Hard to keep straight these days all the specialty, series and event beers we’ve got brewing and approaching as 2012 slowly advances. Naturally we’re all nervous about the coming end of the Mayan calendar, but if you don’t know we’re making the best of things with the 12 Beers of the Apocalypse series, you haven’t been paying attention to more than your own navel as panic starts to set in.  Next Wednesday, March 21 will see the release of Fallout Green Cardamom Pale Ale at Elysian Fields, and within a day or two of that celebration we’ll be brewing Peste, a grown up and heftier version of XOXO chocolate chili ale with Peruvian cocoa, Ceylon cinnamon and chipotle, guajillo, ancho, pasilla and cayenne peppers in the mix.  The Peste release will be at Tangletown on April 21, and judging by the way the crowds at the first two events have been, the place should be packed to the out-of-true rafters. Wasteland, a rosemary-agave IPA, will be up next for May.

Meanwhile, we’re cranking through the second (and sadly last) batch of Idiot Sauvin, the first in the Manic IPA series. Two good things along those lines, though:  the first is that we’ve managed to secure enough Nelson Sauvin hops from this spring’s New Zealand harvest to make a lot more next year, and secondly, vast quantities of Prometheus won’t be far behind. Brewed from time to time both at Elysian Fields and on Capitol Hill, Prometheus has been an intermittent favorite among local hopheads. This time around we’ll be brewing it at the Airport Way production facility, so it should be even better.

Also approaching is the brewing of the official Seattle Beer Week beer, yet to be named. Giving everyone a style break from the double IPAs of past Seattle Beer Weeks, this year’s beer will be a coffee milk stout using 250 pounds of Lighthouse coffee! We’ll also be brewing one of the local commemorative beers for this summer’s AHA National Homebrewers Conference, a saison brewed with all local ingredients, including honey, apples, and maybe a touch of mint.  Did you know Washington is the largest producer of fresh mint in the country?  Let me know what you think of that idea.

As always, the brew team will be putting out a steady stream of new stuff, along with all the old favorites (like Zephyrus Pilsner, currently waiting in the wings).

Dick Cantwell
Elysian Brewing Co.
Seattle

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Amid the festivals (Belgianfest, which I missed) and judgings (Cole’s Barleywine Fest and the Brewing News North American IPA Challenge, which I was in Buffalo for that same weekend), there’s a more slowly developing project I’m trying to plug away at. It’s the next edition of the Brewers Publications book, Start Your Own Brewery. Most weekday mornings (at least those not preceded by bowling) I’m up at six, trying to get at least five hundred words in on one of the couple of dozen chapters I’ve outlined. Lately it’s been the one about different philosophies of equipment concatenation, reportings-back from the several systems we’ve seen creak into motion over the years, as well as insights gained just from having been in the industry for a while and seen a lot of stuff come and go. Other subjects I’ve treated include sizing the startup brewery and working on a business plan, as well as marketing, distribution and portfolio considerations.

Unlike previous editions and iterations of this book, I’m writing all the material myself.  It isn’t as though I won’t be asking for help and input, but rather than invite a few dozen people to tell their stories with regard to a particular aspect of the process, I thought it important to have a consistent voice. I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I consider that in some ways this qualifies me not necessarily uniquely, but in a way that reflects more practical than theoretical consideration when it comes to putting together a startup system. We’ve done five now, and as I observe on more than one narrative occasion, the consistent thing about them all is that they have mainly not been particularly state of the art. For this falls in line with the average new system. Sure, there are those who find a way to afford to do it totally right right off the bat, but more common is the project that makes do with what it can afford and the space it’s called upon to occupy.

Of course when Ray Daniels’s most recent edition of SYOB was published there was no such thing as a nano-brewery, at least not in name. So there’s a certain DIY aspect of the whole thing that needs to be treated more than it used to be. What do you do for a drain, for example, in a room that really doesn’t lend itself to that kind of accommodation? I’ve tapped a couple of sources, both professional and amateur, to see what questions are foremost in people’s minds as they look for help with their fledgling project, but I welcome suggestions as to what kind of material I should cover.  Just email me at dick@elysianbrewing.com.  The book is scheduled to appear in Spring of 2013.

