Aloha............

For the next two weeks, my wife and I will be on the islands of Molokai and Kauai. I will be visiting a few breweries and will post my reviews at some point. So, don't expect too much until early July.

G-Free

In response to a request from a local restaurant chain, we brewed a gluten-free beer early last month. Last Friday, I filtered, carbonated and kegged out the beer which we call G-Free. The beer, which was made with 660 lbs of sorghum syrup also contains four pounds of coriander and four pounds of Orange peel. We used a Belgian White yeast strain and hopped it with EKG's and Czech Saaz. The coriander and orange peel are very noticeable on the nose and palate of the beer. It definitely doesn't taste like a normal beer, there's no doubt about that. I really haven't had many gluten-free beers, so I don't have a large basis for comparison. Light-bodied with orange fruit notes is about the best one-sentence description I could write. G-Free is carbonated to a fairly high level, so it has a nice thick, creamy head that lingers for some time. Not exactly sure when or if G-Free will be available at the brewery. It may only be available at the restaurant. With the G-Free in kegs, this means that our 15 BBL fermenter, used solely for seasonals/specialities is wide open. We're still kicking around ideas on what to brew next. Due to hop shortages and prices it doesn't look like it will be an IPA.

One Year in The Game

Well, I turned 1-year-old at the Oak Creek Brewing Company yesterday. The past year has moved fast and it hardly seems possible that 365 days have past since I started. I can't even begin to list all the things I've learned. It's pretty amazing. A year ago, I walked through the door not knowing what to expect or how things would go for me. Yesterday I walked out the door feeling good. I've got a long ways to go, but I feel solid about what I've accomplished so far. For the first four months all I did was bottle, keg and clean tanks. Occasionally I would be given the task of prepping the filter. Slowly, OCBC Head Brewer Jim Strelau started to give me more responsibility as I earned trust. At the end of a day around my six-month mark, he told me, "You now know enough to be really dangerous. Be careful at all times." Right around this time, I began to start a rather intensive brew-training program. I shadowed Jim and OCBC Brewer Zach Beckwith, taking notes and direction and most importantly asking a lot of questions. One day while working with Jim, he had to unexpectedly leave the brewery, just as the boil started. He came up to me and told me that he was turning the brew over to me. "You're brewing now and I'll be back later," he said. I remember asking him if he thought I could handle it. He replied, "I guess we'll find out." His reaction to my question wasn't harsh, it was honest and I think he said what he did to keep me level. I watched him walk out the door that day and thought, "Holy Shit...I'm in charge of this brew." Not too long after that, I was given my first solo brew day and a true shot at becoming a member of the brew staff. It's been a challenge -- this job is not easy. It doesn't involve sitting around sipping brews mid-afternoon. It's hard, dirty work.....but it's also the best job I've ever had.

Head Ramblings

After a fairly hectic end to last week, this one seems to be moving along a little easier. I'm right in the middle of a stretch of three consecutive brew days, which is always nice. It's great to hear all the commotion of the bottling and be in a different room with a legitimate reason for not being on the line. The "Team B" Bottling crew is doing about 300 cases of Amber and Gold Lager. Rumor has it that we'll be bottling again this week on Thursday or Friday. My beer is behaving very bizarrely today. I almost came to a boil about 3/4 of the way through my lauter, which is taking forever today. In fact it took two hours and fifteen minutes -- far slower than normal. My grain bed somewhat resembled a concrete brick. In the end, it all went fine and is likely just starting to ferment right about now. Our monthly mention in the Southwest Brewing News, written by Ben Jones, talks about our new Gluten free beer(G-Free) and a couple of our "Green" practices that we employ at the brewery. Be sure to check it out. We're also going to be pouring beer this Sunday, June 8, at the Taste of Sedona at Los Abrigados Resort and Spa. It's a good cause and will feature plenty of great food, wine and our beer. If you do go, make sure to check out Page Springs Vineyards and Cellars. These guys make excellent Rhone wines and it's also where we get our barrels for beers like Rare Earth.

