The Perfect Beer For Mud Season: DURTY!!!

Get Durty with Smuttynose this Mud Season!! 

A big, hoppy, brown ale is just what you need to make it through the meteorological ups and downs of spring.

Durty, one of our most talked about Short Batch releases, graduates to fill a long-vacant spring slot in Smuttynose’s seasonal beer rotation. 

Each bottle and pint features a delicious balance of carmelly brown ale malt flavors and the hop profile of a double IPA. Durty has enough oomph to get you through the frosty mornings and chilly nights, while the light body and hop flavor will awaken your tongue and senses for the coming

warm weather. 

We’re also excited about Durty’s packaging.  It’s our first beer with two distinct images.  There’s no telling what the label mix will be in a six pack or twelve pack, but both images are featured on the six pack and twelve pack containers.  

Durty will be shipping out throughout the month of January, but you can try it and buy it at our Holiday Open House on December 21.  Stop by between 11am and 4pm at 225 Heritage Avenue in Portsmouth, our current and original home.

Durty Vital Stats                         
8.4% abv  97 IBU
Malts: North American 2-Row, Munich 10L, Chocolate, C-60, Brown Malt
Hops: Bittering-Magnum, Flavor- Nugget, Dry Hop- CTZ and Chinook
Yeast: White Labs WLP-001 American Ale

Available in six packs, twelve packs and cases of 12 ounce bottles as well as 5.2 gallon and 15.5 gallon kegs. Durty will be hitting markets throughout the month of January.

Holiday Open House

On December 21, we're opening the doors of our Heritage Avenue brewer for a holiday Open House.  You can try Pure Biss, our culinary collaboration with Chef Jamie Bissonnette, and Durty, a hoppy brown ale (8.4%, 97.5 IBU), on tap, and bottles of both will be for sale.  We'll be offering brewery tours, good humor and, if you ask nicely, impromptu Christmas carols.  You're welcome to drop in from 11am-4pm. Our staff will merrily greet you!

This is one of two six pack designs for Durty

Yup, we're using both.

Lights, Camera, Action!

Christmas came early to our new brewery site in Hampton!

Our state-of-the-art brewhouse (see picture below) and bottling equipment has arrived from Europe and we begin unpacking it tomorrow.  There are two reasons we're telling you this.  First of all, we're really, really, incredibly excited that these vital pieces of equipment have finally arrived. The other reason is that we're ready for our close-up.

You can follow the unloading and installation process on our webcam from the comfort of your own home.  Just direct your browser to http://www.towlefarm.com beginning tomorrow (12-10) and see the latest images from the production floor.

We don't know how Santa wrapped these presents in wood.

We hope you tune in and see how things are shaping up.  Once the brewhouse is commissioned, we'll start brewing, so it shouldn't be too much longer!  We estimate it'll be just two more months, including the German installation team's Christmas break, to get down to business.

Introducing Pure Biss, a Culinary Collaboration

 Pure Biss, Smuttynose's third chef collaboration (and first Smuttlabs release) debuts this weekend at Sonny's Tavern in Dover.

This unconventional witbier gets its swerve from the contributions of Chef Jamie Bissonnette. Instead of the traditional coriander and orange peel, Jamie brought kaffir lime leaves, spruce tips and 25 pounds of grapefruit zest to the brewday.  The rest of the ingredients are appropriate to the style.

How does it taste?  You'll have to come see for yourself at Sonny's, or after December 9, when the beer begins shipping to wholesalers.  Bottles will be available at Smuttynose, the weekend of December 13.

 

This is Biss

Chef Bissonnette has been widely recognized for his cuisine at Coppa, Toro and Eastern Standard in Boston, as well as winning "Chopped" on the Food Network. He has just opened a second Toro in New York, with business partner Ken Oringer. Coppa, Toro-Boston and Toro-Manhattan will all proudly feature Pure Biss bottles. 






Pure Biss Vital Stats

5.4% abv 15 IBU

Malts: North American 2-Row, Wheat, Flaked Wheat, Flaked Oats
Hops: Bittering-Magnum, Flavor-Sterling
Yeast: White Labs WLP-400 Belgian Wit

Batch Size: 30 barrels, packaged in 5.2 gallon kegs and crown finished, 375ml bottles.

Fight the Black Friday Blues with Beer!

With Smuttynose Beer, of course!

