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!