An Update about Smuttynose Tours: Old Brewery and New Brewery

Hello Smuttynose Fans!

We're very excited to announce the brewery tour transition schedule from Heritage Avenue, our original home, to Towle Farm, our new one.  

The Heritage Avenue Brewery

Regular tours have finished at Heritage Avenue. Instead, we'll be hosting informal open houses for the next two weekends. You don't need reservations, just come on by during what would usually be our regular tour hours. We'll be pouring samples and selling beer and merch (there will be some special discounts). Benny the Tour Guy has even promised casual walk-throughs of the facility, to make sure you get one more look before we close the doors.

The Towle Farm Brewery

After the four open houses, we'll be closed for a few weeks while our staff sets up the tasting area, retail shop and makes the final preparations at Towle Farm. It's a bit surreal to think that we'll be open after imagining opening our doors to the world for so many years. During the two weeks we're closed, you should go visit other New Hampshire breweries. There are almost 35 in the state now, so you won't be short of options. Here's a map: http://www.nhbeer.org/nh-beers/  We will be posting updates over our social media so keep your eyes peeled there in case something pops up between now and then.

We will begin brewery tours and retail in our Smerchendise boutique at 10am on Saturday, May 31. If anything comes up between now and then, we'll be reporting it through our social media outlets: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  

The new brewery is very easy to get to from NH-101 and from US-1. Your best option is to use the address below for both mailing and your favorite navigation app.  

We can't wait to welcome you to our new home, but we also hope to send Heritage Avenue off in style by filling the building with a few more groups of happy, beer loving folks, like you. We'll see you soon.

Cheers!

Smuttynose Brewing Co.

105 Towle Farm Road

Hampton, NH 03842

The transition schedule:

May 2 - Open House at Heritage Ave 5pm - 7pm 

May 3 - Open House at Heritage Ave Noon - 4pm 

May 9 - Open House at Heritage Ave 5pm - 7pm 

May 10 - Open House at Heritage Ave Noon - 4pm 

May 31 - Towle Farm opens to the public 10am - 7pm 

June 1 - Towle Farm Tours 10am - 3pm 

The summer schedule for brewery tours at Towle Farm is:

M-W 12-5
Th 11-5
Fr 11-7
Sat 10-7
Sun 10-3

Big News from Towle Farm!

Laverne and Shirley have (metaphorically) reported for their first day of work at the new brewery, which means that we've just, for the first time, put beer in bottles at Towle Farm! It's no surprise that we began with Finestkind IPA, but we've got some Bouncy House that's nearly ready to bottle too. More word on Bouncy House release events soon.

There are still plenty of things to tweak and dial in before we're ready to ship beer to you good folks, but here's Peter with a taste of what you'll see when you get Hampton-brewed beer.

Smuttynose Beer Release Update, 4/1/14

Just a quick update on our release schedule for the year. Despite the date of this posting, this is all very true, very real information. You can tell because it's not really funny to begin with. There have been a few schedule changes that are the result of a few delays in the commissioning of our new brewing equipment at the new Towle Farm brewery.

We'll have a blog post with a Towle Farm update later this week. In the meantime, here is the new calendar. 

A few Big Beers got rearranged. 

-Frankenlager was pushed back about two weeks as it took us a bit longer to get the new brewhouse up and running, which is important because this lager was decoction-mashed. The decoction process takes more time, but is well worth it for Frankenlager for two reasons. 1) It adds a better range of flavors and 2) after years of very manual, somewhat imprecise decoction mashing at Heritage Avenue, our new brewhouse enables us to hit all the volumes and temperatures any beer requires.  Very cool.







-We swapped Tripel and Farmhouse Ale in the release order.  With all the extra time requirements
on our staff (planning for the new brewery's public opening, launching Bouncy House IPA in May, getting production up and running at the new brewery), this made a lot of sense for a lot different reasons, not the least of which is that we've brewed Farmhouse Ale before so, we know how it will be brewed and we have labels for it.

-Rhye IPA was removed from the Big Beer Series because of all the other changes in the release schedule.  While we don't have plans to announce at this moment, it will be back in the future. 

Last but not least, we've got some fun Smuttlabs surprises in the works and we're about to begin bottling the first beers on the new bottling line. so stay tuned to this blog and our social media for updates!

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.

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.

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.

February 2013 Towle Farm Update

Portsmouth Beer Week seems like a perfect time to share an update on the construction of our new brewery at Towle Farm in Hampton.  Here it is!

Despite three weekends of snow storms, work continues at an impressive rate.  I can't say I envy the work crews out there, but I certainly appreciate the work they've been doing under such cruddy conditions.  The building is far enough along that our brewing and packaging staff recently went out to the site for the first time to see the progress and walk through their new work space.  They were pretty amazed and excited.

