Tastings / Tours / On-Site Sales Approved!

This past Tuesday I had a hearing before the Placentia Planning Commission to decide whether The Bruery should be permitted to have a tastings / tours / sales at the brewery.  The Commissioners seemed very interested in the brewery, and it was approved!  It didn't hurt that the previous item on the agenda was a bit gloomy-- the revocation of a permit for a massage parlor (happy ending, anyone?).

We'll likely start tasting room hours on Friday, September 5th.  We'll do our best to be open every Friday (2 pm to 8 pm) and Saturday (12 pm to 6 pm).  As we get closer, we'll let you know for sure. 

I'm looking forward to having visitors and being able to share our beer and passion.

Excessive Carbonation?

Bottle conditioning (natural carbonation) should be pretty straight forward, right? Add a certain amount of a simple carbohydrate (sucrose) to the tank of finished beer, mix it, bottle, and the yeast does it's job. I wish it were this simple!

We were going for a high level of carbonation in most of our beers, but not this high! Our super attenuative yeast (meaning it eats everything it possibly can) had produced the right amount of carbonation when we initially released the beers, and has since continued to add more carbonation than was intended in the first batch of several of our beers.

For the first batches (usually indicated by a gold crown cap and a slight overfill level), I recommend chilling the beer well before opening, and gently pour your beer right after popping the cap. Just like champagne, right?

Luckily, not very much of this beer went out as most of it went towards draft.  New batches (with lower carbonation) have been bottled and have been sent out to a few of our accounts already. We have two dozen cases of the first batch of Black Orchard in inventory, which we won't be releasing to accounts and instead drinking it ourselves (what a tough job!). You might have a tough time finding it until the release of the new batch, which will be on shelves in late June.

If you've popped open one of our bottles and lost beer due to overcarbonation, I sincerely apologize. We are refining our processes to insure the carbonation is appropriate. If you've had a problem with our beers because of this (or any reason, for that matter), please give me a call (714-996-6258) and we'll fix it. These are the first batches coming from our brewery, and while we set ourselves to the highest of standards, we didn't know what the standards were for the first batches!

Batch No. 1 - Levud's is now being released, and luckily is not overcarbonated!

Thanks for supporting us!

Super Secret Grand (Yet Restrained) Opening Party

Yesterday we had a party to celebrate our opening.  From my perspective it went extremely well-- I was amongst my favorite people, everyone was enjoying themselves, and the word is getting out about what we do.  Approximately 140 beer lovers came throughout the day.  I couldn't have asked for a better opening.

To those who didn't get the invite, I apologize!  I sent it to as many friends and supporters as I could think of at the time, and I know I missed some important people.  Next time I'll be more coordinated, and hopefully it won't have to be an invite only affair!

Thanks to all those who came!  I'm looking forward to having more parties already.

Thanks to Steve Sage for the wonderful write up in his Summer of Beer blog and for taking photos:

Also, thanks to Spence and his helper (forgot her name, sorry!) for taking photos.  Spence will be sending over the photos, which I'll post in the news section of the website.

Finding Our Beers

Last week Tyler and I spent a bit of time going around to different potential accounts, and I'm pleased to report that beer is available around town.  A few more will be added next week, and hopefully dozens more once we have a distributor (we're working on it).  Here's the list now:

Beachwood BBQ - Rotating keg selection, had on Black Orchard as of Thursday

Hollingshead Deli - Everything we bottle, perhaps Black Orchard is still on tap

Hi Times Wine Cellar- Everything we bottle, delivering on Tuesday

Tustin Brewing Co- Saison Rue in bottles

Lone Hill Liquor- Everything we bottle

Walnut Liquorette- Everything we bottle

These are some of the great beer institutions in Southern California, so I'm very excited to see our beers here.  For the great beer places you don't see on this list, I'm working on it!  Having the beer distributed by someone else will make my life much easier.

A full list is maintained at http://www.thebruery.com/find/

Our Website is Up!

A few days ago I uploaded our website.  It still needs quite a bit of work, but I thought we needed to have something up since our beer is now in stores.  We're working on a fairly extensive food pairing section and a store with our merchandise and possibly beer sales.  All these things and more will take shape over the next few months.

May Already?