At Smuttynose, we consider a pint of flavorful beer an excellent way to take respite from the hustle and bustle of our busy lives. Black Friday can certainly be a whirlwind of door busters, mega deals and crowded stores—or another day trapped in the house with your family. Fortunately, we have a solution for both situations: our first Black Friday Open House!

We're opening the doors of our original/current brewery on Heritage Avenue in Portsmouth from 1pm-7pm on Friday, November 29 for beer samples, tours, hospitality, and retail sales. We hope you'll stop by to enjoy some rare beer samples, case discounts on Scotch Ale, Barleywine, and Winter Ale, and a selection of "Smerchandise" to help you get some holiday shopping done in a casual, pro-beer environment. You won't need a reservation, just drop-in; we'll be glad to see you!

*Our 5:30pm tour will still be taking place, as scheduled.

Bouncy House Release this Friday!

This Friday, November 15, bound on over to Smuttynose at 4pm to try our newest Short Batch release, Bouncy House!

What is Bouncy House?  It's the next step in our quest to brew the perfect low-alcohol, high-flavor, hoppy American ale.  We learned a few things from brewing ParadoX earlier this year, like lowering the alcohol content and avoiding the terms "session" and "IPA."

When you taste Bouncy House, you'll taste a modest malt bill of North American 2-row, British pale ale malt, C-60 and Aromatic malt mashed for a refreshingly light body that leaves plenty of spotlight for a melange of Warrior, Calypso, El Dorado and Citra hops.

In-house, organoleptic tasting left us with some great first impressions, but Team Smuttynose wants to know what you think.  If you're on Untappd, please check in with a comment for us.  If you're tweeting, please use the #bouncyhouse hashtag.  You can also send us direct email or leave note on our Facebook page.  Your feedback will help guide any changes for the next brew.

To encourage your experimentation, we're offering 22 ounce bottles of Bouncy House for just $3 at Smuttynose and in the off-premise trade.  Draft prices will be difficult to peg exactly, but they'll be in line with what you can expect to pay for our year-round beers. 

So please come say hello, have a beer and speak your mind this weekend.  We're looking forward to it!

Newness Update

The weather is certainly crisping and brisking up as we move closer to Thanksgiving and bask in the glow of another Boston Red Sox World Series championship.  The beards they've got going are pretty awesome too; it's like a natural kinship shared with our brewers.

If you need more Granite State goodness to fill your glasses this fall, then look no further because we've got a bit of everything for you to choose from. 

Option #1) The return of Smuttynose Barleywine to the Big Beer Series:  This year's release (10.6% abv) will begin shipping on November 11.  We took a few years off from making barleywine and it's back this year with a leaner malt profile and slightly lower bitterness.  This means more drinkability (hooray!) for sweater weather and beyond. We may also have filled some oak barrels for future deliciousness opportunities.

Options #2) In the opposite direction of Barleywine is Bouncy House (4.9% abv), our next Short Batch release.  A light-bodied, light-colored, quaffable, hoppy American ale brewed with Warrior and Calypso hops in the kettle and Citra and El Dorado in the fermenter for dry-hopping.  We'll be packaging Bouncy House in the second week of November with a final release date yet to be determined.  There are only 30 barrels of this beer and we want to know what you think once it's out, so hit us up over Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

Option #3) Smuttynose Winter Ale (5.8% abv), our take on Belgian dubbel, is just getting to markets now.  We love telling people that this beer is completely spice-free, which allows the spicy Belgian yeast notes and fruity malt flavors to shovel their way to your taste buds. Smuttynose's art department has also created posters, coasters and glassware for select bars and restaurants, so keep your eyes peeled.

Last but not least, it's not too late to see where the magic has been happening for nearly twenty years at our home on Heritage Avenue in Portsmouth.  We're still offering brewery tours on Fridays at 5:30pm and Saturdays at Noon and 2pm.   They're free and you can make a reservation online, to make sure you've got a spot on the tour of your choice.

New Brewery Update- October 28, 2013

Things are starting to pick up at our new, under-construction brewery in Hampton, NH.  Last week, which saw lots of visible changes to the space, was capped off by a visit from New Hampshire Governor Maggie Hassan (Below) and a busy keg social on Saturday afternoon, with over 100 people stopping by for a pint and look around. 

What's happened recently?  

Quite a bit actually.  Most significantly, the production facility and offices are nearly complete and we're starting to receive pieces of equipment, which you'll see below.

