A special Monday morning update!

22 Monday Sep 2014

Tags

alpha brewing company, Bacon, beer, brewing, brown sugar, cascade, craft, craft beer, guy, hops, music city brew supply, Porter, regular, regular guy brewing, Stolze, StolzeStyle Brewing, Storter, stout

Are you ready for a very special update? The update you’ve all been waiting for over a month for? Let’s do this! Back on August 15th I wrote a blog post about how StolzeStyle Brewing and Regular Guy Brewing got together to share some beers and stories and ended up agreeing to do a collaborative brew. Need a refresher? You can read the blog post here.

All up to speed? Good! Let’s continue. For the last month I’ve been teasing you and everyone else about the TOP SECRET ingredients that were going to make our “Storter” (again, thanks for the inspiration Alpha Brewing Company!) If you’re asking yourself what a “Storter” is, you either:

A) were too lazy to click the link and read the blog post

2) have never been to Alpha Brewing Company (you’re missing out)

C) have a terrible short term memory and/or

D) all of the above

I’ll do this one more time. A “Storter” is a beautiful combination of a Stout and a Porter. Basically it takes all the best characteristics of both styles and gently and lovingly swirls them together. This is a great beer brewed by Alpha and Eric and Jennifer from StolzeStyle just so happened to bring some along, as inspiration for our own of course!

It’s a fine looking beer and delicious to boot! Now we could have always just taken Alpha’s recipe and brewed it, but we could just go there and drink theirs. So we made some additions and gave it a new twist.

If you haven’t noticed, I’m stalling as hard as I can. Trying to write whatever I can to make you wait even longer to find out the TOP SECRET ingredients that we have been bragging about for over a month now. Do you know what happened to me the day? It’s so damn funny! I was walking down the stairs when all of the sudden I…I’m just kidding, are you ready to finally know the TOP SECRET ingredients? Ok. Remember, this is a Storter, a dark, lovely beer. Rich and roasty. We added brown sugar and…

BACON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes bacon. You heard me right, bacon! Say it with me, BACON! We added brown sugar and bacon to an already perfect Storter recipe. Well, now that the cat’s out of the bag, here’s our night in pictures.

Seth brought over some new toys!

This is our new conical fermenter.

Our new 25 gallon kettle.

Our new mash tun.

Our hops were provided by Music City Brew Supply.

There’s that bacon I was talking about and the brown sugar and hops and the bacon. Did I mention the bacon? I think I mentioned the bacon. Bacon.

There’s Eric and Brian doughing in.

Brian presents his handiwork. He’s very skilled at dumping things into other things.

Jen cracks the whip on Eric. There better not be any grain clumps in there!

The first runnings.

Eric and Brian discussing important brewery related things.

Uh oh! The Brian fans are going to be so jealous!

The final runnings in the kettle, getting ready for the hot break.

Boiling away like a champ! Our one hop addition is in and brown sugar added.

We fill our buckets two at a time! Look closely, there’s bacon in there!

End of the night with Eric.

End of the night with Jen.

There you have it! We didn’t pitch the yeast yet. The beer will cold crash for a bit to let any fat from the bacon separate. We’ll skim it all off and transfer to the new conical fermenter and then pitch the yeast. Then we have more bacon additions coming. We’ll keep you posted on the progress.

Until next time…

Let’s talk about stuff!

15 Friday Aug 2014

Posted by Justin in Brewing, Business Stuff

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

alpha, alpha brewing company, Apple, beer, brewing, business, craft, craft beer, Grove, guy, Porter, regular, regular guy brewing, smoked, Smokey, Smokey Grove Apple Smoked Porter, Stolze, Stolze Style Brewing

Hi guys and one gal! How have you been? It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything so I’m going to bring you up to speed. The last time I posted I talked about the business meeting we were having on a Friday night and you complained and said we weren’t doing anything fun or exciting. Boy were you wrong! We lined up the rest of the year’s brewing schedule and drank beer! It doesn’t get much better than that.

Then last Friday we met up with Eric and Jennifer from Stolze Style Brewing at Alpha Brewing Company for a little home brewer meet and greet.

Alpha’s excellent beer was only topped by the excellent company. We shared many great stories and delicious beers and by the end of the night our conversation shifted to collaboration. Now, I can’t tell you all the details about our collaboration beer because it’s top secret, but I can tell you it’s going to be a “Storter.” You might be asking yourself, “what the hell is a Storter?” I will tell you. A “Storter” is a beautiful combination of a Stout and a Porter (thank you Alpha for the inspiration). Basically it takes all the best characteristics of both styles and gently and lovingly swirls them together. I can sense your excitement. This style mash – up is great, but it’s not even the best part. The best part is…TOP SECRET! Sorry I can’t spill the beans just yet. The only other thing I can tell you is this epic collaboration is taking place on Friday, September 19th and it will blow doors down.

Your socks will literally be knocked off your feet. Not unlike that picture up there. Smoke will come out and everything.

That brings us to today! It’s Friday and you know what that means, we’re brewing! We will be brewing our Smokey Grove Apple Smoked Porter for a competition that is taking place in October.

The smokey apple flavor of our porter will go wonderfully with the fall weather and more than likely win the best beer in the entire universe award. That’s a real award and we’re going to win it because I’m Bob Johnson, and I’m a winner! (Where did that Bob Johnson business come from and what does it mean?)

Until next time babies!