New Site finally up! Goodbye Blogger!

I'll keep this one around for those who've yet to make the transition, but GrassLands Brewery has a new site!

From now on, that'll be the site that's updated on a frequent basis.

GrassLands Brewery.

Awesome!

Brewing for Charity

Okay, don't have the web site up & running just yet, but the pieces are slowly falling into place. Patience, young Grass Hoppers. As I stated previously, the next brew I'm planning is what I lovingly refer to as the Happy Wife Hefeweizen. If you've got a wife and she's slightly into beer, it's highly likely that she's a potential hefe-addict. Mine is no different!


Hefeweizens are broad ranging in styles, flavor & content. The one I'm planning on brewing is a traditional Bavarian style, much like Paulaner (if you've yet to try one, GO OUT AND DO IT!). They're awesome. Mine will have a very slight caramel hint to it and I'm itching to get on to the brew.


Anyways, the Brewing for Charity title - let's get to it. My local homebrew club is sponsoring an event that you should definitely attend, called Pints for Paws. This is the 2nd year I've been participating, after a multi-year hiatus where things were a little too heated in town to pull it off. Mark your calendars for this year - May 21st, 2011 from 4-8 PM - at the Market Square Pavilion in Tallahassee, FL. Patrons get to taste a number of homebrewed beers in exchange for a modest donation to the Animal Shelter Foundation of at least $10. Last year's event saw hundreds of guests and we were able to successfully raise over $7500 for the Animal Shelter Foundation - our beneficiary. Many of my fellow homebrewers donate what they can (usually a 5-gallon keg) of a beer of their choice. Last year, my buddy and I brewed a hard cinnamon apple cider and a light summer ale. Those two kegs floated within 45 minutes of the start of the event - so get there early! Actually, many homebrewers bring more than 5 gallons worth, so you'll have plenty to taste. I'll be advertising this event out the wazoo in the coming weeks ahead. It's a great time for everyone. 


In anticipation for P4P, the NFBL is having a club brew this coming Sunday (March 27) where we're all getting together and brewing beers specifically for the event. I'm going to take some photos and post them here for you guys to check out. It'll be a fun chance to see what everyone else is thinking about making. All in all, you'll have your chance to taste the creations from 40+ brewers in the Tallahassee, FL region. It's for a great cause, one that's close to my heart, and we're all very excited. More to come!


Lastly, I'll leave you with a pint of one of my new favorites: Red Panda Rye. For more info on rye beers, click here. And while you're waiting for my commercial variety of RPR, go out and try Blue Point Brewery's RastafaRye Ale, you won't be disappointed. 

Goodness in a glass.
Oooh, isn't she lovely?

*Belgian Update*

Science!

Wasn't I talking about fermentation being awesome yesterday? Not 6 hours later, the Belgian Strong (pictured top left - and this is the inside of my temperature controlled freezer) started producing major amounts of CO2. The foam at the top that gets created is a byproduct of the fermentation process and it's called krauzen (pronounced "kroy-zen"). The Harvest Blueberry is still doing its thing below, but doesn't have much of a krauzen head at the moment - typically, the first part of fermentation (called primary fermentation) is when the yeast have themselves a couple of all-day/all-night parties. Right now, the Blueberry is in its secondary phase of fermentation, and the remaining yeast are a little tired and don't work as hard (slackers). With big beers (like the Belgian), the krauzen can get so intense that you need a blow-off setup (like the above) so you don't end up with yet another mess to clean up.

As many times as I've seen fermentation happening live (like the video below), I still can't help but be amazed and intrigued at the process. (turn up the volume - sorry for the piss poor phone/video quality, I'll have better clips in the future)

Belgian Strength



Adam monitoring the baby.

So here I am, relaxing after a good 4+ hour marathon of a brew session, enjoying one of my own beers, and reflecting on the day's events. As promised, I'm reporting back after brewing with Adam, the NFBL president. We had some ups & downs, but at the end of the day, we had a great 10 gallon batch of Belgian Strong ready to get fermenting. For the ups: We ended up with what we think will be an extremely well-balanced 10%+ ABV Belgian Strong - one that has a slight hint of licorice, caramel and spice. In fact, aside from the grains, here's the hop/spice/sugar additions:

Holy Adjuncts, Batman!

