Maui Brewing Company Tour

ALOHA!

Just recently, we were fortunate enough to take a trip to Hawaii.

  

Hawaii was incredibly beautiful, relaxing and definitely one of the best vacations I have ever had.  It also didn't hurt that during our week long stay on Maui, we took a brewery tour =).  Not at all like us, I know, but when on vacation...

Coming home sucked!

Below are pictures of our tour.  

Palates of Cans

All of their production is based out of this one location on Maui and all of the beer ships out in either kegs or cans.  No bottles.

Why no bottles?  Because cans are recycled more efficiently.  Cans are also lighter, which helps in shipping costs.  Finally, and in my opinion, most importantly...

...cans are safer the beach!  No one likes broken glass in the foot.

Maui Brewing Company experiments with all sorts of brews, both ales and lagers.  You heard that right - lagers.  In Hawaii.  Our tour guide said that at the end of the day, locals love themselves a nice, cold brewed lager.  

Their most popular lager is a very delicious Bikini Blond.  Their other top sellers include a Coconut Porter, a Big Swell IPA and my personal favorite the Mana Wheat, which is brewed with pineapples!

Considering the size of the facility, their production numbers are very impressive.  They only have a few fermentation tanks and a lager room.  Even the canning is all done on-site

The Kegs

 They have a ton of delicious beers.  One of them even includes chipotle peppers in their brew ("Hot Blonde").  A full list of their beers can be seen here.  There wasn't a bad beer on the "board."  More on this later.

Fermentation Tanks

The Maui Brewing Company guys will be visiting us in DC this summer at the SAVOR (June 8-9th) 

[side note: yours truly and her handsome beau will also be attending Saturday night.  Will you be there too?  Send us a tweet at @brewmeacoldone ].  

The Maui Brewing Company will be hosting a salon on their beer.  More information on their salon can be found here.  If you can, I would definitely recommend checking them out.

My Favorite Hawaiian Beer

Lager Room

Big Swell IPA

Tap Van!

After taking the tour, and getting many samples of their delicious offerings, we headed to the Maui Brewing Company Brewpub (see the board of their offerings above).  I have to say, the experience there was almost as much fun as the tour itself.

Remember we were talking about the "board."  Check it out - the bar was a cold plate, which was an icy slab, coated in "snow," where you could set your beer to keep it cold!

We need some of these in DC!  And everywhere else for that matter!

As you can see, we had a little too much fun with the cold plate =)

Finally, I would like to give a quick shout out to the folks at "HI, I like you".  We met John, the owner of this awesome brand at the Maui Brewing Company Brew Pub, and had a blast with them!  I was sure to buy one of their T-Shirts (and it looks awesome!).  Thanks again!  You can find out more about their awesome brand here:

HI, I Like You

and I like Hawaii =)

and their beer.  Especially their beer.

Taste Testing

Hi there!

I know so many of you have been impatiently waiting for a new blog post talking about the recent beers we've brewed and how they turned out.  Don't worry baby birds...

Grommet:

This beer is probably my favorite beer we have brewed so far.  Not that the list is that extensive, but it's definitely a solid beer.  It has great color, a nice head on it, and doesn’t have a medicinal cherry taste.  In the interest of full disclosure, it doesn’t have that much of a cherry taste at all, but it is pleasantly fruity and light and in my humble opinion makes for a delicious, spring beer.  In fact, while taking breaks between Guinesses this St. Paddy's day, we were sure to enjoy a few of these (and those of you in the DC area know how amazing the weather was!)

The beer itself didn't have any major mechanical or flavor flaws (i.e. over-carbonation, flat head, etc.)  With each beer, we learn something new.  When we started trying Grommet, the head was lacking.  Some quick research indicated that such a problem could be caused by a multitude of factors.  For instance, did you know that dishwasher soap residue in the bottles could affect the head of a beer?  Who knew?!

Excelsior Altbier:

This beer was the inaugural brew of the 'home-brew-kit-of-the-month' subscription we've signed up for.  It works exactly like it sounds...each month we get a pre-determined beer making kit in the mail (on-deck is an "Octane IPA").  This works nicely for us condo-brewers because the ingredients are all pre-measured and each kit comes with everything you needs (grains, hops, yeast and even the bottle caps). 

