Isles of Shoals

The Isles of Shoals are a group of islands and tidal ledges about ten miles off the coast of the New Hampshire-Maine border region (Portsmouth, where we are located, is right on the Piscataqua River, which forms the border between the two states). There are nine islands in the chain, five belonging to Maine and four to New Hampshire. The islands have a long history, serving as seasonal fishing camps for Native American populations with the first Europeans arriving in the early 1600's.

The history of the Shoals encompasses a range of people and events so diverse, I'll just make a list: Captain John Smith, the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the legendary pirate Blackbeard, the poet Celia Thaxter, several hotels, an artist colony, a grisly ax murder, a Unitarian-Universalist retreat, and a 2000 film starring Elizabeth Hurley and Sean Penn.

The islands have also been a source of inspiration for our branding. If you've looked at the map above, you'll notice Star Island, Smuttynose Island and as well the name "Shoals." Our logo even boasts a harbor seal, which are commonly found around the backside of Star Island and occasionally in Gosport Harbor.

The Shoals are still a vibrant community now although there are no more incorporated towns.

The Unitarian-Universalist church has a retreat/conference center (http://starisland.org/) on Star Island, which is easily the most developed of the nine islands.

Smuttynose Island is still home to the Samuel Haley house, the structure on our Shoals Pale Ale label. There is also a replica period building next to it which serves as a caretaker's house.

Appledore Island plays host to the University of New Hampshire/Cornell University Marine Sciences lab.

Cedar Island and Lunging Island are privately owned.

Duck Island was once a naval bombing range but is now home to a wildlife sanctuary and a population of harbor seals.

White Island is home to the White Island Lighthouse and the light keeper's cottage. The structures are now currently owned by the State of New Hampshire and in need of some maintenance. A local charity, Lighthouse Kids (http://www.lighthousekids.org/) has been raising funds to restore the light and the keeper's cottage with an ultimate goal of having a museum on site. Please visit their website to learn more about the work they're doing.

Sue Reynolds, a retired teacher and founder of Lighthouse Kids, also runs day-boat trips to the Isles as well as fishing charters on The Uncle Oscar, a converted lobster boat. She was kind enough to take me out to Star Island for a few hours. I had a great picnic lunch on Star Island and snapped some great photos which you'll see below. If you ever need to go to the Shoals, The Uncle Oscar (http://www.uncleoscar.com) provides an excellent experience. Our captain that day, Tom Davis possesses a wealth of information and knowledge about Shoals history and lore and he's not afraid to use it.

On to the photos:

This view from the side of Star Island provides a great vantage point to see the Unitarian-Universalist retreat center. The most interesting part of my visit was the sense of peace and calm you feel when you're on Star. It'd be a great place to get away for a week in the summer. I didn't see any mermaids or bright red beehives though...

The UU folk have great welcome station right on the dock. You can even make reservations to have lunch out there during the summer.

Gosport Chapel, on Star Island, is an austere and charming church. This simple, one-room chapel has such a presence that's apparent from your first step in the door.

The bridges of Portsmouth as seen from the Isles of Shoals. The largest bridge, though it looks like it might from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, is actually the Route 95 bridge that spans the great Bay and connects New Hampshire to Maine.

Looks like a great place for draft line!

Finally, the obligatory product shot! Two different sides of the Samuel Haley house, brought to you by Smuttynose Brewing Company.

Harvesting Pumpkin Ale

Smuttynose Pumpkin Ale is shipping out to all of our wholesalers and is filtering its way out to retail accounts as we speak. Yep, it's shipping in early August and I can assure you, we're still amazed how early Pumpkin season begins each year.

On the production side of things, we're in the middle of autumn and starting to plan for Winter Ale. The beer buying public is very fickle about when they buy seasonal beers. The demand seems to begin earlier each year though most seasons have a certain natural end point that's determined when people decide to stop buying the beer. It's really important for us to get the beer out into the supply channels early, and in large amounts.