Six 270 barrel fermenters and two 270 barrel bright tanks have arrived from Mueller.  They are being brought in and put into place as this post is being written.

Packaging conveyors and machines are being laid out and installed. This does not include our bottle filler, labelled or rinser that are coming from Germany, but includes machinery that will prepare the cases, six packs and twelve packs to receive filled bottles.

The centrifuge and its control panel (in the picture) have also arrived and will be installed in the near future.  This means we can spin yeast and other haze-casting compounds out of the beer to the extent we wish as well as recovering more beer out of each fermenter. For you, it means clear beer in the keg or bottle.

We've also recently fired up the boilers and incoming water treatment system, which will prepare our process water and the steam we'll use to brew beer.

So, when will it open?  
We don't have a set date yet. There are many timelines that feed into the bigger timeline, which means there are lots of variables between now and then. Our brewhouse and bottle filling equipment should be leaving Europe in November, for what we hope will be an uneventful, month-long, trans-Atlantic voyage in November. Once the state-of-the-art arrives in Hampton, the installation and commissioning process will begin. We don't exactly know how long that will take, but it's safe to assume a few months. The pub and restaurant is slated in late spring, as transitioning production is our main focus right now.

Please make sure you imagine a large asterisk next to this last paragraph. There are plenty of variables that could affect this timeline and we don't want to incur the wrath of the fates...

The place is starting to look (and sound) like a real brewery, but there is still plenty of work to be done. More updates will follow, as will more keg socials.  Thanks for checking in.

Hampton Keg Social on October 26, 2013

As the leaves turn crunchy underfoot, activity is shifting inside at our new brewery in Hampton.

Brewing equipment is arriving and being put in place, landscaping is nearly done and all concrete walkways have been poured.  We're even on the verge of test firing the boilers!

You can see it for yourself at a public keg social this Saturday, October 26 at 3:30pm.  We'll be pouring Winter Ale, Shoals Pale Ale and maybe one or two surprises.  Just bring your ID and wear closed toed shoes to 105 Towle Farm Road.  

 

California, Here We Come!

Smuttynose Brewing Company is delighted to announce their new California distribution partnerships with Craft Beer Guild Distributing of California (San Diego) and El Dorado Distributing (Signal Hill, CA, in the Los Angeles area) who will bring New Hampshire's leading craft brewer's beers to the West Coast starting in September, 2013.  Both distributorships are part of the L. Knife & Sons family of wholesalers.  The deal with these new L. Knife divisions makes California the 24th state where Smuttynose beers are available.

Smuttynose has successful, existing relationships with L. Knife family in Massachusetts, Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Kentucky and Wisconsin, so the California deal includes a certain amount of
familiarity, but the newness of the situation creates an excellent opportunity for both brands brands to grow together.  "We've shown strong growth in other L. Knife markets and they certainly know our
beers," said Smuttynose Founder and President Peter Egelston, "I have faith that we will see similar results in the California market, even though it's a different landscape because we're both starting fresh."

The first Smuttynose shipment consists of bottled Big Beer Series releases; Homunculus and Rhye IPA, as well as three kegs of Cluster's Last Stand that are heading to Stone Brewing Co. Smuttynose's collaboration partner on the beer. Kegs of Finestkind IPA will also be heading to the Golden State.

Whether you're a New Englander who has moved to the West Coast or you just need a little taste of the 'Shire, please ask for Smuttynose beer wherever you shop.

We're Going To Michigan

Smuttynose Brewing Company is delighted to announce their new partnership with West Side Beer Distributing, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, who will bring New Hampshire's leading craft brewer's beers to the Wolverine State starting in October, 2013. The deal with West Side makes Michigan the 23rd state (plus Washington DC) where Smuttynose beers are available. 

The relationship between West Side and Smuttynose didn't develop over night, but over several years of courtship by the largest beer distributor in Michigan. "Whether it was at big beer events like Craft Brewers Conference or just an email here and there, West Side politely and casually let us know they were interested whenever we were ready," said Peter Egelston, Smuttynose's President and Founder, "but being at capacity for the last four or five years meant entering a large, craft beer-loving state like Michigan was impossible. With our new brewery project almost ready to come online, I was excited to talk to West Side about moving forward."

