Digging the hole

It’s been a long two weeks of construction! Our hands and backs haven’t forgiven us yet, but the results are well worth it. I want to thank William, Robert, Brett, and Jay for coming out on a sticky Thursday night to help us rip up the floor. We really didn’t expect to start digging the hole to the sewer main until the next week, but you guys powered through it. We owe you many, many more beers for the effort! Cheers!

We will dig here... ... I think

... and so we begin

must have dug in the correct spot

Check out the Lucid Brewing page on Facebook for more photos!

By the way, I did finish brewing school.

Brewhouse at Hoppy Brewing, Sacramento, CA

Pub at Sierra Nevada Brewing, Chico, CA

What happened to 2009?

Taps at at Fitger’s Brewhouse - Duluth, MN

As one year ends and another begins, things have been quiet as far as the physical brewery goes. 2009 has been a year learning and making new friends.

Lucid Brewing – There’s a new Kid in Town by The Captain’s Chair

A few weeks back I chatted it up with Aaron Masterson of The Captain’s Chair.

Read about our conversation here: Lucid Brewing – There’s a New Kid in Town

Thank you Aaron for the article.

New pilot brewhouse

The order has been placed and the money put down on a new pilot brewhouse. This new brewhouse is still “small,” as its maximum capacity is only 2/3 bbl batches, but since we have not found a brewery location to-date, we are restricted in the pilot brewhouse’s size. On the plus side, this system has pretty much the same features found on a 10 to 30 bbl brewhouse. Its controller is at about the same level of complexity as a controller found on a bigger brewhouse, so hopefully the transition to brewing on a bigger brewhouse will be less painful when we find a brewery location in the future.

Now I have to round up some larger fermenters. By round up, I mean, find vessels that can be adapted to fermenter use, since new or used 1 bbl or smaller fermenters are ridiculously priced. I have a few months to work on the fermenters, since the brewhouse will not be ready until late August.

I cannot wait to brew on the new brewhouse.

Brewers Conference New England Cask Night

Twas another night at Harpoon. This time an offering of 60 cask ales from local New England breweries. My favorites of the night were Well Read Ale, a nicely balanced English Red Ale by Willamantic Brewing and Allagash’s Burnham Road. Burnham Road, a Belgian style smoked strong ale, didn’t have that strong ham bone smokiness, but more of a pleasant hash-like-sneak-up-on-you smooth smokiness. Of course I did not try all 60 cask ales, but from what I heard, all were quite good.

Brewers Conference Welcome Reception

 

The brewers conference welcome reception was hosted by Harpoon Brewery. Harpoon is conveniently located just a few blocks south of where the brewers conference was held. This is at the end of a day where we spent all day touring breweries. Did I need another beer? Ah, no. Did I have another beer. Hell yeah! Delicious beer it was. We had a great time chatting with other brewers and eating the chowder. Here’s a few pics.

Harpoon's beer bar

The coolest warehouse sound system ever.

Alyssa chats it up with Lyn Kruger of the Siebel Institute and Dave Anderson of Dave' Brew Farm. A startup brewery located near Wilson, Wisconsin.

Harpoon does brew beer here.

Off to Boston for the Brewers Conference

We just spent the weekend at my parents, where we left our son Liam and our dogs (Maggie and Cody) behind for a week of spoiling with the grandparents.

We get into Boston on Monday and plan on hitting a few pubs in Cambridge. We’re staying in east Cambridge, just across the St. Charles from Boston. Our schedule looks somewhat like this:

Tuesday: Brewery tours in New Hampshire during the daylight hours. This includes Cape Ann Brewing, Smuttynose Brewing, Redhook Brewing and Portsmouth Brewery. Okay so all are not in New Hampshire, but you know the saying. “If a bar (brewery) is on the right on side of the road…    …turn in.” In the evening it’s the Welcome Reception hosted by Harpoon Brewery.

Wednesday:Things start out with the Welcome and Keynote Address by Greg Koch of Stone Brewing. Then we’ll hit the BrewExpo followed by a bunch of seminars. I’ll have more on the seminars after we get back home and sober up. The seminars are broken up by some hospitalities. Hospitalites = beer and food. The evening has the Boston Beer Brewery Party in store for us. Guess who is hosting it? Just one guess.

