Truly Green Beer

First off, Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone!! Cheers! And, on a personal note, Happy Anniversary to us! Here's to many more years together.

St. Patrick's Day is a well-known time for green beer. Beer dyed green is all well and good, but there is another type of green beer, a type that is truly Green Beer, and we wanted to dedicate some space to it. This company is an inspiration to us.

New Belgium Brewing ~ http://www.newbelgium.com/sustainability

New Belgium Brewing is located in Fort Collins, Colorado. According to their website, see above link, here are the ways they are Alternatively Empowered.

Our Alternatively Empowered efforts:

While there are many ways to be stewards of the earth, each company must determine which strengths they have to leverage. Here are some of ours:
1. Increased efficiencies in the brewing process
Our brew kettle, Steinecker's Merlin, was the second of its kind installed in the U.S. and is considered more efficient than standard brew kettles because it heats thin sheets of wort rather than the whole kettle at once.
During wort boil, the steam exits the kettle through a stack and into a heat exchanger which continually extracts heat from the steam vapor and holds it in our energy storage tank. During the next batch, the stored heat helps the wort to boil very quickly, allowing us to use very little primary energy.
2. Utilized green design throughout our building.
Lighting. We take full advantage of the more than 360 days of sunshine in Fort Collins by using UV blocking windows, sun-tubes, and light shelves.
HVAC. Using evaporative coolers, we can condition our 55,000 square foot packaging hall with no compressors, using much less energy.
Materials. In our new packaging hall, the interior wood is beetle kill pine. Summit County, CO, anticipates that mountain pine beetles will kill 98% of their lodgepole pines. So, we’re giving these fallen trees another life.
3. Implemented a process for treating our wastewater: The Clean Water Act of 1973 requires business to clean their water to domestic treatment standards before discharging, but we go above and beyond to reduce the load on our municipal plant. And we get two valuable by-products from this treatment—methane and nutrient-rich sludge.
4. On-site energy production. The methane produced by process water treatment is used to fuel a combined heat and power engine—or co-gen—which creates electricity and heat for the brewery. The co-gen allows us to offset those critical—and expensive—peak loads by creating electricity on-site from a renewable source—our process wastewater. When the co-gen is running full-time, it can supply 15% of our electrical needs.
5. Wind-powered electricity since 1999. In 1999, New Belgium became the largest private consumer of wind-power electricity at that time and the first wind-powered brewery. In 1998, when we were researching ways to lower our environmental impact, Fort Collins was launching the first city-sponsored wind program in Colorado. We made a 10-year commitment to buy all of our electricity through the program, which allowed them to install an additional turbine, in Medicine Bow, WY. Since the wind premium increased our total cost per kilowatt-hour by 57%, it impacted employee’s profit sharing pool. So, we asked employees: wind-power or not? They unanimously voted for clean energy, and the decision is a fabled moment in New Belgium history.
6. Employ a High Involvement Culture. An environment in which the full power of everyone’s hearts and minds are brought to bear on creating positive change. HIC is a 3-legged stool which stands on opening the books, employee ownership, and participative decision-making.
7. Sustainable Eventing. We try to minimize the environmental impact of our events at every turn. Our philanthropic bike festival, Tour de Fat, celebrates bicycling as a viable form of alternative transport. A solar-powered stage provides sound for the day, beer is served in compostable cups and our overall waste stream diversion rate is better than 85%.
8. Actionable Advocacy. We’re members of 1% For the Planet, which means that, through donations and fund-raisers, 1% of our revenue goes to environmental non-profits.
Team Wonderbike, our bicycle commuter advocacy program, has more than 10,000 members who have pledged to offset more than eight million car miles by riding their bikes more over the next twelve months.
Public speaking/education: Because we make and sell beer, people are interested in our story. We’ve been very successful while being values-driven, and we strive to be a business role model.
To encourage sustainable transportation, every employee gets a custom cruiser bike after one-year of employment.
9. Constant benchmarking. Without data, how can you measure progress? Every company needs to figure out how to track non-financial results, to be sure that they’re not just giving lip-service to environmental goals. Our Life-cycle Accessment
10. Partnering to support innovative technology. The company Oberon has installed a small treatment plant next to our own that will use our process wastewater to harvest sludge to create a high protein fish food for aqua-farms. If successful, we can learn how to turn our waste stream (that currently becomes an amendment to compost) into an income stream and a source of global nutrition.