For those counting at home, that's 3 oz of "Fuggles" hops on the left, then 1 oz of "Saaz" hops in the next two containers, and then a cool 2 oz of Saaz I had left over from previous batches that went in during the final few minutes of the brew. Then we've got Star Anise spice (licorice-flavoring) and Bittering Orange Peel (slight citrus), followed by 3 lbs of Dark Belgian Candi Sugar - an ABV booster. This in compliment to the 30lbs of Belgian Pilsner, Maris Otter and various other specialty grains in the batch:

I've given it all she's got, Captain!

Which leads me to one of our brewday "downs": only 25lbs of grains would fit into my mash tun (cooler) - which holds 48 quarts (12 gallons). Drinking Thinking on the fly, Adam and I double mashed (25 lbs first, then the remaining 5 lbs afterwards) and came up only slightly below our targeted amounts. Not bad, all things considered!

For those of you who are completely confused by everything I just wrote, here's the skinny on my brewing process. In the first picture, you can see my brew rig - a gravity-fed all grain system. The hot liquor tank (hot water tank) is on top, the mash tun (cooler) in the middle, and boil kettle on the bottom. Here's how the proces works: Hot water gets immersed with a certain mix of base and specialty grains (depending on the type of beer you want to make) - called the mash - and after 60 minutes or so, the hot water/grain mixture gets converted to sugars. The brewer then drains those sugars into the boil kettle, sparges the grains (rinses the grains) with hot water to get the remaining sugars into the kettle, then the boil begins.

Full-on Boil Mode

Certain hops/spices/adjuncts are added during the boil - which lasts from anywhere between 60 and 120 minutes. The brewer then cools down the beer (now called "wort" - pronounced "wert") and adds a specific strain of yeast and the fermentation process begins! Fermentation is awesome - it's microbiology really - the yeast consume all the sugars in the beer, farting off CO2 and creating alcohol. We wait about a month and a half for all this to take place, then consume the finished product and the process starts all over again. Beer is awesome.

Ready to get started? Easy right? Maybe so, after some practice. But it's definitely fun...and addicting. The only thing is that you have to deal with this afterwards:

A hot mess

An owner of a brewery in Maine once told me: "If you like cleaning, you'll love brewing beer." Yeah, no kidding. Awesome day today and we'll see how this batch tastes. I plan on entering this specific one into a competition coming up in May along with two other beers I've had aging for a little while now. I'll report back on how that goes as well.

Other updates: the website is still under construction - but we're getting there. Almost time to officially launch it. Still researching and working on the business plan. Next brew will be a Bavarian Hefeweizen! Stay tuned!

Violet Beauregarde would be jealous...

 

Harvest Blueberry Wheat



So if you've taken a look at my list of Blogger "gadgets" to the right, you might've seen a section called "What's Fermenting?" Right now I've got a couple of meads chugging away and this beautiful baby (pictured above - notice the purpleish bubbles on top?), a 5 gallon batch of "Harvest Blueberry Wheat" that I made for my wife, Saralyn. There's a good story behind the creation of this sucker.

I'm from Maine. I wasn't born there, but the majority of my childhood was spent in the Vacationland State. Most of my family is still in and around New England, with plenty of family still up in middle-Maine. Anyways, we take a trip to visit every couple years or so and I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but Maine has some very decent craft breweries. Allagash, Sebago, Sea Dog, and Shipyard are some of the more notable ones, just to name a few. Blueberries are a big Maine crop and many of Maine's finest breweries have a seasonal blueberry ale or lager. The last time we ventured to the DownEast was when I was but a novice brewer. My wife Saralyn got a pint of Sebago Brewery's "Back Asswards Blueberry" and it was served with about 10-15 blueberries at the bottom of the glass. It was her first one and she love love loved it. Enough so that she asked me to make her one just like it. I don't know about you, but it's kind of intimidating to try to go from scratch and brew a beer for which your wife has just proclaimed her love. I hadn't ever made a fruit(y) beer before, but I got all excited at the new challenge regardless. In some ways, it pushed me down the path of crafting my own recipes.

Well, my first attempt with extract and a few speciality grains with a blueberry puree turned out to be awesome. The wife loved it even more than the one she had in the frozen north and just recently asked me to brew it again. The Harvest Blueberry Wheat pictured above is my second attempt, this time brewing from just grains (for those of you who've got no idea what I'm talking about, I'll provide an easy-to-follow guide to brewing your own beer a few posts from now).  We'll see how she turns out, but the sample tasted great.