What a Day

I take back every questioning word about "Beer Season" I previously wrote. The demand for our beers has noticeably increased since the weather turned into warm days. So much so that we're bottling two days a week now. Today was supposed to be the second day and final day of bottling for the week, but things didn't quite work out. After bottling 375 cases of Amber and Nut Brown yesterday, we were planning to do some Pale Ale and more Nut Brown. Well, directions got a bit jumbled and the tank we wanted to filter into this morning wasn't available until 9 a.m. That's far too late to filter and then try to bottle. So, bottling got pushed back until tomorrow. Now here's where things get interesting. We get the filter going and it flys, only taking about 40 minutes. Pale Ale filters usually take about an hour for a 30 BBL batch, due to the amount of sediment from yeast drop out and dry hopping. Maybe we just got lucky today? No such luck. While I was carbonating the beer, I pulled a pint out of the sample port and noticed that it was really cloudy. My first thoughts were a chill or protein haze. OCBC Head Brewer Jim Strelau quickly dismissed the chill haze theory and put his money on the protein. What's the solution? Re-filter the beer. I quickly start cleaning the tank that the Pale Ale originally came out of earlier this morning. While doing that, I prep the serving tank for the transfer and start getting the filter set up. We use a plate/frame filter that takes 40 pads. With the transfer going (it takes about 30 minutes) I begin the hot loop on the filter. The hot loop heat sanitizes the pads, which is important. Following the hot loop, we cool down the pads by running cold water through filter. You don't want to put 34 degree beer through hot pads. As soon as the transfer finishes, I set up the filter and begin to send it directly back into the serving tank. The filter starts off good, only at about 2 bars on the pressure gauge. Almost an hour later, the filter has finished and I take a sample out of the tank. It still looks a little hazy, but it's much better than it was before. Thankfully, the double filtration has not robbed the beer of its aroma or body. The following day, we take another sample out of the tank and the beer looks good. Jim gives it the final OK and we are finally ready to bottle it. We cranked out 150 cases on Thursday. Some things surrounding this still remain a bit of mystery. We are certain that there was far more yeast still in suspension in the beer than we normally have. Our records show that yeast was dropped off the tank at various stages of the beer's life. We'll be keeping a close eye on the next batch.

All is calm...Not really

It's 5 a.m. Monday morning and all is quiet -- Just like I like it. Of the three brewers wo work here, I'm the weirdo who comes in early -- sometimes at 4 a.m. to start brewing. Most days start at 7 a.m. I think I've always been this way with any job that I've had. I love to get an early start. Part of coming in early gives me more flexibility and time to get everything done that I need to accomplish. In addition, the phones don't ring, trucks don't show up and thirsty customers rarely stop by at 5 a.m. -- although it has happened. Despite this being a pretty loud job, I enjoy the early mornings where during conversion or lauter rest, the only thing you hear is the sound of the blow-off buckets -- a Co2 symphony, if you will. So today, I'm brewing a second day gold lager. Gold lager is one of our most simple beers in terms of the recipe, 50lbs of speciality grains and about 850 lbs of silo malt. Unlike the other beers we brew, this one doesn't cause you break out in a full sweat first thing in the morning. Kind of a nice way to start your day. Looks like we're in for another busy week, now that we're "in season." Is there really a beer season? I understand that summer is a time for lawnmower beers, but it seems to me that there are clearly beers for every season. None the less, we're brewing almost every day of the weeks. One of our seasonals, the Brusselz Stout (made by OCBC Brewer Zach Beckwith) is now out. Hope you had a chance to try this one, it was great.

Be ready for anything

If there's anything I've learned from working at a brewery, it's that change is constant. Everything from the beer itself to our schedule to the needs of our distributor is constantly in flux. You've got to be ready for anything, and be able to (Excuse my hockey reference here) "change on the fly." Perhaps a run down of one of my days last week will better illustrate my point: Arrive at the brewery at 5 a.m. to brew. Start a cleaning cycle on my fermenter. Lay out grain and adjust water level in the kettle. Mash In. During mash in, I switch cycles on my fermenter and stir the kettle regularly. Thirty minutes later, I'm at conversion rest and find myself helping to set up a hot loop for a double filter. Finish hot loop and raise the kettle temperature for the mash transfer. Help get filter to the tank and started. Begin mash transfer. After that I go back to brewing, but know there's a truck coming at noon to pick up some kegs and a grain delivery on the way. As cliche as it sounds, if you can't multi-task, I've found that you'll always find yourself one step behind around here.