This year, filling the supply channels with Pumpkin Ale was much easier. We contracted this year's run to F.X. Matt in Utica, N.Y. Their larger capacity enables us to ship the nearly all of the beer to our wholesalers right out of the gate.

Even if you don't have any pumpkins to carve, or leaves to rake yet; there's no better way to refresh yourself after sharpening your pumpkin carving knife or while watching preseason NFL games.

On a final note, the packaging for this year's six packs looks a little different. The sides of the six pack basket are a bit shorter,the bottles have a slightly different shape and the neck labels wrap the entire way around the bottle. Don't worry, the beer is just as delicious.

Here are some pictures of the new packages:

Bikes, Ballistics, and Beer

Craft brewing has never been a particularly competitive community. Breweries tend to help each other out, sharing tips, tricks, ingredients, and pints with each other. In my mind, this is the most unique and best thing about our community. Despite the harmonious nature of our “industry,” we’ve decided to put our support behind two competitive endeavors; one involving spandex and muscle power and one involving projectiles and pressurized air.

We are the title sponsor for the Portsmouth Criterium. “The Crit” is a bicycle road race that takes place in the heart of downtown Portsmouth, passing right through Market Square. Six different categories of cyclists, ranging from kids to level two professionals, will race around the 1-kilometer, hay bale-lined course. Our owners, Peter and Joanne are avid cyclists and can be seen infrequently, clad in spandex, around the Portsmouth Brewery after a long ride. After all, studies have shown that beer is better than water for replenishing nutrients after strenuous exercise. The Portsmouth Brewery will be hosting a pancake breakfast for the public as well as a private reception for volunteers. For more information, visit The Crit's website.

Our second competition is something so wacky that we couldn’t help but say "yes" when we were approached for sponsorship. American Chunker is a Brookline, NH-based team of engineers and fabricators as well as the name of the world’s first fully automatic, air-powered pumpkin cannon. The team has been working since the middle of November 2009 to design and build a cannon that will launch a pumpkin over a mile and challenge for top honors at the World Championship Punkin’ Chunkin’ in Bridgewater, Delaware November 5-7, 2010. Check out their blog for New England events scheduled during September and October or go cheer them on in Delaware. We'll have more details on our cross promotions soon, so keep an eye on our Facebook page and our monthly email newsletter.

Smuttynose Short Batch Gaps

One of the most intriguing things about the Watergate tapes from Nixon's Oval Office is the 18.5 minute gap. Very few people probably know/knew what was originally on that section of tape. Most everyone else thinks the 18.5 minutes had vital evidence that would have implicated Nixon in the scandal surrounding the break-in. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that incomplete records do people a disservice. I hope to use some of the next blog entries to fill in some of our gaps in the Smuttynose Short Batch Series records. These gaps may not have the national security importance of the Watergate tapes, but I'm sure there are plenty of you out there that want this information and there's really no reason for you to not have it.

We've been brewing Short Batches here since 2006. Here's the official list of releases, complete with keg dates as available. This includes what we have scheduled and in fermenters as of July 7, 2010.

SSB #1) The Gnome -Belgian IPA kegged 3/29/07

SSB #2) Brett and I -Belgian Ale finished with Brettanomyces kegged 10/5/07

SSB #3) Smutt-a-roni -Wild Rice Ale kegged 11/20/07

SSB #4) G-Bock -Experimental Strong Lager kegged 1/22/08

SSB #5) Hopfenweiss -Hoppy German Hefeweizen kegged 1/5/09

SSB #6) Belgian Tripel kegged 5/28/09

Oak SSB #6) Tripel aged in J. Lohr Chardonnay Barrels with Brettanomyces kegged 4/20/10

SSB #7) Strawberry Short Weiss- lactic wheat ale, fermented with Lactobacillus and strawberries, part of an aborted attempt at a Berliner Weisse. kegged 8/5/09

SSB #8) Imperial Stout aged in Apple Brandy barrels kegged 8/19/09

SSB #9) Rouge d'Shire lactic ale aged on raspberries and oak kegged 3/30/10

SSB #10) Belgian Stout kegged 6/11/10

SSB #11) Pilsner kegged TBA

Oak SSB #10) Belgian stout aging in whiskey barrels from the Ry(e)an Ale project. kegged TBA

As time goes by, I'll write more about some of these beers over the next few months. Stay tuned!