~ Seriously, WOW!! That is some truly green beer for you!

OK..

Carrie: Why are you shaking it like that?
Me: So it all comes outta here

Carrie: Do you have to keep shaking it like that?
Me: This is a different one! What's wrong with you?

You perverts .. I'm just making a yeast starter!

Decadence takes 1st Place

~Our 1st place trophy from the Star City Brewers Guild's December 2009 "Imperial Anything" Competition. A very proud moment.~

We're members of Roanoke's local homebrewers' guild, Star City Brewers Guild - aka, SCBG, http://www.starcitybrewers.org/. We're proud to be part of such a great group and are grateful for the chance to get to learn from, and drink with, other homebrewers. Unfortunately, the Roanoke Valley is not yet known for it's appreciation of good beer.
Every year the SCBG holds 4 different competitions, spaced out over the course of the year. We don't normally enter them, as we're working towards opening our own brewery and choose to focus on perfecting our own recipes. The general rule has been that if we had a beer that fit the competition, then we could enter it. To date, we've entered 3 competitions with SCBG: Dec. 2008's Porter Competition (we entered an Imperial Vanilla Bourbon Porter ... not exactly to style!), March 2009's Brown Ale Competition (we entered our Back Porch Brown Ale), and then Dec. 2009's "Imperial Anything" Competition. We had yet to be sent up to the final round, much less place.
One thing about competitions, especially ones where you don't have BJCP certified judges, is that they're REALLY subjective. The judges are seeking out flaws, many of which are hard to detect and often flavors that the brewer intended to put in the beer. It's tricky. So, competitions aren't something we put too terribly much stock in.
This past SCBG meeting (which, ironically enough was held Jan. 2, 2010 because of a big snow that hit the weekend it was to be held in December) we weren't holding our breathes. Decadence is a big beer. The name embodies it. We titled it as an "Imperial Bourbon Chocolate Stout." Since this was an "Imperial Anything" competition there were Imperial Pale Ales, Belgian Ales, Pilsners, Stouts, Porters and so on. Titles were required so the judges would know what to base their judging on - and each beer was judged by it's style, not against other beers. At least not till the final round, where the judges pick what they feel is the best beer.
But, like I said, we weren't holding our breathes. We were shocked to find that Decadence had been sent up to the final round, which was a large round due to many entries. When the winners were announced we were blown away to find out that we got 1st place. Our first time placing at all in a competition. A very proud moment. We were especially proud because Decadence is the first beer we really crafted together as a team. And, that particular batch was brewed on a good day, with friends over, good food, and, most importantly, the kids helping out. http://soulonebrewery.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html It was a great day. It is something that confirms to us that we each have our own part to contribute, that this is a family brewery ... even if right now it is a homebrewery.

But there is something that matters much more to us than a trophy, and always has. It is hearing people try our beers and tell us what they think. It is that "oh yea" expression on someone's face. We brew beers that WE like, that we hope YOU like. Competitions, contests, awards, trophies ... all those things are secondary. Nice if you win, a little bit of a bummer when you don't, but nonetheless, secondary.
Driving home that night we were both a little overwhelmed by the win. More overwhelmed by the praises of Decadence's quality and the "THAT'S a good beer!"

Thank you. Thank you all, even those of you who weren't at the meeting. Thank you for drinking our beer. Thank you for liking it. Thank you for asking for refills, and for the praise and smiles.


... and thanks for the trophy. ;)

Ice Coated Brewing

This past Sunday we brewed another batch of our Back Porch Brown Ale. The difference of brewing this day was that we started brewing was coated in ice.