This was also the first time we used our new yeast culturing system, WHICH, if you're a science dork like me, gets you oddly excited.  It’s basically a small magnet, the shape of a pill that goes inside of a beaker.  Then, the beaker gets placed on a magnetic stir plate, causing the yeasty, liquid mixture to stir itself.  This action agitates the yeast, allowing it to reproduce.  It’s basically the scientific equivalent to one of those vibrating motel beds.

In action, it looks something like this:

But I digress...(I told you science and chemistry toys get me excited!)

We skipped the second rack stage, which upon opening the beer, we immediately regretted.  It doesn’t taste bad (it tastes rather good in fact), but there is a bit too much sediment floating around in the bottle.  We've also discovered that we are still fine tuning the corn-sugaring process, because when we went to open the bottle, it was like a bottle of bubbly in a rap video.

Be sure to open this one over the sink kids

Once we mopped up, we were able to enjoy the beer and see that it was very tasty.  Two thumbs up!

Here is the label we created for the beer:

So that's all we have for now.  We'll have Octane IPA updates and maybe even another Brewery tour on deck for you soon!



Bottling Grommit

We finally got Grommit in the bottle.

After all, he seemed like he was constantly trying to escape!

For those of you keeping score at home, this is the second time we've bottled at home.  I'm happy to report that we are getting better at it.

Although we have yet to come up with a more effiecient way to clean all this stuff!

So, so much to clean...

But in the end, we were able to produce two cases of [hopefully] delicious black cherry beer.

(this post is being written about a week after we bottled (sorry!), so hopefully we'll have a flavor/carbonation update for you soon)

 The label, seen below, is somewhat of a small point of pride for me (ok, I friggen love this thing!  I even hung one on the fridge because I'm so proud/such a huge dork). 

We have these fancy new labels that stick on with water, which means they will also come off easeier when we got to reuse the bottles!  Win!

  

Some other updates:

We currently also have an Altbier going.  Our goal is to brew at least one new beer a month (practice makes drunk perfect).  It was brewed while I was attempting to get a tan (but successfully fulfilling my destiny as a lobster-in-training) during a family get away to Florida.  So we've got that going for us...

Also, after our trip to the Flying Dog Brewery, we bought our first tap handle!  We have nothing to use it with, since we don't keg (yet) but its a nice reminder of we'd like to aspire to (not to mention, its so cool looking! AND one of my personally favorite beers)

TA-DA!

So that's all for now kids, we've got 2 cases of Grommit conditioning in the bottle, an Altbier in a bucket, one strictly-for-show tap handle and a patridge in a pear tree

Ooh!  A pear beer...that might be interesting...

Brewery Tour - Doggie Style

What do a Raging B**ch, Doggie Style, a Pearl Necklace, Gonzo and Kujo have in common?

They are all delicious, delicious beers

(Get your mind out of the gutter...sheesh)

This past weekend, we took a long anticipated trip to the Flying Dog Brewery in Frederick, MD.  If you're fortunate enough to have access to their beers on a regular basis, you should know that all of their beers are produced out of this single location!  They used to be based out of Aspen, CO, but when they realized that the majority of their fans were east of the Mississippi River, they moved to the East Coast.

Lucky for us, they are only located about an hour drive away!

The tour was fantastic!  Everyone was super knowledgeable and all have a clear passion for beer.  We got to see their entire operation and tasted lots of samples (more on that in a bit).

This is a pictures of one of their brew kettles.  For us, this part is played by a turkey fryer pot with a spout.  THIS bad boy however is huge!  They have two lauter tuns and a mash tun on the premises.  The inside is intricate and between every batch someone has to go down inside of the kettle to clean/sanitize it!  AH!  I would NOT want that gig...

The control panel they use it huge!  And its all kept inside of a warehouse where there are tons of supplies.  Kegs, grains, more grains and hops are all kept on the premesis. 

The warehouse!

Next we were off to see the fermentation tanks.  These guys are HUGE!  So big in fact that their "airlock" is a giant plastic barrel!  Seen below...

Me taking in the glory of the fermenters

mmm...shinyyyy

If you look at this picture closely, you can see of the plastic barrel "airlocks" overflowing

Now that's a nozzle...