Thanks,

JT

Smuttynose Short Batch Series #9--Rouge d’Shire

Charlie, our barrel master is funky. Not intergalactic, Atomic Dog funky. Funky like smelly-feet funky. And the man makes funky beer-beer with wild yeasts and bacteria. Sour beers, tart beers, crazy beers. Charlie is a special one to say the least.

The initial premise to Short Batch #9 was to make another soured beer that would take less time than the Strawberry Short Weiss, which was left to get lactic and ferment in a large plastic tote in our lunch/hospitality room for about a year. We would periodically add strong wort to the batch until it expressed a sour character that we were happy with; only then did we add 300 pounds of strawberries. The total yield was about 200 gallons and it was a year and a half late from it’s expected ready date. There had to be a better way.

After some field research, our friend Will Meyers of Cambridge Brewing Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts shared a technique that shortened the lactobacillus portion of the beer from a year to a long weekend and (as we think) made it taste better.

We began by mashing in and lautering like normal. The plan was to get twenty barrels of wort with an extract of twelve degrees Plato. Normally, the wort would get boiled and hopped immediately, then cooled and sent to a fermenter with brewer’s yeast. Instead we added a double pitch of lactobacillus to the kettle and left it at 100 °F for the next three days. This allowed the lactobacillus to happily eat sugar and make lactic acid while we were ringing in the New Year’s and sleeping it off the next day. By Sunday morning, the wort was perfectly soured. We still needed to ferment the rest of the sugar out (for alcohol) without sending bacteria through our hoses, heat exchanger, and fermenter gaskets. Lactobacillus can be very difficult to eradicate and nobody wants a lactic Brown Dog. Wouldn’t be prudent. So we boiled the hell out of it. Seventy five minutes of rolling, ripping pasteurization.

Being a Belgian influenced beer, we pitched our house Belgian yeast strain to finish up the fermentation. Like a lot of things life, balance is important in a beer like this. If it’s too acidic, it gives you raging heartburn. If it doesn’t express enough acidity, then you’ve kind of missed the point. If there’s no alcohol, you’ve kind of missed the point to. It’s not even beer.

All that was left to decide now was if the beer needed fruit. And then one day, Charlie just blurts out “raspberries” at the lunch table. “We need like, 400 or 500 pounds of raspberries.” So that’s what we did (well, we settled on 458 pounds). We got buckets and buckets of red raspberry puree. We also got 60 pounds of oak chips. Then we aged the beer with the twigs and berries for several months until it was ready. We weren’t sure when it was going to be ready, it kind of just was ready.

One morning at around 8:15, I see Charlie walking towards me with a huge smile, carrying a plastic cup with some kind of brownish beer with a slight red hue to it. “Dude, try this! A little CO2 and this is naughty.” The beer was tart, moderately fruity with a really thin body and a clean finish. There was barely a hint of sweetness. You could drink this beer for days.

And that’s the tale of Short Batch #9 d.b.a. “Rouge d’Shire.” I guess it goes to show that special beer comes from special people; and maybe, just maybe Charlie does have some kind of magical, beery, Mothership Connection after all. Try it and see for yourself.

Rouge d’Shire Statistical Breakdown

Starting Plato: 12°

IBU: 10

Malts: Pale, Aromatic, Carared, C-60, Special B

Hops: Crystal

Other Ingredients: 458 pounds of Red Raspberries, 60 pounds of medium toast oak chips

Suggested food pairings: The acidity in this beer will cut through any rich fatty foods. Our resident chef, Joe Drouillard recommends a pan sautéed duck breast or for dessert, cheesecake.

