Champion Firkin Friday!

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?  We've all heard this philosophical quandry and yet the answer is still profound: the tree doesn't make a sound.  

Well, after Big A IPA was named the Best American Beer at the Great British Beer Festival, we thought it would be best to make a sound in our own town.  

This Friday, September 10, our friends at the Portsmouth Brewery will be hosting a special Firkin Friday.  David Yarrington, Director of Brewing Operations will be tapping a firkin of Big A at the Portsmouth Brewery at 4 PM.  This cask was dry-hopped with Santiam, Simcoe, Centennial, and Cascade hops, the exact same ones that were in the winning cask.

We hope to see you all at the pub on Friday so we can share this special beer with you.   Since Portsmouth Little League didn't have the same success as in years past, we hope that this provides a fun, if slightly more adult alternative to celebrating a hometown champion. 

L'Chaim!

Vunderbar! Short Batch #11

Guten tag!  Short Batch #11 is kegged and ready for delivery!  

Here are Dave's notes about the beer:

Ah, Vunderbar.  So simple.  So elegant.  The impetus of this beer was two-fold.   The first part stemmed from drinking a snot load of Sam Adams Noble Pils this spring.  Great beer.  The other was a visit by Cornelius Faust from Faust Brewery in Germany.  He brewed a pilsner with Tod Mott down at the Portsmouth Brewery that was also quite beautiful.  We, of course, couldn’t possibly let Mott show us up and so had to try our hand at the style.  We’ve made several lagers in the past but this was our first attempt at a beer this delicate.  Luckily, we stole Cornelius’ great idea of boiling the brewing water to soften it before use.  We bumped up the acidulated malt to balance the mash pH and were able to mimic a traditional pilsner quite well.  Hopefully you agree.  Prost.

The Stat Junkie Corner


Weyermann Pilsner Malt
Weyermann Acidulated Malt

Saaz Hops for all hopping

15 IBU, dryhopping at ½ pound per barrel.

5.11% Alcohol by Volume
Starting Extract 10.9° Plato
Terminal Extract 1.9° Plato.


Vunderbar Pils marks a departure from the last few short batches we have brewed.  It's not high in alcohol.  It doesn't use any kind of wild yeast, nor is it barrel-aged.  It's a beer in the classic, if not archetypal, sense of the word.  Best of all, it's blindingly delicious and drinkable.  The low bitterness and moderate body make the beer conducive to some serious elbow bending; we went through five gallons here in less than twenty-four hours. 

After all the kegging was done, we ended up with (27) 15.5-gallon kegs and (60) 5.16-gallon kegs.  Final allocations and destinations have yet to be determined.

We also have designed these swank Vunderbar t-shirts.  Wearing one tells the world "I'm formal, but I like to party," just in German.  Greg Blanchard, our Head Brewer, models one below just before going to the cellar to take some Zahm hits off of BB 8, while blaring side two of the Dio classic, "Holy Diver."

The run is limited and will be on sale soon through our website and retail store.  We'll let you know when they are available through the blog and Facebook/Twitter. 

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