~This was the deck, first thing in the morning, as we got ready to set up for brewing~

~We're getting set up now and you can see the ice still coating the deck. At least it's not raining, right?~

Brewing went well, despite the bitterly cold start to the morning. Several people have asked whether the cold weather makes it take longer for the water to boil, but we didn't find that there was much of a difference. Our burners are some high kickin' burners though, so maybe that makes a difference? The cooler weather DID make it a little bit quicker to chill down after the boil; which was good because it saved us some water consumption (less water needed to cool it down), and the quicker it cools down the quicker you can get it into the carboys. This equals a smaller chance for infection. Also, the quicker you cool it, the better "cold break" you will get which will reduce or eliminate the occurrence of chill haze. Chill haze doesn't affect the flavor of the beer though, only its appearance; so for those who want a nice, clear, "see-your-hand-through-the-glass" beer, chill haze is something that is a bit undesirable.

~Shannon, in his hat & gloves, helping to skim the foam off of the wort, at the end of the sparge, as it gets ready to boil~

~Here he is dumping the foam he skimmed off into a pot of water that will be dumped out on the grass~

We once again fermented 5 gallons with American yeast and 5 gallons with English yeast. We've been a little lax about keeping good records as to which yeast we prefer in the final product. Note to brewers: keep good records, all the way through!!
5 gallons we will keg and 5 we will bottle. Kegging is easy and quick, and it is hard not to keg all 10 gallons, but we're remembering the importance of bottling beer as well. Gifts, bartering, competitions, beer in bottles can be a good thing.

We'll keep you updated with what we brew next.

Teach a Friend to Homebrew

Last Saturday, November 7th, was National Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day. From http://www.beertown.org/events/teach/index.html ~
The American Homebrewers Association (AHA) Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day is an international event to introduce people to the homebrewing hobby and establish relationships with local homebrew supply shops.
Each year on the first Saturday in November, homebrewers around the world are encouraged to invite non-brewing and brewing friends and family to celebrate Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day and brew a batch of beer together.
Before the event, participants that have Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day events register their site on this web page. These registered sites help the American Homebrewers Association track how many participants celebrated the event.

As usual, the Star City Brewer's Guild hosted a TAFTH at Lamplighter Mall, outside Blue Ridge Hydroponic and Homebrew Store. While we only stayed a short while, we did stop by with the kids for a bit early on in the day. We watched one member add his grains for his all-grain brew, and another start his kit-brewing. The gentleman who was doing the kit-brew explained to the kids how he was hanging the grains from a wire so that they wouldn't burn from sitting on the bottom of the pot. Shannon picked up on this and was able to tell us what he learned on the way home. Tristan, who is still only 3, only noted that the gentleman didn't have crackers and cheese .. something he had when we visited him at his home during a brew day!
HOWEVER, something kinda impressive happened the next morning.


~Tristan helping stir the pot~

Sunday, the 8th, we brewed our "Ruby's Deep Winter" Stout. While both kids insist on helping, it is normally Shannon who is really insistent upon being a part. This Sunday, however, it was Tristan who woke up ready to brew. I have no doubt in my mind this was because of attending Teach a Friend to Homebrew the day before.

While a 5 1/2 year old and a 3 year old may not have exactly been the "target audience" for learning to homebrew, they did learn. And since we live in a society where practically the only thing deemed allowable/acceptable/appropriate for children to do is watch tv, play video games, and generally be worshipped rather than productive members of a household ... I consider them learning how to homebrew a great success.

Mellowing into Fall ~ Pumpkin Ale

We brewed our first Pumpkin Ale of the year on Sept. 23rd. We use fresh pumpkins, so the anticipation and wait for them to be in season is an event all it's own. Here are some photos from this past brew session.


~The set-up, with the pureed pumpkin and rice hulls~


~Shannon stirs while Justin adds the grain~


~Tristan watches~



~Tristan and Shannon take turns stirring the pot~


~And, finally, the pumpkin is stirred in~

We must confess here, this didn't turn out quite like we had hoped. To quote Carrie's step-father "it didn't blow our skirts up." So, ingredients have been ordered and we hope to brew another batch this next weekend. That's one of the little hiccups with brewing seasonal ales, if you're not quick enough, you only get to brew once a year! And, we expect our seasonals to blow our skirts up!!
We're also still working on a good name for this brew. Some have come to mind, but we worry about copyright infringement and stuff like that. If you have any good ideas you'd like to suggest, please leave a comment ~ we'd love to hear from you!