One things they're excited about is our new brewhouse, which is being built right now.  It's a four vessel, 100 hectoliter (~85 barrels) system from top German firm, Krones.  This powerful piece of machinery is from the same Combi Cube line as the system Founders Brewing recently installed, though theirs is a bit smaller.  The new technology will greatly increase our consistency and quality, which is vitally important when brewing and packaging beer.  There's so much to say about the system, that it'll get its own post once it arrives on our shores.

Otherwise, here are a few updates and photos from our builder's representative and project manager, Clark James.

-The warehouse is almost fully enclosed, save for the overhead doors and interior partition separating it from the bottling area.

-The panel crew has been working to affix insulated panels to the exterior of the building.  The building won't actually be yellow.

-The roofers are progressing with insulating the sloped roof, and have installed membrane ("TPO") on much of the flat roof.

-Masonry has been completed on several of the interior block walls, and the masons have begun installing the stone veneer on the exterior on the front of the building.

-We hope to start framing in the brew pub within two weeks.

That's not all:

We're working with the folks at Applecrest Farm, a local orchard, to revitalize the Towle Farm Orchard.  Many people have asked if we'll make cider.  While it might be fun, I believe we'd need a winery license and that isn't remotely on our radar right now.  On the other hand, we will have a pub at Towle Farm, so I can certainly imagine many more culinary uses for the fruit, than fermentory ones.

Smuttynose is lucky to have two beekeepers on staff and we'll be able to use their skills on our new beerhives!  The bees will arrive at their new home at Towle Farm in April.  Clark, who is one of the beekeepers, says we've got Italians with Carnolian queens.  If you're asking about mead, the same answer to the cider question applies here.  

Construction began with the warehouse.

If you were in our pub, this would be your view of the brewery.

Snow can't stop the Harvey Construction crew!

The main entrance is in the lower left-hand corner of this shot.  
The offices are just above on the second floor.

Here's a cool night time shot, looking straight down the fermentation cellar.  

The backside of the warehouse is closing up.  Note the barn on the right.

If you'd like up to the minute views of the new brewery, check out our webcam at http://www.towlefarm.com.

Towle Farm Update 9/17/12

Here's a brief update on Towle Farm construction, but we should have more (visually) exciting stuff later in the week.

As of Friday, September 14, most of the work that has gone is site prep or behind the hill from what our webcam can record.

One of the first significant projects to be completed is the construction of two "ponds" on the backside of the property.  Unfortunately, these won't be for fishing, but they do serve a significant purpose toward minimizing the environmental impact on the surrounding land. 

In the above photo, you can see a trench with a concrete barrier at the end of it. This simple system is designed to collect rain and other surface water which will then be slowly dispersed through the slot in the concrete barrier.  Another pond is being built on the back side of the apple orchard.  According to the site supervisor, grass and other vegetation will be planted along the banks soon, which will be very attractive and give an early hint of completion.

If you've been checking the webcam, you've seen lots of dump trucks and excavators, prepping the site so it's stable, flat and ready for the building.  This stage isn't the most visually stimulating part of building a brewery, but it's obviously a vital step.  Geotechnically speaking, the back side of the land has been a bit easier to level out and prepare than areas near the front of the property, which have turned up lots and lots of giant rocks. The flattened land you see to the left is the future home of our warehouse and loading docks, so just imagine a sea of Smuttynose cases and kegs just waiting to ship out all over the East Coast!

 This gaping hole is right next to the barn.  There are still plenty of rocks to be pulled out of this space and plenty of digging left before reinforcing the ground.  Our visitor's center and offices will be on top of this hole.  Every member of the construction crew was excited to get all the rocks off the site, saying that it'll look much better and more like the final version.

This final picture is a draft rendering of what our water treatment plant will might look like.  The plans are still being tweaked, but hopefully the sci-fi look won't disappear.











That's it for now, but please stay tuned for more updates.

Cheers,

JT

Looking For Towle Farm Updates? Look No Further!

As many of you know, on August 16, we officially broke ground on our new brewery at Towle Farm after four years of hard work and planning. Over those four years, we've had a large number of inquiries about our new brewery but, until recently, we didn't have much to say.

Now that Smuttynose mark II is underway, we thought we'd let you all check in at your own leisure, through the magic of a webcam; just click on this link.

The cam is mounted on a pole just south of the historic barn and points directly at the front of what will become the main entrance to the brewery.  The silver tank you see on the back of the site is the collection vessel of our waste water treatment system.  If the camera were able to turn to the right, you would see the farmhouse, which will be transformed into a 95-seat restaurant pub.  You can see the house in its current location, as well its original basement in the photo below.  The basement has been filled in and leveled out so that we can build our fermentation cellar in its place.

Once the exterior of the building is complete, we plan to move the camera inside and aim it one of our production areas, to keep the content dynamic.  Until then, we hope you enjoy watching our progress!

*We'd like to send a special thanks to Mike McCormack of Sebectec, who installed and maintains the camera.