Anyways, I wanted to highlight the Harvest Blueberry Wheat (which isn't quite ready yet - the above picture, though taken today, is with the blueberry mix just added in) as a segway segue to signify her importance and value to me as I push through to try and launch this brewery. I'm extremely lucky to have her in my life as she's expressed nothing but support for me to pursue my dream. I cringe when I hear horror stories about spouses who don't give a rat's backside about their "loved" one's goals. That is certainly not the case here in my situation. In my opinion, without her, this brewery wouldn't/couldn't be possible. When I first began thinking about starting a brewery, she simply said: "Why don't you?" It's a great feeling to know that when I'm going to need to lean on someone (and I definitely will need to in the months/years ahead), she'll always be right there. Oh, and did I mention she loves beer? Anyone care to challenge me for the best-wife-possible award?

Okay, enough mushy stuff. I just wanted to get that out there. But, in 5, 10, and/or 15 years from now when you take a sip of GrassLands' Harvest Blueberry from either a bottle or on tap, just remember that you were clued into some insider information on its inception, you sneaky kids.

Brewday pics (and maybe vids?) in the next post!

Cheers!

Changes already?

Yeah, but they're good changes...proactive even. 


When I first made the decision to actually attempt to pull this insane idea of a brewery off, I knew that I wanted to heavily involve you - the reader, the eventual (hopefully) patron, the ultimate critic I need and want to impress - in multiple facets of my company. Because it's you that this whole thing boils down to - you are the ultimate key to the success of GrassLands Brewery. So why shouldn't I go out of my way early to make sure your experience is memorable, even though you can't drink my beer (yet)?


With that said, I've got a Web site I'm working on getting up and running, but that takes a little bit a lot of time/energy/expertise. I've been working on it with my brother-in-law who is one of the best graphics artists I've ever met - I mean really, just check out his and my sister's photography site when you get a chance - he knows what he's doing. (And if you happen to be getting married, my completely "unbiased" opinion is that you let them handle all of your photography needs - trust me, you won't regret it)


So yes, there are a few changes coming to this only 3-day-old blog. The layout will be a bit different, the colors/background/etc. will change, I'll be using WordPress (shhh...don't tell Blogger). Point being, even though this thing isn't off the ground, I want the random person who hears about GrassLands from a friend of a friend of a friend's cousin to be able to head to my site with the least bit of trouble. I also want to "own" my content. While Blogger is great, if this thing evolves like I think it will, I'd better get started early on with the online stuff. I'll provide a few updates between then and now, but I expect by the end of this week, if you're reading this blog at all, it'll be here. (Uggh, doesn't that just look horrible right now? Just you wait, young Grass Hopper)


With that said, I think I'll add a recurring component I'd like to include in my blog in the days leading up to a brew day - called "What's Brewing?"


What's Brewing?
The president of my local brewers club and I are going to be brewing a 10 gallon monster of a Belgian Strong Ale this coming Saturday - one I've lovingly called "Ethereal Earth Belgian Strong." Anticipated ABV: a whopping 10.5%!  With over 32 lbs of grain, the capacity of my system will be pushed to the limit (not to mention pushing the limits of the style category, according to BJCP.) I also want this blog to be educational for my readers - especially the casual-to-nonexistent beer drinker - so if you have no idea what a Strong Ale is, feel free to click here and find out! I'll be sure to include pics/videos of that experience for your enjoyment and my embarrassment. 


Maybe in the future it'll actually be on tap and/or in bottles somewhere else besides my home! All kinds of Awesome! 


Cheers! 

Could be important information

After re-reading my first post, I thought I didn't cover a bunch of information and you, the reader, would most likely have a few questions. Here's a few that have been asked by a couple friends, relatives, colleagues, complete strangers:

Where am I at now?

Why beer...Didn't you go to college for close to 10 years? 

What are my next steps?

Do I want to run a brewery or a brewpub?

What kind of beer will I brew? 

Where will this brewery reside?

WTF does GrassLands mean?  

How long until this launches?

Hey, hey, hey! Easy with all the questions! In truth, I can't answer all those questions right now, but I'll do my best to provide you with what I can.

Right now.

Right now I feel like a toddler sitting at the adult table. GrassLands is a dream I've had for only a small amount of time, in the grand scheme of things. Right now I'm in an information-gathering and business-building phase. I brew as much as I can and as often as I can. I seem to be maxing out my capacity already and it's only March this year. When I started thinking about this, all I knew was that I could make beer that I eventually liked - and perhaps enough people I gave it to told me they liked it as well - enough so that I thought I could start a brewery. Isn't that how every microbrewery starts? It seems to be an overplayed story, but it's true. It's also a good feeling to see where you're at and read Sam Calagione's story about how Dogfish Head Craft Brewery started...or Hindy & Potter's Beer School, or by visiting numerous other brewery web sites and getting a feel for their journey. They all started the same way, buying some homebrewer kit and getting all dreamy about the possibilities of others enjoying their beer. Hey, I'm in the same boat, so to speak. Why not me? Why not now?