Thursday:More seminars, a members meeting, more BrewExpo. More hospitalies. The evening? MBAANew England Cask Night hosted by Harpoon Brewery. Mmmm.

Friday:More seminars. No hospitalies – like I’ll need another beer. But in case I do, the late afternoon has the Closing Reception. Closing Reception = beer, food and friends. Later in the evening is the New England Brewers Night hosted by Harpoon Brewery. The perfect send-off by the great folks of New England.

Saturday:Catch a ridiculously early flight back to the Twin Cities and pick up our son and dogs from the Grandparents. Then we will begin reflecting back on the conference while breaking everyone of bad the habits that Grandpa and Grandma think is cute.

I’ll not have much time in Boston to blog, but I’ll send out a few tweets on Twitter now and then.

I gotta go, I need to finish the last glass or two of Classic American Pilsener left in the keg before we go.

Beer Geek – Craft Beer Gatekeepers

A beer geek is often the first person to consume a new craft brewer’s beer. A beer geek can be a home-brewer, a beer blogger, a beer cicerone, a beer snob, all of the above, none of the above. If you are reading this, you are most likely a beer geek. Most of the feedback a craft brewer receives is from beer geeks. Beer geeks are at brewery events, at festivals, at tastings, at beer dinners, volunteering, talking your ear off, and so forth. It seems like beer geeks are everywhere.

 

Unfortunate for brewers, beer geeks are not everywhere. Unfortunately for brewers, the beer geeks are only a small fraction of total beer consumers. This is not a total loss. Beer geeks go out of their way to try a new or local beer. They have many social ties like home-brewer clubs, tasting clubs, blogs, magazines, and chat rooms. The best thing about beer geeks is they are passionate about beer and are constantly talking beer with friends, many of whom happen to be macro-beer drinkers. Depending on the craft brewery’s size and styles of beer brewed, you may need this connection to the macro-beer drinker. Why? As I see it, the macro-brewers are losing market share and the craft brewers are gaining market share, so these macro-beer drinkers are, in sense, up for grabs. Sooner or later, a macro-beer drinker will have a gateway-craft-beer experience.

 

I believe beer geeks are one of the leading factors in causing a macro-beer drinker’s gateway-craft-beer experience. Sooner or later, their enthusiasm rubs off on you and the next thing you know, you’re sitting at a beer bar ordering something goofy. And just maybe you like it. That’s kind of how my gateway experience transformed me from macro-beer drinker to beer geek. I used to seek out the on-sale beer, now I seek the new beer, the what-haven’t-I-tried beer and the what-did-so-and-so recommend beer.

 

As a fellow beer geek, I do my share of promoting craft beer. In a recent conversation with a macro-beer drinking friend about how Miller High Life Light taste like water compared to Miller Lite, I recommended comparing Miller Lite to New Glarus Spotted Cow Ale. Another friend asked for advice on some different sour ales. I recommend some to her that I like. Some she liked. Others she described as, “It taste like feet, sweaty feet that have been stomping on cherries and I’m licking them.” Either her experience wasn’t that bad or she has a foot-fetish as she continues to try more sour ales.

 

Beer geeks may not be everywhere. But they’re there when you need them.

Going to Brewing School

The letter starts, “I would like to inform you that you have been accepted into the Craft Brewers Apprenticeship Program, beginning January 18th, 2010.” At this point I stopped reading, grabbed a pint glass, and filled it up. The letter continues on how my acceptance is conditional upon the completion of a “Principles of Chemistry” course and upon the receipt of the down payment. The course wraps up the week of June 21st with a residential week in Sacramento, CA, otherwise the course is distance based. Upon completion of the course, I will be apprenticing at a yet-to-be-determined brewery for five weeks.

Next stop, Minnesota State Colleges & Universities for some chemistry. I am not shocked that my accounting degree did not provide all of the necessary background course-work, but it did provide a bunch, so at least no more calculus courses. This course will be quite different than my accounting degree I received from St. Cloud State University. For instance, I will not be pounding Keystone, Busch Light Draft, Special X, Mickeys or other macro-brewed beer this time. Yes, SCSU was prior to my craft-brewed beer “gateway” experience. Also, I no longer attempt to buy the biggest amount of beer for the smallest amount of cash.