Part 1: Lame Excuses
The past few months have been exhausting. Between my fatherly duties, winding up with teaching for the holidays (writing reports - need I say more), playing the odd wedding here and there with the Jam Plan and mixing sound / drumming at Door of Hope, I can't believe I've still been able to progress with the brewery. We're actually not too far from gaining our Excise Licence and starting production.
Part 2: Wait - so you have beer, but no brewery?
"Hang on!" I hear you say... "if your brewery isn't operational yet, how can you have beer to sell?!" Well, our good mates at Morrison's Brewery have stepped in to fill a couple of contract brews for us, producing a couple of our recipes to allow us to begin trading (hey, a few more bucks would be sweet right now!). 1000L of our quaffable Aus Pale Ale "The Fifty Eight" and 500L of our hoppy "Stompbox IPA" will be hitting a craft beer bar near you (assuming you're living in Tas). Part 3: Excitement and BraggingLet me tell you a little about our current recipes. You're gonna love em. The Fifty-Eight is a straight-up-and-down ale in the Australian tradition - well, not the current tradition held by the "Australian" (internationally-owned) mega-swilleries who've been watering-down beer according the wishes of their accountants and money-hungry shareholders over the past century, but a more romantic notion of how our beer should taste today. Single-hopped with balanced early and late additions of Pride of Ringwood, The Fifty-Eight keeps it real with a malt base of Australian Traditional, a bucket of Wheat Malt and a smattering of Crystal. Our Stompbox IPA gets me very excited - I LOVE HOPS. IMHO, I think the Americans have this style down, so in our own take on an American IPA, we a total of 7.3 grams per litre of Citra, 3 grams per litre of Amarillo and bittered it with Tassie's own Ella hops (an additional 0.56g / l as an early addition). If you've done your math correctly, you'll have calculated 10.86 g/l of hops! Mmmmm..... Part 4: Thanks-esAt this point, I'd like to say a massive THANKS to a few folks. Firstly, Paul Morrison from Morrison's Brewery for accepting an extra couple of contracts from us right in the his peak season (trust me - he really didn't need the extra work!). Also, my good mate Bill Armstrong for his help and fine company on this venture and his hospitality as a room-mate (we're sharing our premises with his hand-crafted malt house, Not for Horses). Mark Edmunds certainly deserves a mention here - I'm truly grateful for his generosity and motivated, can-do attitude (combined with TIG welding skills). Finally, the biggest thanks of all goes to my beautiful wife who's been playing it single-parent-style more than any married woman should and generally picking up my slack around the house. Any parent who gets to the end of the day thinking "gee, I really didn't get anything done" but managed not to throttle their kids can rest assured that they've actually put in a decent effort. |