One Of My New Projects

Ok, so once again I am doing that revamp my blog thing... I guess it has been about 6 months since I said that, no? Well, I just need to keep it moving this time. So, to keep everything in line, here it is.

1001 Beers: Of Course, I can't give up on that quest.
Homebrewing: Well duh, I have a few projects coming up. 2 for December.
Visiting The New Belgium Asheville Brewery: What's interesting about this?

Well, I decided I am going to Bike there for the opening day. It is only about 255 miles from where I live... Probably add a few miles because I do not have an exact address right now. But it makes perfect sense! On their logo, A BIKE! New Belgium is my favorite brewery and... I can probably think of a third reason.... Though, those two are perfect.

I am in no way in shape to ride that distance right now... not in record time anyway. So what am I going to do? Well, ride to several other breweries and track my progress here of course!!! Lets just hope I am still at Bragg when this place opens... If not I will have to choose a different brewery and maybe rework my plan.

I haven't exactly planned out the whole thing yet but I have put together a list of breweries I want to ride to. Tentative list at this point. Things can easily change as I think of more awesome places to go or things to do.

Huske Hardware House - 12 Miles: Just the closest one to me.
Railhouse Brewing - 30 Miles: A good distance.
Aviator Brewing Company - 40 Miles: Some good ones at a fest.
Raleigh Brewing Company - 60 Miles: Yup
White Street - 73 Miles: An Awesome New-ish Brewery
Mother Earth - 98 Miles: Stretch it to 100
NoDa Brewing - 126 Mile: I want to go SO BAD!
Conquest Brewing - 167 Miles: Huge Ride
New Belgium Asheville - ~255 Miles: DUH! Not paying attention?

Maybe I will find something to fill in that last major gap, or maybe not. Looking at the NC Beer Map, not much is in the between places. Maybe I will ride to other breweries of the same/similar distances, too. Just for good measure. I mean, one is in South Carolina.

If you have any suggestions, be sure to let me know. I have quite a bit of time to work up to that last ride but I want to be ready for it.

Cheers!

A Night Out

So, this last weekend I got out to a new brewery to me, a new brewery to the world (or at least North Carolina), and to Bottle Revolution who happened to be hosting an event. Two new in one night, not bad. Though, I wish I would have been able to visit for a longer period of time. Having everything bumped up together let me get a good taste of what these places were like, but not enough to fully know what they are about.



The first stop on my insanely fast brewery tour across two cities was at FullSteam, where I got a brief introduction to from Bryan since I ventured into his hood. Of course this place has already hit my radar but having an expert there really helped out. I only had two beers here but the first one really made an impression. Apparently, that is what they were specifically setting out to do. Bryan told me that Cackalacky was brewed with the intentions of taking the beer, and brewery, nationwide.

Cackalacky is a Ginger Pale Ale that actually made good use of the flavor. Not overpowering or offensive at all. Great on the nose and great on the tongue. I had a half pint, so I am not sure how much one could actually drink of this but I can see myself having a couple in a sitting. Highly recommended. The next beer I had was the Rocket Science IPA. It is a nice IPA. A nice balance and not going to destroy you if you want to taste anything after that or while you are eating food. It sucks that I left at this point but it gave me a good baseline for next time... Yes, there will for sure be a next time here. Awesome spot, and I will even bring my dog.



I briefly stopped by Raleigh Brewing Company where I met up with The Cellar Monk. RBC had their Scotch Ale on Cask with Maple for Firkin Friday. I thought it was a bit too sweet, the maple character did not really come through, and it did not really hit the mark for a Scotch ale.

I did not try the original version but from doing some talking around the bar, the brewer had similar concerns. This was the first time brewing this beer, I think they said and they wanted to get more of the Maple next time. It would be interesting to keep tabs on this one and follow it along the way. Another place that I need to stop by when I have more time to see what their full line up is about... and I can even bring my dog!