Michiganders will see Smuttynose beer in four key markets; Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Lansing and Romulus/Detroit. Initial shipments of Finestkind IPA and Big A IPA will be exclusively on draft for the on-premise trade, while shipments of bottle packages will begin in early 2014. Egelston cited West Side's plan for building the Smuttynose brand in Michigan as a key factor in making the decision. "We're really excited to add such a wonderful beer state to the list of places Smuttynose is sold and we can't wait to grow with West Side."

Initial roll-out events will take place October 9,10,11 when several key Smuttynose employees will make the rounds to introduce themselves and their beers to Michiganders. Details will be announced over Smuttynose social media.

Founded in 1994, Smuttynose is New Hampshire's leading craft brewery. In 2012, its 50 employees worked to brew, package and sell nearly 41,000 barrels of beer across 22 states and Washington DC.  After nearly 20 years in their original home in Portsmouth, the international award-winning brewery will move into its new, LEED Gold-registered brewery and visitors' center on the historic Towle Farm in Hampton, NH in 2014. 

Family-owned West Side Beer Distributors is the largest beer distributor in Michigan. The Klopcic Family's roots in the business began in Detroit when Don Klopcic, Sr. opened Don Lee Distributing in 1965. They expanded west to Grand Rapids in 1981, with the acquisition of West Side and have since added Romulus (2008), Kalamazoo (2009) and Lansing (2012). In addition to their beer distribution responsibilities, all branches of the business are very active in their communities and are proud to support responsible beer consumption and education efforts.

Straw Barb, Big A, Scotch Ale and Keg Socials

Big A IPA (9.8% abv), Our international award winning double IPA, begins shipping on September 16. It'll be available on draft and in four packs of 12 ounce bottles. If you want a preview of it, stop by Smuttynose for a little beer shopping or a brewery tour.

Straw-Barb Short Weisse (3.5% abv), our strawberry rhubarb Berliner Weiss, has made it through the TTB approval process! Bottles will be available starting at Smuttynose on September 20 and the rest of the batch will begin shipping on September 23. The bottle conditioned 750ml bottles will retail for $12 at Smuttynose. Still no word on how the Jamie Bissonette collaboration beer is working its way through the system; we'll share updates when we have them.

Smuttynose Scotch Ale (8.2% abv) begins shipping October 7. Rich, malty and slightly smoky, this year's batch has a percentage of red wine barrel-aged Scotch Ale blended in. Shipments begin October 7, but if you have trouble finding our Big Beers, you can always subscribe to the series.

Other news:  We've been hosting casual keg socials at our new home in Hampton. They're nothing fancy; have a beer, take a look around and enjoy a civilized transition into the weekend. We announce each social over Facebook and Twitter a day or two before they happen. In fact, there's one tomorrow (September 6) at 4pm.

Bureaucratic Purgatory and Short Batch Beers

For those of you following along at home, we've got a few Short Batch releases coming up over the next few months: Straw-Barb Short Weiss and "TBD."  Both of these beers have been delayed due to registration and approval processes at the Tax and Trade Bureau.  Here's the deal:

If a brewery makes a beer with ingredients and processes that are outside the accepted lists, that brewery has to file a "statement of process," explaining what other ingredients were used and how they've used them.  Once that's approved, the said brewery must then apply to register the label for the brand, which they have to do with all new beers.

In and of itself, this is nothing new; we've been following this procedure for years, but two changes outside of our control are really putting the brakes on the paperwork flow.

1) There are now over 2500 breweries in the country and lots of them are making beers with atypical ingredients and processes, so that means paper work queues and quoted wait times of 45 business days.

2) The federal budget situation has led to staff cuts and retirements at the TTB.

So with more work and less people to do it, these two beers (see below) are sitting in limbo.  Going forward, we'll adjust our schedule to accommodate the uncertainty.  We're sorry for the delays; we're really excited about these beers.

Beer #1: Straw-Barb Short Weiss;  Light, tart, refreshing, brewed with real lactobacilus, strawberries and rhubarb.  We expect this to be the first release and we've pledged to send this to the Great American Beer Festival, so our fingers are crossed.

Beer #2: A still-unnamed collaboration with Chef Jamie Bissonette (of Boston's Coppa and Toro) , which would have been the first "TBD" on the schedule.  A riff on a Belgian witbier, Chef brought up spruce tips, kaffir lime leaves and 25 pounds of grapefruit zest to add to a traditional grain bill and yeast situation.  You should have smelled the brewhouse that day...