Dick Cantwell
Elysian Brewing Co.
Seattle

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The good news is we’re brewing at Airport Way; have been since mid-November.  The really good news is that the beer coming out of the new production brewery is great.  The trying news is that not all systems are yet in place, and we’re having to work a bit harder than anticipated to keep things flowing smoothly.  Still, we’ve caught some breaks, too. The very first brew was scheduled to be Bifrost, an 18° Plato beer, but because we got erroneous readings from the grist case load cells (a scale, basically), the kettle gravity was low. Still, it was within range to be Immortal with the addition of a little Cara-Hell and appropriate hopping.  Voila!—the art of the brewer.

We’re delighted to be bringing Avatar back after its long vacation. A new shipment of jasmine flowers have lately become available, and we’ll be coming out with bottles and kegs within a couple of weeks.  Another highlight of the new brewery has been the brewing of 240 barrels of Idiot Sauvin, the first of our Manic IPA Series. Later this week we’ll also be brewing a big batch of Rapture down there, the second of the 12 beers of the Apocalypse. Nibiru, the yerba maté tripel slated to be release the 21st of this month for the apocalyptic kickoff, was brewed on Capitol Hill, but demand dictates that we move production of these beers to Airport Way.

Lagers will also be coming back. As I write this our new yeast propagator is chugging along growing up a pitching quantity of Wyeast 2206, which we’ll use first for a batch of everyone’s favorite, Loki Lager. Next up will be Zephyrus Pilsner, and from here on we’ll try like hell to keep a couple of lagers available at all times. Remember Ambrosia Maibock?  Pandora’s Bock?  Foster Child (aka Pride of Humungous)?  No?  Well, stick around.

Now that Capitol Hill is transitioning into its status of specialty brewery, Fields has gotten even more rarified, with an oak-aged Imperial Stout and an eight-barrel batch of Krokus, the sour saffron wheat ale, in the works. The new batch of Yuzu is yuzu-ier than ever, and next week we’ll have (another) new IPA, Space Dust, made with Citra, Galaxy and Amarillo. It’ll be totally nebular. We’ll also be brewing our entry for the runoff to be the beer of the year at the Space Needle, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Century 21, the 1962 World’s Fair.  But more on that later.

-Dick Cantwell

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A postmodern allusion to an apology is in order for my not having chronicled so much of what’s been going on lately.  I’ll try in the future to keep you a little better apprised of the here and now.  For in truth there’s been a lot of that, stretching back several weeks.

Green Hands and Orange Orbs, Festivals and General Edification

•  I participated in Country Malt Group’s Hop Selection Team 2011, joining an all-star gang of luminaries from around North America in rubbing our hands together to select our favorite lots of ten varieties for all of Country Malt’s hop customers during the coming year. Hop selection is far more difficult than judging beer, since what you’re evaluating is nothing close to a finished product. There are aromas you like and don’t like, of course, but beyond that you’re making a bit of a leap in correlating that with the beer you expect to be able to make. Another highlight of the visit to the Yakima Valley was being allowed to roam the experimental fields at Loftus Farms, taking it all a step or two back along the production chain to evaluate things still on the vine. Look for us to be making some super-experimental brews with varieties so new to the game that they’re only designated by number.

•  GABF this year yielded no medals (it happens) but a whole lot of activity, what with judging the entries for five sessions, putting together a pumpkin road show at the Falling Rock immediately following the Wednesday kickoff, and participating in a couple of events following in the publication-wake of The Oxford Companion to Beer, edited by our friend Garrett Oliver, and for which I wrote a couple of dozen entries. In addition, I attended a special dinner on Saturday celebrating the GABF’s 30th anniversary, at which there were terrific food and beer pairings and lots of reminiscence about the festivals earlier, and hairier days. Chris Black was the consummate host at Falling Rock. At one point a woman whose husband had not yet returned with the ticket necessary to receive a glass of New Belgium/Elysian collaboration Kick straight from the pumpkin seemed ready to burst into tears. Chris’s response? “Watch me work some magic,” he said to me quietly, and handed her a beer.

