Cluster's Last Stand Events in Western MA and New Hampshire

The Cluster's train rolls on! You can find our Stone Brewing Co. collaboration beer at the following places; all of which are wonderful spots that you should visit again...

July 25: Cluster's Last Crawl-Seacoast, visit some of our Short Batch accounts, pay as you go and join or bail as you please. Smuttynose folks will be out and about to drink and schmooze at some of our favorite ale vendors.
              5pm The Black Birch
              6:30pm The Portsmouth Brewery
              8pm the Press Room at 8pm. 

July 31: Cluster's Last Crawl- Portland, ME; Just like the one in Portsmouth, we'll stop in some of Short Batch accounts for a night of old school, hoppy goodness.
              5pm The Great Lost Bear 
              6:30pm Novare Res 
              8:00pm LFK 
              9:30pm Nosh Kitchen Bar

Aug 1: Julio's Liquors, Westborough, MA; 4pm-6pm, Smutty/ Stone Tasting and Cluster's bottle Release
Aug 1: Dive Bar, Worcester, MA; 8pm-11pm, Smutty/ Stone Collaboration night at the Dive (3 beers each on tap plus Cluster's)
Aug 7: Provisions, Northampton, MA; 4pm-6pm, Smutty/ Stone Tasting and Bottle Release
Aug 7: Northampton Brewery, Northampton, MA;  6pm-8pm, Cluster's Last Stand Cheese Pairing
Aug 7: Sierra Grille, Northampton, MA; 8pm-10pm, Cluster's Last Stand Tapping
Aug 12: Plan B, Springfield, MA; 5pm Cluster's Last Stand Tapping

We'll have more information about events in other places coming soon.  Please stay tuned...

Cluster's Last Stand releases at Smuttynose July 19 and goes to other places too...

So last month, Greg Koch from Stone Brewing Company joined us to brew 30 barrels of Cluster's Last Stand, a beer that recreates the original, right-after-Prohibition Ballantine IPA recipe, as found in Mitch Steele's, epic book on India Pale Ales.  You can see from the ingredient list below that Cluster's Last Stand truly isn't your everyday IPA, but we just drank some during the bottling run and it's just as delicious as anything out there on the market today.

Smuttynose DoBrO David Yarrington (L) and Stone CEO and Founder Greg Koch (R) mashing in Cluster's Last Stand

                             
We are releasing our small allotment of bottles at Smuttynose on Friday, July 19 in conjunction with our brewery tours.  We'll sell them until they're gone....  $9 a bottle.  We do take reservations for tours and bottles will be available for folks that don't take the tour, starting at 5:30.  That being said you really should see this place before we shut the doors later this fall.

If you can't make it to Heritage Avenue on Friday, there are other options. Boston's take place on the 23rd at Craft Beer Cellar from 5pm-7pm where bottles will be available on a first-come, first-served basis and then on to Lord Hobo for a keg tapping.  We're curious to see how long it will take to kick.  Smuttynose's DoBrO David Yarrington will be on hand for both events with Stone's Jeff Nelson and Smutty's Joe Grotto. 

Attendees at the Southern New Hampshire Brew Fest will also be able to sample Cluster's Last Stand at one of New Hampshire's best beer fests, put on by the good folks at White Birch Brewing.  It's on July 26-27.

More events are being planned and we'll keep you updated here on our blog.

8.3% abv  62 IBU's
Malts: North American 2-Row, Flaked Maize, Munich 10L, C-60
Hops: Bittering-Cluster, Flavor- Brewers Gold and East Kent, Dry Hop- Bullion
Yeast: White Labs WLP-001 American Ale (widely rumored to be the original Ballantine strain)

Rolling Out Indiana

Smuttynose Indiana Rollout Events

Cavalier Distributing of Indiana are kicking off their distribution of Smuttynose beer over the next few weeks with this brilliant slate of events.  It's a heck of welcome for us; these events are all over the state!  If you've got friends in the Hoosier State, please spread the word; Smuttynose is coming in a few days.

Wednesday, June 26th

The Liquor Locker

300 N Weinbach Ave

Evansville, IN

Bottle Tasting  4pm-6pm 

The Gerst Haus

2100 W Franklin St

Evansville, IN  

Tap Assault/Pint Night  6pm-??  

Franklin House

58 Campbell St.

Valparaiso, IN

Tasting  7:30pm-9:30

Thursday, June 27th

Keg Liquors

617 E Lewis & Clark Parkway

Clarksville, IN

Promo  5pm-7:30pm

Rocky's Restaurant

715 W Riverside Drive

Jeffersonville, IN 

Tap Assault/Pint Night  5pm-?? 

Pat’s Liquors

1 W US Highway 30

Porter, IN

Tasting  3pm-5pm

Constant Spring

219 S. Main St.

Goshen, IN

Tap Assault  6pm-??

Friday, June 28th

Bridge Liquors

110 Knable Lane

New Albany, IN

Bottle Tasting  5pm-7pm 

Diamond Jim’s

210 S. Main

Crown Point, IN

Tasting  7pm-9pm

New Albanian Pub & Pizzeria

3312 Plaza Drive

New Albany, IN

Smuttynose IPA, and Robust Porter will be draft feature all day.

Saturday June 29

Trion Tavern

503 Broadway

New Haven, IN

Tap Assault  5pm-?? 

Saturday, July 6

Beer Geeks

3030 45^th St

Highland, IN

Tap Assault  8pm

Friday, July 12

Nick’s Liquors

8103 Taft St.

Merrillville, IN

Tasting  3pm

  

Durty is back!

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2013 Smuttynose Short Batch Redux: Durty

At Smuttynose, we’re sensitive folk and we listen to our customers.  A lot of people really liked Durty when it was first released in December of 2012, so we brewed it again. Durty is a big, hoppy, brown ale that’s got caramel and biscuit flavors from malt and a counterpoint of piney, resinous hop flavor and fruity hop aroma. We did our best to repeat the first release, but due to hop availability (or lack thereof) this batch is a little bit different. That’s ok though, we’re still really damn happy with the beer and we hope you will be too.

Durty has been packaged in kegs and also a limited run of 22-ounce bottles. The bottles will retail for $9 each and distribution will be very limited. We’ll debut the beer at Smuttynose on Friday, June 14, during brewery tours. Shipments to wholesalers will begin on June 17, 2013. 

After Durty hits the streets, there won’t be another Short Batch until July, when we’ll release our first collaboration brew, Cluster’s Last Stand, an IPA brewed in the classic style of the  early to mid 20^th Century with Greg Koch, from Stone Brewing Company. More details on that soon, on this very blog...

           

Vital Stats

8.5% abv   55 IBU

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

Hops: Bittering- Magnum, Flavor- Nugget, Dry Hop- Simcoe

Yeast: White Labs WLP-001 California Ale

Production size:  17.3 barrels (78 cases, 66 1/6 bbl kegs)

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!