So we'll keep you posted on the release dates as the evolve.  In the meantime, we're looking forward to Rhye IPA, which drops on August 19. 

Cluster's Last Stand Events in Western MA and New Hampshire

The Cluster's train rolls on! You can find our Stone Brewing Co. collaboration beer at the following places; all of which are wonderful spots that you should visit again...

July 25: Cluster's Last Crawl-Seacoast, visit some of our Short Batch accounts, pay as you go and join or bail as you please. Smuttynose folks will be out and about to drink and schmooze at some of our favorite ale vendors.
              5pm The Black Birch
              6:30pm The Portsmouth Brewery
              8pm the Press Room at 8pm. 

July 31: Cluster's Last Crawl- Portland, ME; Just like the one in Portsmouth, we'll stop in some of Short Batch accounts for a night of old school, hoppy goodness.
              5pm The Great Lost Bear 
              6:30pm Novare Res 
              8:00pm LFK 
              9:30pm Nosh Kitchen Bar

Aug 1: Julio's Liquors, Westborough, MA; 4pm-6pm, Smutty/ Stone Tasting and Cluster's bottle Release
Aug 1: Dive Bar, Worcester, MA; 8pm-11pm, Smutty/ Stone Collaboration night at the Dive (3 beers each on tap plus Cluster's)
Aug 7: Provisions, Northampton, MA; 4pm-6pm, Smutty/ Stone Tasting and Bottle Release
Aug 7: Northampton Brewery, Northampton, MA;  6pm-8pm, Cluster's Last Stand Cheese Pairing
Aug 7: Sierra Grille, Northampton, MA; 8pm-10pm, Cluster's Last Stand Tapping
Aug 12: Plan B, Springfield, MA; 5pm Cluster's Last Stand Tapping

We'll have more information about events in other places coming soon.  Please stay tuned...

Cluster's Last Stand releases at Smuttynose July 19 and goes to other places too...

So last month, Greg Koch from Stone Brewing Company joined us to brew 30 barrels of Cluster's Last Stand, a beer that recreates the original, right-after-Prohibition Ballantine IPA recipe, as found in Mitch Steele's, epic book on India Pale Ales.  You can see from the ingredient list below that Cluster's Last Stand truly isn't your everyday IPA, but we just drank some during the bottling run and it's just as delicious as anything out there on the market today.

Smuttynose DoBrO David Yarrington (L) and Stone CEO and Founder Greg Koch (R) mashing in Cluster's Last Stand

                             
We are releasing our small allotment of bottles at Smuttynose on Friday, July 19 in conjunction with our brewery tours.  We'll sell them until they're gone....  $9 a bottle.  We do take reservations for tours and bottles will be available for folks that don't take the tour, starting at 5:30.  That being said you really should see this place before we shut the doors later this fall.

If you can't make it to Heritage Avenue on Friday, there are other options. Boston's take place on the 23rd at Craft Beer Cellar from 5pm-7pm where bottles will be available on a first-come, first-served basis and then on to Lord Hobo for a keg tapping.  We're curious to see how long it will take to kick.  Smuttynose's DoBrO David Yarrington will be on hand for both events with Stone's Jeff Nelson and Smutty's Joe Grotto. 

Attendees at the Southern New Hampshire Brew Fest will also be able to sample Cluster's Last Stand at one of New Hampshire's best beer fests, put on by the good folks at White Birch Brewing.  It's on July 26-27.

More events are being planned and we'll keep you updated here on our blog.

8.3% abv  62 IBU's
Malts: North American 2-Row, Flaked Maize, Munich 10L, C-60
Hops: Bittering-Cluster, Flavor- Brewers Gold and East Kent, Dry Hop- Bullion
Yeast: White Labs WLP-001 American Ale (widely rumored to be the original Ballantine strain)

Rolling Out Indiana

Smuttynose Indiana Rollout Events

Cavalier Distributing of Indiana are kicking off their distribution of Smuttynose beer over the next few weeks with this brilliant slate of events.  It's a heck of welcome for us; these events are all over the state!  If you've got friends in the Hoosier State, please spread the word; Smuttynose is coming in a few days.

Wednesday, June 26th

The Liquor Locker

300 N Weinbach Ave

Evansville, IN

Bottle Tasting  4pm-6pm 

The Gerst Haus

2100 W Franklin St

Evansville, IN  

Tap Assault/Pint Night  6pm-??  