•  Then there was pumpkinfest. Held for the first time at the new facility on Airport Way, the Seventh Annual Great Pumpkin Beer Festival finally provided the room for people to at least be able to tell what line they were standing in for over 50 different pumpkin beers. Numbers being what they were we tapped two pumpkins on Saturday, at four and six o’clock, and another on Sunday, each of which was filled with a different beer.  Highlights of the selection–aside from thirteen different offerings from us (including collaborations with New Belgium and Tom Douglas Restaurants)–were Saint Arnold Pumpkinator, Silver City Punk Rauchen (always a favorite of mine), a trio of delicious beers from friend Will at Cambridge Brewing Co., three-year old Sour Pumpkin from Russian River, and the many many fabulous local offerings from our brewing friends in town, over in the mountains and across the Sound. Just as good, local Georgetown businesses reported record (and near-record) days from festival overflow, sorely needed during the extended period of road construction lately seen by the area.

•  Not least of all, I attended the 3rd Mondial de la Biere held in Strasbourg, France. I represented American Craft Beer at the American Pavilion, pouring 45 beers from 13 different breweries and discussing them in a mixture of English, German, Spanish and very very poor French with a generally very interested crowd of attendees, some of whom still thought that American beer was most closely identified with Budweiser. Not to play favorites, the Avatar, Loser and Night Owl we sent over showed very well, eliciting admiration and spurring requests for distribution that we can’t possibly answer. It was a medium-sized festival, showcasing some international brands, but most national French breweries as well as some very interesting small French producers making beers you would never have expected from Gallic brewcraft. Nice beers from Corsica and Normandy, as well as a scattering of beers from around the country centered in a single booth, the chaos of which was both confusing and delicious. Strasbourg is a beautiful city (which I had not visited before), and I was able to do some exploring, both by myself and with a fairly sizable contingent of Canadian and British brewers who were in attendance.  Given a few hours to spare one morning, I headed down to Colmar, about 50 km away, to take a look at Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece. Judging at the Mondial is a different kind of experience, taking as much predisposition out of the picture as possible through the use of semi-opaque glasses and the withholding of style information. Among the Yanks, Smuttynose Brewing won a gold medal for their robust porter.

•  With near-currency looming, I can report with a little more temporal ease the fact that the District Northwest meeting of the MBAA (Master Brewers Association of the Americas) was held this past weekend in Renton. Kevin W., Waylon, Dan-o, Markus and I all went down to attend the talks and hobnob with our brother (and sister) brewers.    The theme was cask-conditioning, and two very knowledgeable British practitioners, Ian Bearpark from Daniel Thwaites Brewery and Jim Robertson from Wells & Youngs, set us all straight on the way things should be done. Then I followed with a presentation on practical challenge and necessity in New World versions of cask.  I couldn’t resist: I finished with a picture of me tapping a pumpkin. Less scholarly than Ian’s and Jim’s talks, I stated the case of American brewers extremely fond of cask but working without the infrastructure of thousands of years. A terrific social event at Elliott Bay’s Burien location showcased around thirty different cask beers. The Brits were very polite, and I think enjoyed themselves (and the beers) quite a bit, but the fact remains: they don’t do cloudy beers; some of ours might have been a bit of a chewy mouthful. We also hosted the crowd at the new production facility on Saturday afternoon. Thanks to our Bill for making the place presentable and setting up an impromptu bar with a forklift and a pallet of bottles.

Coming this week: BitterSweet beer and chocolate festival at Fremont Brewing, combining the ingenuity of local brewers and the delicious chocolate products of Theo’s Chocolates.

Dick Cantwell
Elysian Brewing Co.
Seattle

Spent a very fun day yesterday at Stone Brewing in San Diego brewing a collaborative beer with Mitch Steele of Stone and Patrick Rue and Tyler of the Bruery in Orange County. Mitch, Greg Koch and Steve Wagner had suggested last year that we do a collaborative pumpkin beer with gourds grown at the Stone farms, but between my being in Spain for the fall and the pumpkins not getting into the ground in time anyway, we put it off until this year.

