12/20/11 Expansion Update

This will probably be the last expansion update before Christmas, but a lot has happened and I wanted to share it with you.

We got confirmation that the tanks are in production at JV Northwest and should be ready in mid- January.  

Nearly all the concrete has been poured for the floor.

The support joists have yet to be cemented into place, though that'll happen soon.

These are by far the largest and most fancy drains in the building.  They've even got strainer baskets to catch debris.

The ceiling lights have been moved over in preparation for the roof  extension.

The brilliant engineers at SL Chasse have found a way to build most of the extension without taking the roof off for a long time.  The crews in the warehouse and bottling line couldn't be happier.

Once the extension is fully assembled, the existing roof structure will be removed while coolant and electric lines out to the space.  That'll make it much easier to "plug and play" when all the tanks arrive form Oregon.

We wish you all a Happy Chanukah and a Merry Christmas!

Smuttynose Expansion update 12/14/11

Eureka!  That's big!

The first step of the second phase of the Heritage Avenue expansion began yesterday with this massive diesel-powered vacuum.  As you can guess from looking closely, we now have a debris-free roof and a few employees that thought they heard a jet engine when leaving the building for lunch. 

The Smuttynose 2012 Big Beer Series

Without further adieu, here is the 2012 Big Beer Series line-up:

January- Baltic Porter
March- Really Old Brown Dog
May- Wheat Wine Ale
June/July- Homunculus
September- Scotch Ale
October- Stout (possibly Imperial, possibly something new)
December- Gravitation

Astute readers will notice that two of these releases were carried over from the 2011 schedule.  Due to increased demand for our core brands, we lost the ability to have more than one Big Beer in process at a time.  This capacity reduction caused two significant delays in 2011's series and a few small ones as well.  

We still wanted to brew Baltic Porter and Really Old Brown Dog, so we've simply bumped them into 2012.  Otherwise, we tried to make the new schedule with realistic ease-of-production in the front of our mind.  In other words, we hate missing deadlines so we tried to set more realistic release schedule for 2012.

These changes won't affect the Big Beer Series Subscription, as each subscription is good for nine releases, regardless of when you sign-up or how many beers come out during the calendar year.  It's not too late to reserve a subscription for the beer lover on your shopping list. You'll be giving them a great gift that keeps giving all year long.

Expansion Update 12/7/11

The last few days at Smuttynose have been as busy as usual, but all brewing, bottling, kegging and cleaning has had a new soundtrack: the sound of a jackhammer and a concrete saw.

You're looking at the future home of a custom-poured concrete pad
that will be home to trench drains and LOTS of Smuttynose beer

In our last newsletter, we posted pictures from our warehouse of cleared-out pallet racks, showing the first step of another expansion (our third in two years) at our Heritage Avenue facility.  Now, in the words of Nacho Libre, we're getting down to the "neety greety."  Over the last week, we've had concrete workers tearing up the existing concrete floor to put in the necessary ceiling reinforcements for the roof extension, that will allow the 22.5' height of the fermenters to fit properly.  

A support joist anchor

Once the supports are in place, we can begin increasing the roof height and adding the roof portal through which the tanks will be craned.  Our plumber, Danny Boy, will soon work alongside the Smuttynose maintenance crew of Adam and Adam, to pre-run glycol pipes for the coolant system connections.

It's been nearly a decade since the backs of BBs 1-6 have seen the light of day.

With any change in a complex system like this, there are adjustments that need to be made.  To make room for the new construction, we had to move pallet racks, unassembled packaging and various other bits of Smuttynose stuff to an off-site warehouse facility.  This part of the project gave us a great chance to get rid of some junk, recycle a lot of old papers and tear down a wall that really has opened up our space (see the above picture).  The space already feels different.   

Another interesting effect of this expansion will be schedule expansion and increased staff demands.  We aren't putting in a new brewhouse, so that means we'll have to crank out up to twelve more 50bbl brews every two weeks to keep these tanks filled.  Dave and Greg are currently figuring out how our production schedule will change and what staffing adjustments, if any, will need to be made.  

In total this expansion will allow us to add just shy of 10,000 bbls of annual production to our output, which is a nice little bump.  We've also begun doing some site prep at Towle Farm this week, which is always nice because we're never quite sure exactly where we can fit another expansion here at Heritage Ave.

Nothing says excavation like a thigh-sized tree root surfacing.

Stay tuned for another expansion update!

Bottle Fail

The time has come for another blog post and this one isn't fun to write.

In all our communications leading up to the Satchmo (Short Batch #13) release, we told you all that we'd be releasing a limited amount of caged-and-corked 750ml bottles that would be sold exclusively at Smuttynose. We were very excited about this opportunity; we even visited Allagash during their Ghoulship release to see what we could crib from them.  

Unfortunately, our initial bottling of 750's didn't go as we had planned.  The bottled Satchmo is so limited that we have none to sell.  Our small bottler, which also fills the Portsmouth Brewery's bottles, was not working properly when we ran which meant we had to stop bottling short of our goal.  There were three problems on the day and we're glad to be able to explain exactly what happened with each of them.

Here goes:

1) The fill heads that create a pressure-tight seal over the bottle tops didn't fit over the top of the 750s.  These special bottles have wider tops so that the cage has something to grab on to.  The wider top prevented the head from going down far enough, preventing a proper seal.  Without a proper seal between the fill head and the bottle, the partially-carbonated beer will foam as it's put into the bottle, resulting in under-filled bottles.

2) The sacks of oak chips in the bottling tank impeded the flow of beer through the product line causing interruptions in the pump's prime.  When this interruption occurs, liquid doesn't get pumped and the bottle filler recognizes the error and aborts the fill.

