Main
It was a lazy Sunday, so what better way to spend it than playing with the Brewery's webcams? I was going to be up there anyway for a video shoot. (In case you haven't been reading your Saint Arnold's Army e-mails, there's a music video contest for our 13th anniversary) So if you were REALLY bored and were browsing the Brewery's webcams all afternoon you had a very strange day!
If you weren't watching... what did you miss? The dreaded green screen of... something. The Keg Cam, Batman in the brewhouse, Oversize portions, Odd drinking buddies, The traditional beating (and subsequent healing) of the videographer, Saint Arnold and the Morris Dancers share a song, Batman tends bar, Skateboarding, A visit from the Dark Lord, The Big Gulp and a plug for Rice University. It was so much fun, you'd never want to leave!
Happy April Fool's Day!
So this part isn't so fun... until we're finished!
Our casks circulate. In other words, we send them out, we get them back. Problem is, when we get them back, they are open to the air... and whatever else cares to investigate. That means some poor soul has to clean them out. Last Friday, I cleaned out 16 casks. It's a delightful experience. (6 Mb, Requires Apple's Quicktime, hosted offsite because it's too darn big...) (BTW, Images are from a previous cleaning.. not mine.)
These days we're casking Elissa I.P.A. although in the past we've done Amber. Even though they arrive dirty and smelly, by the time we're done, the casks are sanitized and immaculate for casking. There's nothing like handling Mjolnir, which hammers home both the "keystone" and the "shive" with a satisfying ring of wood on metal. At the end of the day we have 16 brand new casks (7 Mb, Requires Apple's Quicktime) of tasty, unfiltered, dry hopped Elissa ready for your enjoyment!
Back in September, we received a pair of Buffalo Trace bourbon barrels. Anyone who attended last year's Saint Patrick's day event will no doubt recall that we had a very tasty (and very intoxicating) bourbon barrel stout. We decided if one barrel was good last year, then two have to be even better!
Of course the fun of doing special projects like these is how we manage to fill (and drain) something we're really not set up to use on any kind of regular basis. Vince and I came up with a workaround back in September to fill them, which also provided some entertainment to the party that was at the brewery that night. Since then, the barrels have been lurking in our cold box, waiting for their day in the sun.
The sunny day proved to be this last Wednesday when we filled nine firkins with the now bourbon-infused stout. It is dangerously delicious, kicking off with a huge note of oaky vanilla and bourbon alcohol. That is followed right away with a hit of powdered cocoa and the mellowed roast of the stout. The aftertaste is a hint of whisky maltiness and a return of the vanilla note.
Getting it out of the barrel was as much an exercise in improvisation as getting it in, but we managed to get it done!
We'll be sampling it at the Saint Patrick's day party, in addition to judging our Donegal beards, which have been growing since January 1st!
I spent a while unloading dirty kegs the other day. It's really just forklift time for the most part, but since they arrive in large quantities we stack them high. For the half barrel kegs, it's no big deal since they arrive in pallets of eight and are quite stable. But our sixth-barrel kegs are a different story. They arrive in pallets of twenty. They tend to be loosely packed and poorly contained. They are constantly trying to fall off the pallets. They weigh fourteen pounds empty, so maybe 280 or pounds per pallet.
So my challenge is to stack them (after getting them off the truck) and of course, keep the half barrels wiith the half barrels and the sixths with the sixths. So I ended up with a rather spectacular (and scary) six pallet stack*...Jenga!
*One thousand six hundred and eighty pounds worth!
Nothing says "organization" like a uniform. However, we're just not that picky at the brewery. If you've spent any time on the Brewcams, you likely have noted that while we usually wear some type of Saint Arnold shirt at the "office," sometimes there's a random brewery t-shirt or (gasp!) a shirt with NO relationship to brewing at all!
But all of that changed yesterday with the arrival of new Saint Arnold work shirts. Suddenly, we looked like we meant business! Of course, we can't really do anything without keeping SOME levity in the mix. Nobody put their real name on on the shirts, so trying to figure out who's who by checking the name on the shirt won't work! Think you can match the nickname to the brewery employee? Give it a try... There's Scooter, Mr. Wright, Mr. Foogerson, Moonpie, Glass Wrangler and Coffee Filtration. If you don't like those names, wait until the next workday, since nobody put the same name on every shirt! Of course, I was supposed to have MY name on my work shirt, which was the original. Then again, if you don't know who I am, you must not know Saint Arnold all that well!
Owing to a problem (now corrected) with our reverse osmosis system this morning, we ended up having a "slow day" today. Of course "slow" is a relative term... we still had a massive bottling run, kegs to clean, bright tanks to prepare for filtering and other fun tasks. I made it my job to venture into the rafters of the brewery to clean the tops of several tanks. (Winter is clearly the best time of year to do this...) Saints Patrick, Sambomeister, Idesbald, Gall and Dorothy all got scrubbed down with stunning results. The problem is that over time they get dusty and the dust traps condenstion on top of the tank making it perfect for mildew. Cleaning them isn't hard, just time consuming, dirty and a little bit unnerving. Properly secured, you don't have to worry about falling to your death, but there's not a lot of room to stand!
Naturally, all that grime ends up on the floor, making this task one to be avoided on Fridays, when we are trying to clean the place up for Saturday's tour, so no telling when I (or someone else) will get to the rest of the tanks!
It's bad enough I can't stretch my elbow out straight... but who needs a piece of sandpaper on their index finger? I can't say I wasn't warned though... Vince showed me his (um, brewer's finger) within days of my starting work at the brewery.
Its origin is the clamps we use to hook hoses onto the kettle, filter, fermenter and cleaning equipment. Some of them are smoother than others, but all require a judicious amount of torque to get everything sealed up properly.. and there's the "rub."
The smooth clamps only give you carpal tunnel... the rough ones... THEY give you "Brewer's Finger!" Feel to ask about rubbing any of our fingers next time you're here on tour... I hear it's good luck!
The past two times we've made Root Beer, I've been the "lucky" man on the platform. It's a dirt-simple job, you fill the kettle with water, you "spin" it with the pump and start throwing in the sugar! It's ONLY 1900 pounds in a batch! I took advantage of the webcam the other day to make a movie of the process... (requires Apple's Quicktime)
When I did it earlier in the year, it was truly a "hot, sticky & sweet" situation, as I was coated in sugar, which melted with my sweat... Yuck! and I recorded the pile of sugar bags for posterity, which our webcam sadly missed.
Once we finish making the sugar water, then we blend it with our own special root beer flavorings (made especially for Saint Arnold) in a fermenter and then chill it back down before carbonating it. Then comes bottling day.. the ONE day when we can drink as much as we want, straight off the bottling line!
It's a benefit... when the bottling run is done, you get to see what didn't get filled (or labeled) properly. Some runs are better than others! This past week, the Elissa bottling run was very good... the low fills truly WERE low-fills. But there was a lot of Christmas Ale left over! I sorted through both to get the "best of the best" that were still there.
So, I took the initiative to fill a quick box with a combination: EIissa and Christmas Ale! Mix them 1/2 and 1/2 in a glass... It's called a "Sailing Santa" and it's pretty darn tasty! I am happy to have my own supply, ready to consume, in house... but rest assured, this recipe isn't a strategy on our part to sell twice as much beer during Christmas... OR IS IT? ;-)
|