Franklin House

58 Campbell St.

Valparaiso, IN

Tasting  7:30pm-9:30

Thursday, June 27th

Keg Liquors

617 E Lewis & Clark Parkway

Clarksville, IN

Promo  5pm-7:30pm

Rocky's Restaurant

715 W Riverside Drive

Jeffersonville, IN 

Tap Assault/Pint Night  5pm-?? 

Pat’s Liquors

1 W US Highway 30

Porter, IN

Tasting  3pm-5pm

Constant Spring

219 S. Main St.

Goshen, IN

Tap Assault  6pm-??

Friday, June 28th

Bridge Liquors

110 Knable Lane

New Albany, IN

Bottle Tasting  5pm-7pm 

Diamond Jim’s

210 S. Main

Crown Point, IN

Tasting  7pm-9pm

New Albanian Pub & Pizzeria

3312 Plaza Drive

New Albany, IN

Smuttynose IPA, and Robust Porter will be draft feature all day.

Saturday June 29

Trion Tavern

503 Broadway

New Haven, IN

Tap Assault  5pm-?? 

Saturday, July 6

Beer Geeks

3030 45^th St

Highland, IN

Tap Assault  8pm

Friday, July 12

Nick’s Liquors

8103 Taft St.

Merrillville, IN

Tasting  3pm

  

Durty is back!

-->

2013 Smuttynose Short Batch Redux: Durty

At Smuttynose, we’re sensitive folk and we listen to our customers.  A lot of people really liked Durty when it was first released in December of 2012, so we brewed it again. Durty is a big, hoppy, brown ale that’s got caramel and biscuit flavors from malt and a counterpoint of piney, resinous hop flavor and fruity hop aroma. We did our best to repeat the first release, but due to hop availability (or lack thereof) this batch is a little bit different. That’s ok though, we’re still really damn happy with the beer and we hope you will be too.

Durty has been packaged in kegs and also a limited run of 22-ounce bottles. The bottles will retail for $9 each and distribution will be very limited. We’ll debut the beer at Smuttynose on Friday, June 14, during brewery tours. Shipments to wholesalers will begin on June 17, 2013. 

After Durty hits the streets, there won’t be another Short Batch until July, when we’ll release our first collaboration brew, Cluster’s Last Stand, an IPA brewed in the classic style of the  early to mid 20^th Century with Greg Koch, from Stone Brewing Company. More details on that soon, on this very blog...

           

Vital Stats

8.5% abv   55 IBU

Malts: North American 2-Row, Munich 10L, Chocolate, C-60, Brown

Hops: Bittering- Magnum, Flavor- Nugget, Dry Hop- Simcoe

Yeast: White Labs WLP-001 California Ale

Production size:  17.3 barrels (78 cases, 66 1/6 bbl kegs)

View from the Top (of Towle Farm)

Check out these aerial photos of our new brewery! 

The main brewery building is now weather-tight.  Floors have been poured and interior finishes are being installed.  The permanent electrical connection is live, while other utilities are coming online soon. The farmhouse-to-pub conversion is completely framed out and exterioir work is under way.

Other elements are coming together as well. Our new beehives have been populated and the apple orchard is in middle of it's transformation, but we're most excited about our new brewhouse which will arrive from Krones, a German firm, in early September.  If you've seen our current brewhouse, imagine one twice the size, with twice the number of vessels and lots of consistency-making automation.  It's like the brewhouse version of a Ferrari-BMW hybrid- quality engineering, strong dependability and high performance.  A new bottling line is being built in Italy right now.  The schedule currently projects November as when we'll start brewing.  

The sections from right to left are: the brewhouse, the cellar and the main entrance, which is in front of the packaging line, and warehouse.  The office is just above the main entrance on a second floor.  

The building by the trees, on the right, will be the pub.

A view of the main drive.  We thought we'd start showing you that now.

Stay tuned for more updates and more delicious beer.

Why do Luna Moths live for about a week?

Smuttynose Short Batch: Luna Moth

Available starting June 7, 2013

Most biologists would say it's because they don't have mouths, but we're pretty sure it's because they can't drink beer.  Luckily, dear reader, you can drink beer and I assure you, we're all pretty excited about that.

