Smuttlabs Satchmo and Hugs 'n Rainbows

I'm a little behind on this update, but with a the new brewery opening (Saturday May 31 at 10am), we're all spinning a few extra plates here at the 'Nose.

There are two new Smuttlabs beers available now: Satchmo and Hugs 'n Rainbows. This post has information on them both. Shipments have begun so you should see these in bars and stores soon, if you haven't already.

This is our second batch of Satchmo, Smutty's first culinary collaboration beer. Initially conceived with Chef Evan Mallet, three time-James Beard semi-finalist of Portsmouth's Black Trumpet Bistro and Newmarket's The Joinery, Satchmo is a brown porter brewed with black trumpet mushrooms from New Hampshire's forests. These unique mushrooms (below), also known as black chantrelles, can't be cultivated, so we called the New Hampshire Mushroom Company in Tamworth, who sourced 36 pounds of dried fungus for the brew.

The result is a 4.9% full-bodied, full-flavored beer that lacks the roasted astringency typically found in porters and instead highlights fudgy, chocolate notes and rich, but subtle earthiness from the mushrooms. The malt character is the perfect compliment for the fungus. When we poured the beer at SAVOR in Washington DC, even self-professed "mushroom haters" surprised themselves by how much they enjoyed it.

Vital Stats for Satchmo
4.9% abv  25 IBU  25 barrels brewed
Malt: North American 2-Row, Munich 10L, C-60, Brown, Chocolate
Hops: Willamette
Yeast: American Ale Yeast
Other Ingredients: Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Red Wine Barrels

Hugs 'n Rainbows joins Brett & I and our two Short Weiss beers in the 'non-traditionally fermented" category. This red beer began in stainless steel tanks where it was fermented exclusively with Brettanomyces, a non-traditional brewer's yeast that does excellent things to beer and makes winemakers quake in their boots. After fermentation ended, we moved the beer in whiskey barrels for eight months of aging, to be sure we got the beer we wanted: tart, yet fruity with a subtle malty note in the finish to keep the beer from drying out your mouth. We look forward to bringin more sour beers to you in the future, as we grow Smuttlabs plans.

Vital Stats for Hugs 'n Rainbows
6.5% abv  8 IBU   32 barrels brewed
Malt: North American 2-Row, Aromatic, Caramunich 2, Brown Malt
Hops: Willamette
Yeast: Brettanomyces
Other Ingredients: Dark Candi Syrup, Oak Barrels

We have a few cases of each of these beers saved for our Smerchendise boutique at Towle Farm, but we expect they'll go fast once we open the doors.

See you at the farm! 

Smuttynose Short Batch: Bloom

Planetary forces are hard to tweak.  If we had more control of the weather, we wouldn't have gotten nearly a foot of wet, heavy snow the day before spring begins.  Well, snow be damned!  It's not stopping us from releasing Bloom, our spring-themed Short Batch, on Friday, March 22 during brewery tours.  Shipments to our wholesalers start on March 25.

This Belgian golden ale was brewed in collaboration with Chef Evan Mallet and his staff from the Black Trumpet Bistro and features flavor and aroma contributions from eight edible flowers not commonly found in beer: yarrow, lavender, chamomile, rose buds, elder flowers, calendula, nasturtium and dianthus, that were grown specifically for this beer by Chef Mallet's staff at Meadow's Mirth Farm.

Flavor-wise, our wood-aging funktifier and frequent-pilot-batch-brewer, Charlie Ireland offered these tasting notes: "flavors of spice and bubble gum from the Belgian yeast, an extremely floral aroma (big shock, I know), while the flowers add their own difficult-to-describe flavor contributions."  You really should just stop by and try it for yourself.

There isn't a lot of Bloom to go around, only 25.5 barrels, and most of that will be put into 86 1/6 barrel kegs.  The remainder of the batch is in a bottled-conditioned, 750ml, cork-finished package.  Bloom bottles will be available at Smuttynose for $15 and we've got a list of most of the other bottle accounts to help you out, should wish to forage your own bottle.

For more information about our tours, please visit: http://smuttynose.com/how_to_find_smuttynose.html

Bloom bottle accounts

New Hampshire:
Route 13 Stateline, Brookline
Barb's Beer Emporium, Concord
Barb's Beer Emporium, Londonderry
The Beer Store, Nashua
Bert's Better Beers, Hooksett
Top Shelf Brews, Hampton
Hampton Falls Village Market, Hampton Falls
Portsmouth Provisions, Portsmouth
Brewtopia, Keene
The Co-op Food Store, Lebanon
Smuttynose Brewing Company, Portsmouth

Massachusetts:
Julio's, Westborough
Table and Vine,West Springfield
Provisions, Northampton
Yankee Spirits, Sturbridge
Spirited, Lenox
Domaney's, Great Barrington
Kelly's Package Store, Dalton
Ball Square Fine Wines, Somerville
Liquor World, Somerville
Craft Beer Cellar, Belmont
Gordon's, Watertown and both Waltham stores
Blanchard's, Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury and Allston

Smuttynose Short Batch #13: Satchmo

"Satchmo," is a collaboration between Smuttynose and Portsmouth's Black Trumpet Bistro.  It's also a collaboration between two fungi, brewer's yeast (sacchromyces cerevisiae) and black trumpet mushrooms (craterellus cornucopioides).  Why on earth would you put mushrooms in a batch of beer?  The answer is simple...

Dave is so skilled at sacking the 'shrooms, he doesn't even need to look while Chef Mallet holds the sack.

The Black Trumpet's Head Chef/Co-owner Evan Mallet approached us about collaborating on a beer.  Being big fans of his award-winning food, it was a no-brainer.  Chef Mallet is an avid mushroom forager (he once showed up for a meeting with mushroom he'd found in our parking lot), so deciding on an angle was incredibly easy; we would make a mushroom beer!  That sounds simple enough but black trumpets can't be cultivated.  After leading his staff on a few foraging expeditions into the woods of Maine, we were well short of the 35 dried pounds that we needed for the 775 gallons of beer.  We were forced to buy the remainder.

Sometimes, you find yourself with a Scarface-like abundance of something.

Best described as a brown porter, Satchmo's base beer doesn't exhibit the roasty notes and black color of our Robust Porter, nor does it have the rich caramelly sweetness of Old Brown Dog; it falls somewhere between the two, but lacks the common taste signifiers of the two styles.  The mushrooms heroically fill that flavor gap with a subtle earthiness and mouthfeel that can only be described as "umami-licious."  

35 pounds of  mushrooms just waiting to infuse their earthiness.

Satchmo also has the distinction of being our first Short Batch beer to be bottled for retail sale.  A limited number of 750ml, caged and corked bottles will be sold exclusively from the brewery's retail nook.  While we don't yet have a sell date or a bottle count, we will be announcing the release through our Facebook page and our email list when it's time to roll them out.

Satchmo Stat Box:    

4.75% abv 

25 IBU

OG 12.5° Plato 

FG: 3.8° Plato 

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

Hops: Willamette 

Yeast: WLP-001 California Ale 

Mojo: 35 Dried Pounds of Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Sherry-soaked oak chips  

Batch Size: 25 barrels (775 gallons)