I would be really upset if this much yeasty, brown frothy-ness was all over our bathroom!

This tank is hosting the Gonzo Imperial Porter

This Gigantor machine is their one and only bottling machine.  Apparently it was on-site when Flying Dog bought the space.  *Drool*

This picture was taken in their warehouse where they package the beer and get it ready to ship.  Most of their beers are stored and shipped cold (and the only reason they wouldn't be is because they have been scientifically proven to not change in taste/flavor at room temperature.)   Another fun fact I learned is that the machine can only package one type of beer at a time.  That means if you buy a variety pack, that box was HAND PACKED by some guy (or gal) taking individual bottles and placing them in the box.

Now that's love

If you have the chance and live close enough to their Frederick, MD brewery, I would HIGHLY recommend it (you can find info on how to sign up for their tours here.)  You will need a DD though (thanks babe =P), since they give you SIX - 3oz samples! 

[For those of you keeping score, or are reading this WHILE consuming the subject matter of this blog, that's 24oz (aka a lot of beer for a lightweight like me)].

We got to sample a lot of really great stuff, including their current batch of their Wildeman Farmhouse IPA and their Horn Dog Barley Wine.  A real treat was their Barrel Aged Gonzo Imperial Porter, which was sweet and delicious.  We were sure to take home some souvenirs (in fact, 2 growlers worth!) 

Overall, it was a fantastic afternoon!



Conditioning Gromit

My mom always says, "knowledge is power"...



Exhibit A



Well I can honestly tell you, this whole thing has certainly been a learning experience.

For instance, you need to learn to adapt.  When we went to sanitize the carboy for the conditioning stage of our black cherry witbier (affectionately referred to as "Gromit", or less affectionately referred to as "Ornery Bastard"), the kitchen sink nozzle was stuck.  Wouldn't budge.  So, we went over to the bathroom sink and used that instead.

We also learned that when filling up the carboy, don't turn away for even ONE SECOND!  We did, and the plastic tubing magically lifted itself out of the glass container and proceeded to spray water E.V.E.R.Y.W.H.E.R.E...

See exhibit A (above) 

Once my OCD tendencies were under control and we fully towel dried the bathroom floor (at least we know its clean now right?), we proceeded to transfer Gromit from the bucket to the glass carboy.  The picture above shows the foamy, yeasty layer that was on top.  It's a sight like this that makes you wonder, "is making beer at home is actually worth it?"

Um, of course it is!  Trick question!

Anyway, before we transferred the beer, we wanted to add the very essential black cherry concentrate to the carboy.  It smelled delicious!

Here's the set up mid-transfer.  Working auto-syphon?  Check

The leftovers, including a yeast-filled bucket and the black cherry concentrate

And that was it!  Gromit will sit there for another week or so and get happy...

Or not

See, when sugar and yeast are mixed together, it creates gas.  Gas needs to escape somewhere, which is what the airlock is for.  Apparently, the black cherry concentrate (although labeled "sugar free"), must have contained some dissolvable sugars (4% in fact after reading the label, we're SMRT).  So boys and girls, what does this mean exactly?  It means we had a reprise of what happened Sunday morning when the airlock blew and there was brown foam everywhere. 

Throughout the course of the night Gromit covered itself, the towels, the floor and even the walls in one case with brown foam because the sugars from the black cherry concentrate activated the yeast.  At times we were just sitting and watching TV and you'd hear the airlock blow with a "pop" sound.  We would just look at each other with a look of "Gromit's at it again."  It just became a lossing battle to constantly clean up, so we decided to just let it do it's thing...

Thankfully this only went on for a day or so until the fermentable sugars were processed and Gromit calmed itself down.

Finally, I know everyone reading this post is a totally loyal follower and understands every reference I make, BUT for those of you who are just joining us, above is a picture of the reason we are calling this latest beer "Gromit".  That little, round, black sucker fell in the bucket when we were attaching the airlock at the very last stage of the beer making process.  So that little guy has been sitting in the bottom of the fermenting bucket for the past week.  If this beer is as stellar as I hope it is, you can bet that I will be throwing it in to subsequent batches!

Next up on the homebrew calendar, we will be tasting the "Hot Toddie Ale" we bottled a little while ago.  Consdiering all of the errors we made, we're not too optimistic =/