Luna Moth is also the name of our next Short Batch.  It's a hoppy saison, that features El Dorado hops, the only hop with it's own website (seriously, it's www.eldoradohops.com), as a dry hop.  El Dorado infuses stone fruit, watermelon and pear characteristics when used as a dry-hop.  Yum.

Why a hoppy saison?  Pretty simple, really...  Smuttynose only gets one pitch of saison yeast each year for our Farmhouse Ale (shipping on May 28).  We wanted to do a second beer with this unique yeast and we had just gotten a whole shed load of El Dorado pellets.  Everything really came together nicely with this one and we think you'll enjoy it.

See that? Wing-eyes, but no mouth...

We're stocking Luna Moth for brewery tours starting Friday, June 7 and it'll begin shipping to wholesalers on Monday, June 10.  Don't forget you can stop by during the week to buy beer during regular business hours, not just during tours.   Bottle allocations for the trade will be the same as every other Short Batch (~20 cases), which means the bottles will be on the shelves for the lifespan of a luna moth, if that.  All bottles are bottle conditioned, but we don't suggest aging a nice hoppy beer like Luna Moth.

Our next Short Batch release is the return of Durty.  More to come on that batch, but you can expect it in our tour nook on June 17...

Luna Moth Vital Stats

7.2% abv   15 IBU

Malts: North American 2-Row, Wheat, Munich 10L

Hops: Bittering- Magnum, Flavor- 01210 and El Dorado, Dry Hop- El Dorado

Yeast: White Labs WLP-565 Saison

Production size:  30 barrels 

2013 Smuttynose Farmhouse Ale

Shipments begin on May 28!!!

Farmhouse ales are less of a style and more of a loose branch on the beer family tree, originating in the agrarian borderland shared by France and Belgium.  When farm owners needed to provide nourishment and compensation to seasonal farm workers, beer was an obvious part of the package, since they were already growing many of the ingredients.  The humble origins of these beers meant that they were brewed with whatever ingredients were on hand.  This lack of convention has lead to breweries that specialize in or even focus exclusively on saison-style beers, like Oxbow in Maine and Fantome in Belgium.   We don't work on a farm now, but we will be before the year is done.  In this spirit of change, we've tweaked the Farmhouse Ale a little bit this year, adding a small amount of sage.  The result is slightly amplified fruit character, so don't be afraid that we've completely recreated the beer.   As always, Smuttynose Big Beers are released in limited amounts.  The next two releases are Homunculus, in early July and Rhye IPA, a new release featuring copious amounts of rye malt and the Falconer's Flight hop blend, in August. Farmhouse Ale Stat Box 7.0 % abv 15 IBU Starting Extract: 13° Plato Malts: North American 2-Row, Wheat Hops: Saaz Other Ingredients: Sage Yeast: White Labs WLP-565 Belgian Saison Yeast  Food Pairings: Saisons are really excellent at the table; Saison Dupont is often cited as one of, if not the best pairing beers in the world.  Smuttynose Farmhouse Ale doesn't have such a claim to fame, but you can certainly enjoy it with almost anything light from salads or fish to chicken or wild mushrooms.

June 2013 Smuttynose Releases

Just a quick update from production, for those of you who like looking forward to what's next...

2013 Farmhouse Ale (~8.7%), our next Big Beers Series release, begins shipping the week of Memorial Day, so it'll likely hit shelves and taps in early June.  We've tweaked the recipe this year with an addition of sage.

Next up, in early or mid June will be another 30 barrels of Durty (~9%) the hoppy, brown ale from our Short Batch Series.  This time around, all the flavor hop additions will be made with Falconer's Flight, a unique hop blend from HopUnion which includes Citra, Simcoe, Sorachi Ace and a few proprietary and experimental varieties.  Like the rest of our Short Batch releases, bottling will be very limited, with the bulk of bottles being available at Smuttynose.  We don't have an exact release date yet, so stay tuned to Facebook and Twitter for updates.

Vunderbar Pilsner six packs and kegs are shipping now and Summer Weizen should be in all markets.  If you can't find them at your local beer store, ask for them!  

Finally, we're happy to show off our new Big Beer Series glassware.  It holds a full pint and the artwork would be perfect for your bicep, if you want a sweet armband tattoo (let us know if you actually get one).  You can get them at Smuttynose right now, though they'll soon be in the retail store at Portsmouth Brewery.  MSRP, $6.

Cheers!