At the World Beer Cup... Still sober

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).

99+ Bottles of beer on the...pallet

This past week Patrick, I and several helpers bottled and kegged our way through 75 barrels (approx.) in three days. Thanks to everyone who helped us! Without you, Patrick and I would still probably be bottling. On a more exciting note, we filled up four oak barrels: two bourbon barrels with Batch #1-Levud’s, and two wine barrels with Saison Rue w/ brettanomyces. In the next week or two our anniversary beer will be ready to rack into its pretty cool new home or should I say homes. I’ll let Patrick tell you more about the details later. We will be attending Newport Beach Brewing Company’s 13th Anniversary on April 10th; if you plan on attending make sure to say hi and try our beer! Well, it has been a long day of cleaning at The Bruery and I just realized this isn’t very interesting. Hopefully I’ll see some of you at one of our tastings! (we’ll let you know when everything is locked in!)

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.

The Progress of the Past Year

Note: I wrote this about a week ago and haven't had time to finish up and post it until now. We have three batches in the fermenters (approximately 1,860 gallons of beer/wort) fermenting away. I'll fill you in on the last week in a day or two when I get a chance to catch my breath.

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Last year around this time I was dealing with real estate brokers trying to find a place to lease. I didn't know where I was heading at that time-- I just knew I wanted to start a brewery somewhere in Orange County and I'd accept just about any building to brew in (given a few modest requirements). I had no idea how much work starting a brewery would be, and just how great it would turn out. I'm very excited about the future of The Bruery, and I can't wait to share it with you. We're on the brink of brewing Batch No. 1, which is finally happening tomorrow. We brewed our yeast propagation batches last Friday and Saturday, which went surprisingly smooth, and now have healthy yeast to brew a bunch of beers in the next two weeks.

The following are some pictures from the nine months, from empty warehouse to functional brewery:

My brewhouse in January of 2007 when I was deciding on whether to purchase it.

The picture I took of 715 Dunn Way before I leased the space.

Empty warehouse, soon (or not so soon) to be a brewery.  Taken in May of 2007.

Moving the equipment from Windsor to Placentia in June or July of 2007.



Some Pliny the Elder to celebrate moving the equipment inside the warehouse.

Cutting the concrete.

Removing soil / grading.





Vestibule framing.

Flooring installed.

Moving and mounting the glycol chiller to the roof.

Setting the tanks upright.

My beautiful wife Rachel bringing us lunch during our brewing of the propagation batch.

Under the mash tun / grant.







Finally, getting to mash in!

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.