Sorry for the lack of updates.  Here's a brief list of everything that's been going on:

- Craft Brewers Conference / World Beer Cup: We had a great time here, and I still feel like I'm recovering from my week in San Diego.  I started seminars at 8 or 8:30 AM, and went non-stop (networking / more seminars / hanging out with friends / drinking great beer) until 1 or 2 in the morning to start all it over again the next day at 8 AM.  We didn't win any medals at the World Beer Cup, but I don't think my ego could handle actually winning a medal at the WBC at this point, so perhaps it's for the best.  We're looking forward to participating in the San Diego County Fair, Los Angeles County Fair, California State Fair, and of course the Great American Beer Festival.  Maybe we'll pick up a few in those competitions.

- Distributor News: We are currently selecting distributors in Southern California and Northern California.  We are now negotiating with a few different distributors, so I'll give more info once we have signed an agreement.

- Hollingshead Tasting: Last Monday we had our first official roll out of our beers at Hollingshead's Deli in Orange.  This was a great tasting-- about 54 people showed up and I heard lots of great things about the beer.  Thanks to everyone who showed up!  If anyone took any photos of the tasting, could you send them my way?  I never remember to bring the camera anywhere.

- Official Roll Out: I had committed to having the tasting at Hollingshead's a few weeks back, thinking we'd have all of our labels applied and our packaging would be ready.  The packaging won't be ready until next week, so that's why you can't find our beer anywhere else besides Hollingshead at the moment.  Look for our beers at other places around Orange County (and perhaps San Diego and Los Angeles) starting the week of May 12th.

- Orange County Brewers Cooperative: A few brewers in Orange County (including us) have started a local brewery organization to help promote craft beer in Orange County, as well as provide a venue for us to better communicate with one another.  As the new brewer in Orange County, it is important to my business that the public knows there is good beer to be had here, so I've spent a lot of time with the planning of the co-op.  We started up about 3 months ago, and are currently planning a beer festival.  I'll post more info as dates are confirmed.

- Opening Party: We are hoping to have an opening party at The Bruery on Saturday, May 24th, but I need city approval before it becomes official.  Leave the date open for the moment, and I'll let you know as soon as I find out.

- Website: I've been holding off on putting the website up until our official roll out, so look for it the week of May 12th.

Right now I'm supposed to be at the Southern California Homebrewers Festival, but I gave Rachel the stomach flu, so we decided to stay home.  Tyler is there with BrewCommune and will be serving Orchard White and Black Orchard.

Next week we'll be serving our beers at the Boonville Beer Festival, and will hopefully be meeting with a few Northern California distributors.  We'll also be meeting with my brother-in-law Matt and our good friend Ali, who will soon be our Northern California Sales Reps.  Matt will cover San Francisco, and Ali will cover Oakland / Berkeley.  

Thanks to Rick Sellers for writing about The Bruery on his blog: http://www.pacificbrewnews.blogspot.com

I read Rick's blog every few days, and was shocked when I saw my logo on his page.  Very nice write up, Rick!

I'll try to post more frequently.  See you around, hopefully drinking our beer!  Cheers!

Promoting and Selling Ourselves

As Tyler posted, we have finally bottled and kegged our beers, and we are currently nurturing them (i.e. bottle conditioning and petting them daily) and preparing them to be shipped off and sold... well, hopefully sold!  I'm really pleased how all of the beers have turned out, and I hope you are too.  I was nervous that the jump from 10 gallon batches to 465 gallon batches the first time around would not end up being remotely the same beer, but in most cases, they are spot on, or perhaps a bit more to our liking, than the pilot batches.  

The one exception is Batch No. 1 - Levud's.  This is a very fine beer, don't get me wrong.  This was the first batch, and I didn't know what our mash efficiency would be.  I was shooting for a 19.0-19.5 P beer, which when it finishes around 2 P, would end up being around a 9.5% beer.  Loren and Mark brewed it to this strength, and I wanted to be as close as possible. We brewed this over two days (15 bbl each day) to fill the 30 bbl fermenter.  The first 15 bbl batch came out to be 22.1 P, about a 13% overshot.  I scaled back the second batch of it by a few hundred pounds of base malt in order to hit around 17 P, but instead the gravity was 19.9.  The combined gravity of the two batches ended up being 21 P, and I wasn't about to water it down.  It attenuated to around 1.2 P (94.4% apparent attenuation!!!).  Instead of the 9.5% Golden Strong Ale, we have an 11% Golden Strong Ale.  I'm not complaining; it still tastes damn good!  Those bottles are slow to carbonate right now, so there's a chance we'll be delaying their release by a few weeks.  From what I've tasted so far, it has a very similar flavor profile to the outstanding beer that Loren and Mark brew, but with a bit more of an alcoholic punch.