3) We were kegging and bottling Satchmo from the same tank (tank 12), a scenario that has never been a problem when running our main filler.  In this instance it was a large problem as the smaller bottler is much more sensitive to pressure variation on the "product in" line which meant rampant filling errors and the loss of some product and lots of time trouble shooting.

The net result of these three problems was a very short period of less-than-ideal, but still acceptable filling.  Needless to say, we have learned a lot from this experience, but it has left a bit of egg on our face, as we know that some of you were very excited about a bottled Short Batch release.

On behalf of Smuttynose, I apologize for any disappointment this may have caused.  We're also disappointed and maybe a bit embarrassed, but we're doing our best to look ahead to future 750ml bottlings. We hope you are too.

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)

Gravitation: A Powerful Attraction

2011 Smuttynose Big Beer Series Release #6

Belgium is known around the world for its six unique abbey breweries.  Inside the monastery walls, Trappist monks oversee production of rich, fully flavored beers that range from light in body and alcohol to strong, rich and dark.  These sacred beers are known by the names enkel or single, dubbel and tripel.  Singles are the lightest in both color and alcohol and can be seen as analogues to triples, which are also light bodied and colored but can be quite sweet and as strong as 10%.  Dubbels can be simply described as Belgian brown ales; they exhibit a rich, malty flavors, spicy yeast notes and typically range from 7%-9%.  Dubbels haven’t had a stronger counterpart until the relatively recent arrival of Quadrupels, or “Quads.”

With alcohol contents as high as 12%, “Quads” are the richest of the rich and the boldest of the bold and Smuttynose Gravitation is no exception.  Deep chestnut colored, with rich toffee and caramel malt flavors, Gravitation isn’t just sweet and boozy.  The use of special, imported Belgian malts and raisin paste contribute unifying fruitiness that brings harmony to the other two flavor groups.  The prominent malt character makes Belgian-style quads an excellent candidate for aging, as long as you store your bottles upright in a cool, dark space.

Food Pairings

Gravitation is a hearty and hefty beer, so it’ll pair well with foods that are intensely flavored and heavy.  Earthy foods like wild game and bleu cheeses stand up to Gravitation’s intensity by playing against the sweet malty character.  If earthy isn’t your thing, seek out dishes that are fatty, tart or a combination of the two; foods like pork belly, mushroom ragout or rabbit with kriek, a classic dish of Belgian beer gastronomy. 

Stat Box

12.5% ABV 

25 IBU

Starting Extract: 24.9  Finishing Extract: 3.0 

Malts: North American 2-Row, Cara-Red, Aromatic, Special B, C-60, Wheat

Hops: Sterling

Special Guests: Demerara Sugar, Amber Belgian Candi Syrup, Dark Belgian Candi Syrup, Raisin Paste

Yeast: White Labs WLP-500 Trappist Ale

Production Size: 150 barrels (4650 gallons)

2011 Gravitation will begin shipping during the week of September 19, 2011.

Harvesting Farmhouse Ale

2011 Smuttynose Big Beer Series Release #5

New Hampshire has always been seen as a very grounded state and its residents are known for their pragmatism and practical view of the world.  These characteristics can also be found in the agrarian region around the Belgian-French border region, the birthplace of a loose family of beers known as “farmhouse ales.”  In fact, this salt-of-the-earth origins gives farmhouse ales a unique breadth of permissiveness not seen in any other beer style.

While most beer styles are quite rigidly defined, saisons and biere de gardes (the two recognized styles of farmhouse ales) can use nearly any type of grain, hop or spice; some expressions are sweet and floral while others can be bitter and dry.  The style’s permissiveness arose from necessity.  Farmers would brew these beers with whatever ingredients they had on hand to provide refreshment and nourishment for “Saisonnaires,” seasonal farm hands who provided extra labor during the growing and harvesting seasons. 

The brewers at Smuttynose have been most captivated by the unique yeast strains that imbue saisons and biere de gardes with their signature characteristics.  When brewing Smuttynose Farmhouse Ale,  our staff supplements the natural enzymes found in the malt with an extra dose of amylase, which breaks complex sugars into simple, fermentable ones.  This means nearly every bit of starch has been converted to sugar and consumed by the yeast during fermentation.

As with past releases, the 2011 expression of Farmhouse Ale is a strong, unspiced saison, but it has been tweaked a bit.  We dropped the starting gravity from 17º Plato to 15º Plato, which means there are less sugars in the wort at the start of fermentation.  This results in a slightly less alcoholic beer, but fret not dear readers; the beer tastes better!  By reducing the alcohol presence, the other subtle flavors can mingle together to create a delicate, nuanced flavor experience.

Stat Box

8.2% ABV

15 IBU

Starting Extract: 15ºPlato  Finishing Extract 0ºPlato

Malt: Pilsner, Aromatic, Wheat

Hops: Warrior-Bittering, Liberty and Sterling-Finishing

Special Guests: Cane Sugar-to lighten the body, Amylase Enzymes-to increase fermentability

Yeast: White Labs Belgian Saison I  WLP565 

Production Size: 150 barrels (4650 gallons)

Farmhouse Ale has an immense versatility when introduced to food pairings.  Its subtle complexity means you can put it next to almost anything, except the most intensely flavored foods.  From traditional western European peasant foods like cassoulet, roasted fowl, root vegetables and pickled food stuffs to less obvious pairings like ceviche, sushi and brandade, chances are you can create a delicious pairing with whatever you have on hand as well!

In a brewery full of turophiles, we had no shortage of cheese pairings for such a versatile beer, but the best options were earthy, nutty and more firm in texture; cheeses like manchego, aged gouda and morbier 

We hope you enjoy our newest offering in the Big Beer Series.  Gravitation, our Belgian Quad, should be out in mid-September.