The boys from the Bruery were a great addition to the scheme, suggesting using yams and fenugreek in the beer. Apparently they use fenugreek in their Autumn Maple beer, which when roasted does in fact contribute a maple aroma, or at least it certainly did in the Stone kitchens at the bistro. They also had lemon verbena available from the farm, and so we used that, too–about a bushel of it, it looked like.  That was Mitch’s idea, and its intense and resinous lemoniness seemed like it would pair very well with the New Zealand Motueka hops we decided to use in the finish because, well, we felt like it. In addition, there was rye malt (both regular and dark), brown and honey malts, and some C-15 dextrine malt. We also put birch bark in the whirlpool–why not? It’s woodsy and sort of autumnal, after all.

The folks in both the regular and commissary kitchens at Stone really outdid themselves roasting 1800 pounds of New England sugar pumpkins and 450 pounds of yams, and then pureeing them up for us to literally dig our hands into and toss into the mash. I’d like in general to recognize the great and cheerful job that the chefs in our industry do to help harebrained brewers realize a lot of their ideas. I know that Jon at Elysian Fields, Mark at Tangletown, and Eric on Capitol Hill have over the years been a huge help in many of the beers we’ve made at Elysian. No idea seems too idiotic for them to not have an idea about how it can be done tastier and better. And in many cases they’ve had ideas that we’ve incorporated into beers as well.

As for the beer name, well, it’s a bit of a tongue-twister: Le Citrueille Celest de Citricado (the heavenly pumpkin of Citricado, which is the street the Stone digs are on). As they’ve done with the other pretty amazing collaborations they’ve done, all three brewers wrote label copy for the beer, hence, three versions will appear in the market.  This is what I wrote:

Le Citrueille Celest de Citricado

I’ve made pumpkin ales called Kürbis this and Calabaza that, but never with the nominal French touch of this one, conceived and brewed with my musketeer brothers Mitch and Patrick. One for all and all for one! Or are we revolutionaries, the Danton, Marat and Robespierre of the bloody pumpkin? Liberté? Are you kidding? There’s birch bark in this brew, and yams, fenugreek, rye and lemon verbena. Egalité? Absolutely. This was a joint project, for sure. Fraternité? If brewing pumpkin ale were a cabal we probably wouldn’t talk about it.  You can, however, and we hope you enjoy it.

Look for the beer to appear at The Great Pumpkin Beer Festival Oct. 8 & 9.

Dick Cantwell
Elysian Brewing Co.
Seattle

A couple of weeks ago I went to a brainstorming session at Theo’s Chocolates over in Fremont.  On hand were a couple of folks from Theo’s (of course), and representatives of eight local breweries, judged by Kendall and Kim of the Washington Beer Blog to be those most likely to succeed with coming up with crazy ideas for beers involving chocolate.  They’ve scheduled an event for November 8 where all the beers will be featured, along (of course) with the delicious chocolates that Theo’s produces.

Right off the bat there were a couple of different ways to approach the assignment. We could combine particular Theo’s chocolates with beers we already make, or make beers not specifically involving chocolate to pair with a particular chocolate. I’ve been surprised in the past, for example, to discover how well super-hoppy beers combine with good chocolate–thanks to Pete Slosberg (of his eponymous Wicked Ale) for that. And of course we want to highlight the one consistent founder of the chocolate feast–Theo’s. What interested all of us even more was each of us coming up with a totally new beer taking advantage of the many interesting elements of chocolate production to flavor and accent something never before seen in the history of the world, or at least Seattle.

This was a brainstorming session so there were no bad ideas; actually there were a number of brilliant ones. Drew from Big Time staked his territory first, having come prepared with an idea for a Belgian-style blonde or wit made with white chocolate. Black Raven moved next, with an idea taking advantage of the wild fermentation that cacao goes through on its way to becoming chocolate. Sensing a quickening in the proceedings (and a possible narrowing of ideas), it struck me (I said) that not only might specific American hop varieties (think citrusy Cascade, Chinook, or Amarillo) combine well with chocolate, but the bitterness of hops might be interestingly augmented by the bitterness of either chocolate liquor or cocoa nibs (or both). By the time we had all spoken, Airways was committed to making a coconut curry chocolate stout, Manny from Georgetown planned to dip a frozen cherry in chocolate for a Manhattan-esque garnish to a Belgian style, and Two Beers wanted to do something with kiln-dried fruit. Naked City had a generally Belgian idea, and Matt from Fremont wanted to explore the roasty duality of malt and cocoa beans. Naturally there were samples of both beer and chocolate on hand.