Speaking of releasing beers, we plan on having all of our labels approved and hopefully printed within two weeks time, so keep an eye out for them (I'll post where we're selling though, so don't look around too hard).  The label for Saison Rue has been approved, and we anticipate Batch No. 1 - Levud's will be approved in the next few days as well.  Orchard White and Black Orchard are currently delayed because the TTB required a formula due to the spices we add to the beers. None of the ingredients are controversial, so I'm hoping their approval moves along quickly.

We'll be kicking off our first releases at Hollingshead Deli, currently scheduled for either Monday, April 28th or Tuesday, April 29th.  In early May, we'll be going to beer bars, beer friendly restaurants, and good beer stores in Orange County, Los Angeles County, and San Diego County letting people know we're around and open!

If you'll be at the Craft Brewers Conference next week, our beer will be served there at some point.  We also entered the World Beer Cup, so please cross your fingers for us.

It is a huge relief and very exciting to finally be at the point where The Bruery is a commercial brewery.  If you would have told me two years ago that I'd be running my own brewery in two years, I wouldn't have believed it.  I probably would have said "No, I'll be running my own brewery in a year!"  Delays and reality aside, I'm excited and optimistic about the adventure I'm embarking on.

Last but not least, the obligatory pictures:

The very manual bottling line (Thanks to Lyn Davidson for the picture)

Five pallets of Batch No. 1 (Thanks to Tim Reissmueller for the photo).

What's Bubbling Away

I was going to keep tight lipped about the beers we'll be brewing, but since we're getting somewhat close to releasing them (about 3-4 weeks or so), I'll tell you about what we've brewed so far.  We're brewing next week, so this won't be our complete lineup.

Batch No. 1 - Levud's (discussed in the last post) is a Belgian-style Golden Strong Ale.  This beer showcases the pear-like fruity esters from our yeast, as well as the herbally, refined hop flavor and aroma from Styrian Goldings and Czech Saaz.  It'll weigh in around 10.5% ABV.  This is a one time release, so we made a healthy amount of it.  We'll produce a little over 300 cases total.

Orchard White is our Belgian-style witbier.  We brew it with unmalted flaked wheat, oats, malted barley, corriander, orange peel, and lavender.  This is a thirst-quenching beer that will be a year-round offering.  This is one of the few beers we'll offer on draft.  We brewed a 15 bbl batch and hope it sells quickly so we can brew it again!

Black Orchard is a Belgian-style Black Wheat Beer.  This is an unusual beer, but we think this will be a popular one.  Like Orchard White, it's brewed with unmalted flaked wheat, oats, and  malted barley.  Unlike Orchard White, we have a proprietary mashing method of adding a lot of color without adding much of a roast flavor.  This beer lives up to the name-- it is black!  We also add different spices than we add to Orchard White.  This is one of my favorites, as it's refreshing and session-able but has some complexity and intangible qualities.  We brewed 15 bbl of this one as well.  With Orchard White, about 50% will be for draft, and the other 50% bottled.

Next week we'll be brewing Saison Rue and our Anniversary beer.  A little premature to be brewing an anniversary beer?  You'll change your mind when I describe what we'll be doing with it.

Batch No. 1

Batch No. 1 was brewed on Friday, March 7th by Tyler and I, and on Saturday, March 8th with the help of Loren Miraglia (one of the winners of the homebrew competition, along with Mark Graham who unfortunately could not make it), and our friend Brent Rahn.  Both days we had visitors who were eager to see the first batch being brewed.

The batch didn't go perfectly, but I'm confident the end result will meet our high expectations.  The burner system for my boil kettle was acting up a bit, so we had to watch for boil overs and occasionally turn the burners off.   I'm learning how to keep it under control so the burner has been less of an issue for the past few batches.  Our efficiency /extraction from these batches were a bit higher than we expected, so this beer will come out to 10.5-11% ABV instead of the 9.5% we were shooting for.  I even subtracted about 25% of the grain bill for the second day and still overshot my target.  I guess this was meant to be a big beer!

