Dylan on Beer

Sarachi Ace hop thingys swimming in the wort. 

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In the immortal words of Jim Anchower, "Hola, Amigos.  Its been a long time since I rapped at ya".  This is an understatement.  So lets find out whats been going down at the Civil Life....

Well, I'm pleased to announce that we've brewed two new beers which will be pouring at a tap near you (if you live near the brewery) in the next couple of weeks.  The first is a one-off for the Fresh Hop fest at Schlafly coming up on Oct 22.  The hop this year was Sorachi Ace which according to my computer was developed by Sapporo as a bittering hop.  Also according to my computer Sorachi Ace is misspelled.  What does it know.  It was decreed by the beer gods that we brew a Black Beer with said hops and there was much rejoicing.  

What’s Black Beer you say?  

And I say, Black Beer is not a stout, and its not a porter, and yet it has a lot in common with both.  Its a little subjective, but when you taste it I hope you'll get my drift.  We used a new malt on this one too, Caramel Rye, which is a pretty neat malt from one of my all time fave Maltsters - Thomas Fawcett.  I'm really looking forward to this beer and despite the fact that it won't be brewed again it was nice to have this one in the books because we now have a bit more of a base line when we brew our Stout.

The second brew was a Scottish Style Ale which should end up with a pretty solid hop aroma which is not the norm for the style.  We've worked on this beer a lot over the past couple of years and its really satisfying to get at it in the brewery!  I'm getting a lot of mileage out of the fact that our highest abv beer is our German Wheat, and our Scottish Ale is one of our hoppiest.  

Oh, and we re-brewed the American Brown and the German Wheat as they are getting scarce around our cooler and not having these beers around would put a dent in my drinking style.  

Here's to drinking our beer!  Thanks a lot!