By the time we adjourned, we’d gone from worrying that possibly everyone would think to make a dark beer to being glad that at least we’d have one. And, not wanting to leave any stones unturned, we all agreed to make a couple of beers, one made with chocolate and another made to pair with chocolate. We’ll hit all this once the craziness from pumpkin fest dies down. Now that I think of it, what do you think of a pumpkin beer made with chocolate?

Dick Cantwell
Elysian Brewing Co.
Seattle

The brewery at Tangletown hasn’t seen a lot of action for a while. My being gone last fall kept production down quite a bit, of course, and then the chiller cooled its last and we lost the ability to chill tanks. All this combined with the fact that Elysian Fields has taken on the role of experimenting brewery, as well as priorities being shifted decidedly in a southerly (Airport Way production facility) direction has meant that it hasn’t been needed the way it used to be to provide variety at the pubs. Those six kegs that a TTown-sized batch provided seemed to go awfully fast; it’s been good to have a minimum of eight barrels from Fields to keep some of the cool beers from there around for a bit.

But I still need to fool around. My solution has been to make Tangletown the sour brewery. For though it’s a little simplistic to say so, microorganisms like lactobacillus and brettanomyces are less demanding of the kind of disciplined fermentation required when you’re using conventional yeast. Right now in the cellar at TTown we’ve got three distinct projects going on. Fermenter #3 is the brett tank, with a batch of the Perfesser, our plum brett beer, aging to something approaching perfection. This is a beer that I first brewed a couple of years ago, and which Mark in the kitchen helped out with quite a bit, pitting and pureeing two cases of purple plums which were then added to the fermentation. Over in Fermenter #2 is a mixed-strain sour cherry beer which if memory serves contains brettanomyces, lactobacillus, pediococcus, sherry yeast and some other miscellaneous Belgian-derived organisms I got at some point from Anacortes after I’d lent them the culture. On down the line, Fermenter #1 is the lacto tank, with a second batch of Ursa Minor Berliner Weiss brewed last Friday. I kegged the first one out the day before, and Nate and Kevin H. brought it all back to Hill for cooling and force-carbonating. Dave will be bringing some woodruff in for syrup-making, I’ll gather some raspberries for another, and there’s been talk of Dan-o gathering some huckleberries from the spot he worked last year to try something new. In addition, we’ll hang onto some for Pumpkin fest, to be served with pumpkin syrup. Ursa Orange, anyone?

Ursa Minor is a fun beer to brew. For one thing it’s a super-short brew day.  Having decided the first times I brewed it at Gameworks (back in those days) that I wanted to follow a traditional course of not boiling the wort, I only use the kettle as a collection vessel. Once runoff is complete I simply pump it through the heat exchanger and on down to fermentation, where the lacto yeast mix I got from New Belgium (with which they brewed their delicious Imperial Berlinerweiss) is given its head to ferment isothermally.  Unless the weather is immoderately warm (which this year it generally hasn’t been) it just doesn’t generate a lot of heat, so not only is the fermentation reasonably disciplined, very little volume is lost to blowoff.

Next up at TTown: Brett Pumpkin beer!  Anyone got a good name for a sour beer involving the gourd?

-Dick Cantwell

We’ve got a great selection on tap these days.  With a pretty substantial flurry of brewing activity down at Fields over the past few months, first to brew the fifteen favorites of the past fifteen years for the anniversary on May 10, and then to turn out specialties like the Raconteur for the Cavy memorial and the Slight Return Session-sort-of-mini-IPA, as well as the Hefeweizen cycle recently embarked upon.  We’re all delighted with the Dragon’s Teat Stout that Steve and Markus came up with, combining lactose, various dark malts, milk thistle, oats and Stumptown coffee (poured on Nitrogen, no less).  It’s good to see the Hydra back, the AK still flowing, Bete Blanche coming back on–oh, and the batch of Prometheus we’ve got on right now is terrific.

