Third Anniversary

Hard to believe that three years have gone by so quickly. Seems like only yesterday that we were brewing our first batch of beer or even sitting in an empty warehouse, imagining where the mash tun would be placed. We've had so much love and support from the craft beer community this past year and we're really excited for all the things yet to come.

For our party this year, we're stepping things up a notch and rather than the typical day where people come down to our facility and try a few of our beers, we'll be renting out a beer garden space at the nearby Phoenix Club and throwing our very own beer festival! We've invited a whole bunch of local breweries plus a few of those that we have collaborated with recently and we'll of course be pouring a ton of our own beers. We've also divided the party up into two sessions and each session has a special VIP area where some of our more rare beers will be poured. Music is going to be provided by Jack FM, food will be sold through The Phoenix Club and we'll also be serving complimentary cheeses and snacks from The Bruery Provisions.

Most importantly, all of the proceeds from the event will be benefitting a local medical clinic that helps the poorest of the poor in Orange County obtain all sorts of medical care. The clinic is called Lestonnac and we highly suggest you check them out.

Visit our website for some more info and to buy your tickets!

GABF

We all just got back from an incredible weekend at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, CO and we're pretty much spending the day recovering. 8 people from The Bruery went up for the festival and we really had an incredible time. We had the opportunity to get some behind the scenes tours of Odell's brewery, New Belgium Brewery and Avery Brewery as well as sneak a peak at The Great Divide's Brewery located right in downtown Denver. We Spent the days meeting up with other brewers and beer lovers from around the country and had the opportunity to share our beers with people from all over, which was really a great experience. Hopefully some of the other great breweries we discovered will become partners for some collaboration efforts in the future, which would be amazing.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to take home any medals this year (there were over 3,000 beers entered in the 78 categories), but there seemed to be a great outpouring of love for our beers on the show floor, and thats where it really counts. Since many of our beers are sort of bizarre for their style, its tough to win an award up against beers that are dead on for the style, but its really about producing a product that people enjoy. We did (or shall I say Rachel did) win the award for festival booth flair! And the line for Black Tuesday was insane.

For anyone who was at the festival and stopped by, thanks! And for anyone who didn't make it out, we highly recommend you do next year as it was one of the best trips we've been on.

Tap List for Our 1st Anniversary Celebration

I thought I'd leak the list rather than keeping you in suspense.  We're tapping some pretty cool beers.  Rather than commenting on which ones I'm digging the most right now, I'm curious what you think once you've tried them tomorrow.

Main Bar

-- Year Round Beers:
Orchard White (5.7%)

Black Orchard (5.7%)

Saison Rue (8.5%)
Hottenroth Berliner Weisse (3.1%)

-- Seasonal Beers:

Saison De Lente (6.5%)

100% Brett Saison De Lente (6.5%)

Trade Winds Tripel (8.1%)

-- Humulus Series Beers:

Humulus Ambre (5.9%)

Humulus Blonde (5.5%)

-- Limited Release Beers:
Melange #3 (15%)

Papier (14.5%)

Virgin Papier (14%)

Batch No. 1 - Levud’s (11%)

Sour Bar

-- Limited Release Sour Beers:
Melange #1 (9%)

Cuvee Jeune (6%)

White Zin (7.5%)

Gypsy Tart (6.5%)

On the hour (12 - 5), we’ll be opening bottles of barrel aged Papier on the side of the main bar (2 oz. per person).

Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!

Stone 12th Anniversary

A recap on a festival that happened a few weeks ago, but is certainly not old news--

The Stone Anniversary Festival was pretty fantastic for us.  We brought every beer we've released so far (Orchard White, Black Orchard, Saison Rue, Trade Winds Tripel, Batch No. 1 - Levud's, Bourbon Barrel Aged Batch No. 1 - Levud's, Hottenroth Berliner Weisse, and Humulus Bruin).  We went through 84 gallons of beer; not a minor feat.

The reason this festival was so great was that many of the people coming up to our booth did not know about The Bruery.  We were able to meet them personally, explain who we are and what we do, and have them try our beers.  I think we might have a few new customers now.

It was also great to talk to people who have been supportive of us since we started-- old homebrewing friends, fellow BeerAdvocates / RateBeerians, and Southern California brewers.

The folks at Stone did an amazing job organizing the festival.  I was overwhelmed by the coordination and helpfulness of everyone working.  When we arrived, everything for the festival was unloaded from my truck onto a golf cart, and was driven off to my booth.  Not having to drag around a few jockey boxes, Co2 containers, and our fairly heavy new portable bar made the day all that much better.

We're looking forward to the 13th Anniversary!

The line for Barrel Aged Batch No. 1-- sorry to those who patiently waited and didn't get any!

San Diego Real Ale Festival

I spent Friday and part of Saturday in Carlsbad (Pizza Port) at the San Diego Real Ale Festival organized by Jeff Bagby, Tom Nickel and Tomme Arthur.  

This is a great festival with a focus on local beers served in an unusual way.  Real Ale is beer that conforms to the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) method of treating and serving finished beer.  To describe it briefly, the beers were mostly served from hand pump engines, where the beer is hand pumped out the faucet instead of forced out the faucet with CO2.  The beer is naturally carbonated, and tends to be low on carbonation, and the serving temperature is around 50 degrees F.  Bottle conditioned beers are also "Real Ale", so there was a small selection of bottle conditioned beers.

We had our Humulus Bruin on cask, which is a hoppy Belgian-style brown ale.  This is the second runnings of our Imperial Stout (which won't be released until late 2009), and I have to admit not a great candidate to be served on cask.  I really like this beer from the tap, and trying it at the festival was the first time I had it on cask.  It still had the intense hop aroma I enjoy in this beer, but without much carbonation, became a bit thin.  Carbonation is one of those things which can contribute to the perceived body of a beer.  It was fun trying it on cask, and enough people seemed to enjoy it, so no harm done I hope.

We also had bottles of Saison Rue for the VIP session.  The case we brought for this ran out within an hour and I received a lot of positive comments on it.  

The word about our brewery is getting out there.  I spoke with a lot of people who have recently tried our beer (besides those trying it at the festival), and heard a lot of great things.  We'll have many new accounts in San Diego over the next two weeks, so I'm hoping the positive attention grows!

I'll keep an eye out on other blogs for pictures.  As normal, I was too focused on people and beer and didn't take any!

Boonville Recap

Rachel, Tyler and I went to Boonville for the Boonville Beer Festival put on by Anderson Valley Brewing Company last weekend. We spent two nights on the grounds of Anderson Valley, which is a beautiful place.  We plan on distributing in Northern California in the next few months, so we thought this would be a great opportunity to get our name out there.  While we had many fun and interesting experiences on the trip, it seems like it was ages ago since so much has been going on so I'll spare the details.  I do have a cold right now so that's probably a souvenir from the trip.  

Here's a photo of us at the festival serving our beer (thanks to Jay Brooks, Brookston Beer Bulletin):