After I got out of there, I stopped by my favorite Bottle Shop in North Carolina, Bottle Revolution. They had an event going on, and honestly, what is there to say? It was an awesome time and they had some awesome beers on tap and cask. Allagash Confluence, Terrapin Mosaic, Foothills Jade IPA... just to name a few. Glad I was not driving.



Cheers!

Raleigh Brewing Company

As some of you may know, I entered my Fat Bastard Barley Wine into a competition last year, The Piedmont Brewers Cup. It actually did fairly well, scoring 43 points out of a possible 50 total, and it took first in the strong ale category. I was not able to make it to the award ceremony they were holding but I figured I would get my feedback in the mail and see what the judges thought of it. I mean, this was my first, first place finish so I was excited!



After some time had passed and I had not heard back I figured I would email the runners of the competition and just ask if there were any problems or anything. I got in contact with John at that time and apparently some things went down and yada yada yada... I am sure you get the picture. Anyway, he moved onto another project. He started another competition and even began to open a brewery! The Raleigh Brewing Company. Their website says it was actually formed back in 2010 but really, what could be more exciting than that?! I knew I had to get up there. I just needed to figure out when it was going to be opening.



Lucky for me, they have a homebrew shop on site! The Atlantic Brew Supply. I figured I would go up there, pick up some supplies, find out about everything that is going on, and when I could come and try out all of their beers. Simple enough list, right? The supply shop is in a pretty big area and they have everything I could have thought to pick up. I wanted a little container of PBW and I was expecting the standard, biggest size we have 4lb container... They had an 8! I was not picking up a complicated amount of supplies or anything out of the ordinary but they had everything I was looking for and more. Very nicely sorted and staged. If you could not find something, you were not really looking.



After I had checked out I went around meeting the crew and got to talking with everybody that was there about pretty much everything. I had some heart felt moments with Patrik, a short chat about the brewery and the opening with the ever so busy John, I got some good advice on my Bavarian Wheat from Eddie, and talked about dogs with Alex. It was a pretty awesome time and at one point, John brought me out a sample of the official, very first beer of the company, The Raleigh UN-Common.

This beer was an experiment that went extremely well and has been called our “Gateway Beer”. If you aren’t sure what to drink or don’t like beers that are very rich in flavor, bitterness, or alcohol then our Raleigh UN-Common is for you! It’s very light in both color and flavor, finishes crisp, and is low in hop bitterness. However, there are still hints of cereal and toast to keep it interesting and it’s brewed with a lager yeast. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do! 4.5% ABV

The Un-Common was only about 40 hours post yeast pitch and John said that the beer had dropped about 10 gravity points from its 1.050 Original Gravity. John then told me that I was The Very First to have a sample of their production beer! I can totally say that I have been here since the beginning! Now if there were only an Untappd badge for that... I wish I snapped a picture of it as well hah!

At this time the beer was grainy, had a fairly nice body even though it was early in fermentation, and it was lemony on the finish. I can't wait to try this one once it is done. It may very well end up being my first beer from them. That way I can see the change along the fermentation process.

I had a little bit of an ethical dilemma after I finished the beer. John had given it to me in a Raleigh Brewing Company glass and I wanted it! I drank the beer inside of the glass and I was thinking to myself, "Is this glass for me?" Haha! I really wanted it but I just left it there. I had already checked out, I was "on my way out", I thought maybe I should have asked, or just picked one up since they had a lot of merchandise with their name on it. Oh well, next time. I can see one of those growlers coming home with me.

I am really interested in trying the English Bitter, a true session ale and the Rye IPA just because I love brewing with Rye. That is actually one of the ingredients I picked up from Atlantic Brew Supply. A few things I found out that may be of importance or just something to satisfy your curiosity,

The Raleigh Brewing Company is brewing on a 20 barrel system.

That is about 630 gallons of beer each batch. That is pretty insane. I only make 5 gallons in each batch I make... Yeah!

It sounds like they plan to open the doors to the tap room on March 2nd.

I am not sure if that is The Date, so don't come after me if you are in the area then and it is not. There should be an update on their website soon. If you are in the area though, you should definitely check it out. I know I will be up there.