be back to a full production schedule in February, and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with demand.

The Dopplebock is being obstinate.  It got to a beer gravity of 6.7 plato (1.027 specific gravity) and just stopped.  I krausened it with 5 gallons of Dunkel, and it appears to be back on track (6.3/1.025, and tasting less sweet last time I checked), but I'd really like to see it get down to around 5.6/1.022, but I'm willing to live with 6/1.024.  Right now it's sitting at 7% alcohol, and if it gets where I want it will be about 7.35%.

With the legislature back in session, we're once again dealing with proposed increases in beer taxes.  Right now our beer tax is the 4th lowest in the nation (We're just slightly higher than Colorado and Wisconsin).  A proposal being put forth by several legislators would increase the beer tax from $2.60 per barrel to $49.61 per barrel.  This equates to $1.60/gallon, and would be the highest in the country by a fair amount.  The highest tax rates in the country right now are $1.07/gallon in Alaska and $1.06 in Alabama.  Alaska has twelve brewpubs (hey, everything's expensive in Alaska) and Alabama has two (I wonder why).  I suspect that if it passes, we brewers will all raise our prices, and you'll end up paying 50 cents more per bottle or pint.  I'm not opposed to a tax increase, but this is ridiculous.  

What's Brewing - December 6th

It looks like Noble Rot is going to switch to our Pils as their pale lager that's on tap.  This means that we'll probably be short on Pils for a couple of weeks as we ramp up production to keep up.  It also meant that I had to pick up some more Saaz hops in the "spot" (non-futures) market - $18/lb (we use about 6 pounds per batch).  Yikes!  Luckily I'll have plenty at a better price once this year's harvest gets in from Europe. 

In between brewing sessions, I'm trying to get our beer into a couple more retail outlets in Portland.  I've talked to the folks at Cork and John's Marketplace.  If you'd like to see our beer at these locations, please let them know.  Hopefully we'll have more outlets in Portland before New Year's Eve.  I'm also talking to several restaurants in Yamhill County and Salem, so hopefully we'll add some outlets there as well.

Our mini-kegs are really starting the take off as a less expensive way to have beer at home.  These kegs are self-contained - that is, there is a CO2 tank incorporated into the keg itself.  They hold 3 gallons, and will keep in the refrigerator for several months (if they last that long!).