Why beer? Didn't you go to college for close to 10 years?

Didn't I give that impression with my first post? I love beer. I love beer so much that I'm fully ready to invest in a completely different career path than the one on which I've been traveling for some time now. My educational background might come in handy with the operation of things, but the way I see it, if you've got a dream, chase after it. I'm of the mindset that you'll be more disappointed in life by the risks you didn't take than by the ones you did. This whole thing might blow up in my face, but at least I gave it a shot...no, no - my best shot.

Next Steps?

Research. Brewing. Writing. Next question.

Brewery or Brewpub?

Why not both? I'll get to that in one of my next few posts. I can already tell I'm losing you as it is.

What kinds of beer will I brew?

I will only brew beer that I personally enjoy - which is a wide range in styles at the moment. But I'll say this, in the coming months ahead, I'll be involving you more in how the final product tastes, smells and looks. I won't sacrifice quality over quantity. Right now, I've got a bunch of personally crafted recipes...and I'm always tweaking them (using different yeasts/hops/base grains/specialty grains/adjuncts/etc. I'd like to assume that I've got something for everyone, but that might not be the case. However, I will put in 110% effort to brew the best and most unique beers possible - that I can assure you.

Where will the brewery reside?

That's an excellent question. So excellent I'm going to answer it whenever I actually have an answer.

GrassLands? Really?

This post is approaching term paper length. I'll explain in the coming weeks. My last name is only half of it. 

Get it? In the immortal words of Pete "Maverick" Mitchell: "Jeez I crack myself up."

Launch date?

Sheesh you're persistent! We'll see. Things on the home front will be getting much more clear in the next six months, so stay tuned.

Too long? I know I get too excited about this crap...probably to a fault. Oh well. Thanks for reading! 

Is this thing on?

Okay; where to begin. I guess I'll take the easy road.


Beer.


I love beer. I'm passionate about beer. I'm even sometimes angry about beer...(check that, angry about antiquated laws concerning beer). 


I brew my own beer. 


Let's hone in on that for a moment. I love brewing beer. I love crafting unique recipes. I like pushing the boundaries of different beer styles. Whenever I got first turned on to brewing beer, I only just recently had my first decent craft beer. I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Rogue Dead Guy Ale. I thought to myself: "Dang, this is much better than Miller Lite! Why haven't I tried this before? I was only 27 at the time, it seemed odd. Fast forward to tasting my very own creation for the first time - a honey brown ale made from extract. Something changed in me. I don't know if it's always been there, or simply materialized, but I wanted to brew more and more beer - and brew for a living. 


My profile states that I've never had an entrepreneurial bone in my body and that's me to the "T". I'm your typical Type B person that always seems to be satisfied with the status quo and usually nothing ever gets under my skin...and if it does, it doesn't stay there for long. However, when I started to brew more beer and different beer styles, comparing them to very, very good commercial craft beers, I became motivated to accomplish something not even remotely close to the current path on which I've been traveling.


Yeah, I was in my final years of a doctoral program at Florida State. I have a steady job. But after I began brewing very good beers, I wanted to have my cake beer and eat drink it too, so to speak.


So, I started getting more involved in my local brew club. I started expanding my equipment and the capacity for how much beer I could brew. I started looking into what a career in the craft brewing business looks like - the obstacles, the positives, the unknowns. I started to read more and more about entrepreneurship and the laws, regulations, etc. surrounding the craft beer field. I've almost memorized the entire movie Beer Wars - and I have a hard time not directing people to it...check that, hard time not talking about beer at all.


Long story short, I made up my mind to pursue my dream. GrassLands Brewery. It's fun to think about the road ahead - no matter how bumpy (and it's gonna be bumpy) it is - I'm anxious to take my first ever career plunge and see if I can make it. I don't have any business background. I don't have any financial/accounting/management background or experience. But I'm of the belief that the qualities I do possess (brewing great beer, a ridiculous attention to detail regarding this venture, and numerous talented people in many relevant fields around me who are willing to help) will allow this small (but soon to be large) business succeed. 


With that said, welcome to my first blog, if there's anyone reading! This will be GrassLands' public diary (of sorts) as I document my voyage through the entrepreneurial seas ahead.