On top of all that there’s Trip 9, which might be the best one yet.  A Down Under IPA, using a bunch of Australian and New Zealand hops, New Belgium’s Zach Baltinger also specified the use of concentrated passion fruit puree.  If you’ve been in the place during a T9 brew, the effect is noticeable when those last Nelson Sauvins and the passion fruit go into the whirlpool–people truly sit up and take notice.  Since we brewed another batch this week it’ll be around for a while, both here and around town, wherever you enjoy your favorite New Belgium specialties.

But wait, there’s more waiting to come on.  I may be somewhat pre-disposed this way, but I think it’s a safe bet we’ve got the best bench in town. The Rhubarbarella (sour Brettanomyces rhubarb ale), which we poured at the Father’s Day fest at St. Edwards Park, is itching to pucker palates. But so is the Ursa Minor Berlinerweiss (lactobacillus) and the Perfesser (plums, brett), both tapping their feet in conditioning at Tangletown.  Down at Fields there’s a dark hefeweizen, not yet named, Nate’s Type O Blood Orange Ale, more Sextacula (oats, rum-soaked golden raisins and golden syrup) and a batch of Idiot Sauvin (speaking of down-underish IPAs).  We also brewed the Idiot Sauvin on the Hill, as that’s what we’re taking to the Oregon Brewers Festival later this month.

An event I’m looking forward to is the Sessionfest that beer blogger Paul “Fruit Trees” Orchard put together and which will be held at Naked City starting next Thursday, the 14th of July.  Lightweight beers from around the Sound will be featured.  I’m betting that Slight Return, which will pour both on draft and cask-conditioned from a pin on the bar opening night, will turn out at 3% abv to be the lightest of them all, but not the mildest. That beer’s got some hops!  And you can drink a few of them.

-Dick Cantwell

A lot of stuff lately seems to be the completion or continuance of projects underway. I traveled to Fort Collins last week to help brew (dump pumpkin, pump cranberry, and try not to get in the way) Kick, the sour cranberry pumpkin ale that Kim and I put together for our Lips of Faith collaboration with New Belgium. Mike and Eric in the brewhouse were great, Peter B and his son Jo were on hand to help with the messy parts, and we’re all eagerly awaiting the release and tasting of the beer.

On Sunday we held the memorial for our friend Chris Cavanaugh at Elysian on Capitol Hill. With word really not even having been spread the place was packed. The music was terrific (good to see musicians in the place again after so many years), the slide show moving, and the general spirit open-hearted and terrific, especially as the evening wore on. Notably hilarious was the movie put together with Chris in various recognizable roles from classic films. The Raconteur was flowing freely. This beer will be on tap at various local watering holes, including Barca, Quinn’s, Naked City, Brouwer’s, Bottleworks, Charlie’s, the Stumbling Monk, Ocho, and even down in Portland at Jesse and Renata’s Apex Alehouse.

The brewhouse vessels have arrived at our future Airport Way location (right now it’s just a site, later on it’ll be an actual brewery, kind of like a bill being enacted into law).  The brew deck is currently being erected, welded and bolted in place, and other bits of equipment are straggling in, eventually to help in kegging, packaging and brewing the beer. Various members of the Elysian crew have been reporting for duty daily, doing the bidding of equipment/packaging/maintenance czar Tim Tooker. Together they’ve been stripping, cleaning, painting and reassembling such lyrical components as the palletizer, depallitzer, rinser, labeler and case packer, the latter having sequentially come under the care of Kevin, Steve, Waylon, James and Whitney. Tiling proceeds apace in the packaging and kegging areas. We’re still hoping to brew by August 1.

Today is the professional brewing debut of keg washer/driver/cellarman/all-around-great guy Nathan Crane. Nate conceived a beer using blood orange and sweet orange peel, along with a lot of Northwest hops, and is today putting it all together at the Elysian Fields brewery with relative newcomer Steve Luke. Newer even than Steve to the Elysian family is Whitney Burnside, who has so far done a little bit of everything on Capitol Hill and at Fields. Whitney moved up this way from Portland, where she worked stints at the Laurelwood and Upright breweries.

-Dick Cantwell