Strawberry Short Weisse

Oh, the exciting and ever unpredictable world of sour beers! Bugs - they’re not just for fly fishing anymore. We’re a bit late entering into this aspect of the brewing world, but I like to believe that our pace of experimentation is mindful and deliberate. Or we may just be a bit slow. That being said, we’re about to send out our first sour beer: Strawberry Short Weisse. This started as an attempt to brew a Berliner Weisse for the 2008 Extreme Beer Fest in Boston. The beer didn’t quite make it in time - in fact it’s a year and a half late. However its tardiness is no indication of its tastiness (or something like that).

The original thought was to brew 25 barrels of an 8° Plato wheat beer. Separate off a third of it for souring and ferment the rest with a traditional hefe strain. The soured portion was pitched with a mixture of Chico and Lactobacillus. We hoped to blend the two portions, but after a few months it became clear that the sour part wasn’t going to be sour enough to make the whole batch interesting. We ended up dumping the wheat beer portion and focused on the remaining third. Over the last year we added several additions of first runnings to give the lacto a bit more food to consume. Once we finally reached the sourness we liked we decided to add 300 pounds of frozen strawberries, mostly just for the hell of it. Luckily, when Peter saw all those strawberries he kind of just walked on by with naught but a raised eyebrow. The berries kicked off a bit more lactic activity and added flavor and a real delicate and beautiful aroma. The final beer has a nice clean sour character and is extremely drinkable at 3% ABV. Hopefully you get a chance to try this unusual and rare offering.

Cheers,

Dave

Specific Gravity: 8° Plato

IBU: 5

ABV: 3%

Grain Bill:

Pale Malt

Wheat Malt

Hop Bill:

Saaz

Dave’s Spring News

It’s early May and we’re just getting our heads clear from our annual jaunt to the Craft Brewers Conference. This year’s host was the fine city of Boston so there was plenty of Smuttynose flowing throughout town. Luckily the week went without incident and we managed to lose Judi just that one time. We return to blistering weather where we hit 95 degrees in April. Thankfully, we have this year’s Summer Weizen ready to go. The evolution of this beer continues with an addition of chamomile flowers into the end of the boil. We got the idea from our resident cask master, JT. He made a few firkins of Summer Weizen last year that he tea-bagged with chamomile, adding a beautiful and piquant twist on one of our favorite beers.

Our Short Batch Series will soon have another offering. We currently have a Belgian style Triple conditioning on about 25 lbs. of oak chips. The beer’s tasting great right now. The oak character is just starting to show, but there’s a huge fruit nose from the Chimay yeast we used. The grain bill utilized a good amount of Weyermann Pilsner malt as well as some Munich and Wheat malts. We dried it out with the addition of cane sugar, and the beer should finish around 10% ABV. We’re hoping to have it ready in about a month so you should be seeing it out and about this summer.

Dave

Schmutzig Hopfen Weisse, our newest Short Batch

Last fall I received an invite from Dave Brodrick to help celebrate the marriage to his beautiful wife, Iris. Dave (of Blind Tiger renown) asked me to brew a beer for the event. Happy to oblige, I tossed around the idea of several different styles but kept coming back to late-addition hoppy beers. I knew I wanted a session beer for the wedding and had recently been enjoying the Brooklyner Schneider Hopfen Weiss. I wasn’t looking for a beer quite that strong and so dialed back the starting gravity to be inline with a more traditional hefeweizen. The beer itself ended up with a bit too much banana character from the yeast as the ’Shire was hit with a massive ice storm the day after we brewed. We lost power for a day and a half (even that wasn’t too bad as some folk were out of power for weeks) which caused a warmer fermentation than desired. Instead of a nice mix of fruit and clove, it was definitely skewed toward the banana character, but the huge, floral notes of the hops actually balance quite nicely. Think Juicy Fruit. All in all, I think it’s an excellent beer.

Malt:
Pilsner
Wheat
Munich

Hops:
Bittering: Magnum
Flavoring: Sterling
Dry Hop: Sterling & Centennial

IBU: 15
S.G. 15° Plato
T.G. 2.6°
ABV 5.8%

Cheers,

DY