Thanks to Loren for making the trek out here from Encinitas, and to Brent for all of his help!  Also, a special thanks to Tyler for bringing his brewing and sanitation skills to The Bruery.  He's a very talented brewer, and the beers wouldn't be what they'll be without him involved.

Thanks to Spence Coleman for photographing the brew session!  These photos are much better than what I've been taking!

Bourbon / wine barrels and our bar.

The brewhouse / fermenters.

Brent, me, Loren and Tyler.

Tyler peeking into the whirlpool.

Vince, Heather and Kevin enjoying the humid, wort filled air, and perhaps a few beers.

Almost There

I won't keep you in suspense-- the Health Dept. approved us!  We can legally brew beer!

Yesterday was a crazy day.  I had just come back from being away for two days picking up bourbon barrels, wine barrels, and barrel racks, and the Health Dept. inspection was at 3:30 in the afternoon.  The 3 phase power wasn't turned on, the gas wasn't functional, and I needed both in order to pass the inspection.   The Gas Company was to turn on gas today, so I wasn't worried that we wouldn't have hot water.  Edison is another story.

I pled to Edison to turn on my power.  I called up the Edison planner I had dealt with before and explained my situation.  The City had released my meter to Edison last Tuesday, and they didn't receive the authorization fax.  The City sent it again on Monday, and it was released in their system on Tuesday.  They probably weren't planning to turn on power until next week, since they usually give it 5 working days from when the authorization is received by Edison.  The Edison meter guy shows up, I locate the meter for him, and he's there for 15 minutes and then leaves without telling anyone.  I call up my Edison planner again, and ask what's going on.  He gets the meter guy to come back, and he tells me he can't put a meter on a panel where Edison can't put a lock on the main breaker switch.  It had been torn off a long time ago, and this policy just came into effect last week.  I run to get Tyler, and tell the Edison guy not to leave.  Tyler welds on a piece so it can now be locked within 10 minutes, and we then expect the guy to turn on the power.  He calls his boss to see whether he's allowed to turn on the power now that we fixed the problem, since this is not the normal way of doing things at Edison.  He goes to lunch, comes back, and tells us he's able to turn on the power.  

I realize this is not a very interesting story (This one time, in band camp...), but if we didn't get power, we would have to reschedule our Health Dept. inspection, which would have set us back one to two weeks.  Some days things just go right.

I Can Almost Taste It!

Contrary to popular belief that The Bruery has liquidated all of its equipment and its owner is sitting at Hollingshead from 11 AM until 8 PM during the work week, and at Beachwood BBQ on Saturdays and Sundays drowning his sorrows, The Bruery's first batch is on the horizon!

The City of Placentia signed off our final inspection on Wednesday, February 14th.  I was elated to have the inspector come in, tell me the place is ready for business, and sign the last box on a long checklist of items.  It almost immediately changed my perspective from being in the brewery construction business to being an owner of a brewery and a brewer.  

This upcoming week the gas and electricity will be turned on, and we'll finally be able to use hot water and our pumps to clean the brewing equipment.  The Orange County Department of Environmental Health (Health Dept.) will be inspecting this Thursday, February 22nd.  If this inspection goes well, we'll be able to start brewing.  

We're looking to start brewing on Feb. 29th, which would allow us to start selling beer sometime in early April.  Hollingshead Deli will be our first customer, so they are graciously hosting an informal tasting to celebrate our first sale.  Kenny and I will be sure to let you know when that'll be!  

Also, keep Saturday, May 10th open for our grand opening party.  We will be open for business prior to then, but my priority right now is to get the beer out there once it's ready.  We will likely release a special seasonal beer at the party as well!

Thanks to all of you for being patient in this long process of opening a brewery.  I now understand what it is like to deal with construction and the bureaucratic process and why it takes such a long time.  While I hope The Bruery grows steadily, I'm not looking forward to building the next brewery!  Right now, I'm just looking forward to selling my first case.

Congratulations to Ben Cook of Hangar 24 Brewery in Redlands, and Aaron Barkenhagen of Bootleggers Brewery in Fullerton for brewing their first batches recently!  It looks like there's going to be a lot more great beer in Southern California very soon.