Decadence on Memorial Day

~Quick apology for the lack of photos here, but keep a weather eye our on that horizon for a slideshow of photos soon to come!~

On Memorial Day, after a long weekend (two nights + little kids = long weekend) of camping, we got to brew! Most people were busy grilling out and celebrating pools opening ~ we were busy brewing up our intense "Decadence" and noshing on some homemade pizzas!
Decadence is our Winter Holiday beer. Last year, we brewed it with the intention of drinking it over Christmas, but it ended up being our known as our "winter holiday preparation" beer as only a couple bottles made it to Christmas. It's an Imperial Stout with chocolate, vanilla, and Wild Turkey. It earns it's name! This year, we needed to use up the grain we had gotten via a bulk order from Big Daddy's Brewing (http://www.bigdaddybrewingcompany.com/). The grain arrived crushed instead of whole, meaning it would spoil quicker. Decadence to the rescue!
Brewing went really well. We did realize that 36lbs of grain is about all we can handle, with our current set up, during one brew session. We could possibly do 40lbs, but we're not sure how we would get the sparge arm on over it. We hit the OG dead on at 1.100. We also got a chance to really test out the new tent.
If you aren't in the area, or if you are in your own world, you may have missed the fact that the greater Roanoke Valley has been going through a very wet "rainy season" lately. Great for the ground, for building streams and rivers back up, for crops and newly planted trees; but bad for a lot of other stuff. We've set the tent up once before on a brew-day, but didn't have all the hot liquor tank underneath. This time we did. We had water on hand in case of fire, but we needn't fear. One: it did fine. Two: it DID rain!! It poured down for a while actually. The tent worked, everything remained safe and not-watered down, and when the sun returned, we had a nice, dry, shady area to hang out. The only ones not happy about the rain were the dogs. We've begun putting up a baby gate to block them from the deck (Whiskey, our chocolate lab keeps burning herself on the burners .. you'd think she'd learn!), and instead of finding other shelter in the rain, they stood at the baby gate, leaning their heads over it & pouting. Yes, they were pouting. Especially Jomo.
For the most part though the rain ended as our guests arrived. We were joined for this brew-day by our friends Kevin & Bailie. Kevin is a brewer as well and both he and Bailie are also members of the Star City Brewer's Guild. http://www.starcitybrewers.org/
As usual, Shannon helped add the hops. This time he also got to add the cocoa, which was a nice treat for him. He has now begun telling his friends he can't play with them "because I'm brewing!" This is pretty funny to here a 5 year old say. Tristan was asleep for most of the time, but he did show a lot of interest when Justin was filtering the beer into the fermenter. Carrie was able to get some cute photos of all of this.
All in all, the brew-day went really well. Carrie made two homemade pizzas which were quickly devoured by everyone. She is now on a quest to find some good pepperoni made from pasture raised pork.
The beer has gone through quite a vigorous fermentation process though. If we had hooked up a blow-off tube it probably would've been fine and resulted in less mess to clean up, but hey. To help try and keep it as we want to be, we've put the beer into coolers filled with water and ice packs. The goal is to keep try and keep the beer at a constant 70-72 degrees. This is one of those times where we realize the downside of not having AC, and we're looking for remedies for the future.
The vanilla will be added during the secondary fermentation which might occur next weekend - we'll just have to see how it's all going. The Wild Turkey will be added when it is time to bottle &/or keg the beer. In the future we will plan on using a cask for this time, and let the beer age to absorb the flavors. We're hoping to let the beer age in bottles and still drink it during the winter holidays, but this is like getting boxes of Girl Scout Cookies and expecting them to last for 6 months. You can hope, but don't hold your breath.