In our last post, I mentioned 4 events that we would be giving away beer (and attending) in Brewsvegas. Not too long ago, we committed to all of these events, but we still have one problem to solve. We don’t have a brewery.
This is quite a challenge because we can’t just contract a batch of beer somewhere and use 4 kegs because each event requires a unique beer.
Here are the beers we are producing and how we are brewing all-grain beers at a non-all-grain brewery.
What to Brew
The first thing we need to figure out is what to brew. the flavor of the Tamborine event on Sunday, March 22 must represent Tamborine Mountain. The other 3 might be what we want.
Following the launch of our eggnog last September, we brewed 10 more pilot batches. This gave us a good idea of what to make next. Of those pilot batches, three beers stood out:
- ABC Bomb – a black IPA. this tasted great and was more or less exactly what we wanted the first time around. We were looking for an opportunity to fix that.
- Beach Hut – We brewed three different versions of this farmhouse style. The first one was a little bitter, so we brewed two more, a darker (almost red) version and a more balanced version. We plan for this to be our next commercial version.
- Code Red – This hoppy red is our favorite style and the first pilot batch was close to what we wanted. With a few tweaks, we think we can make something great.
With that in mind, we have prepared the following four beers for Brewsvegas.
- For the taste of the Tamborine event on Sunday, March 22, we were eager to try our red farmhouse, which houses the famous Tamborine Mountain Brewery (located on Beacon Street) liqueur. We decided to make a kind of Quan Dong liqueur with our farmhouse red, which we call Beacon St red.
- We will be bringing our beach house Pale for a hobby time event at the Hoja Bar on March 23rd. this will be a great opportunity to test it out commercially. So far, only friends and family have tried it.
We will be brewing ABC Bomb, a black IPA, without changing the pilot batch. we are still not sure if this will end up in a Tomahawk event or a Newstead event. - Our last beer will be our red beer. It will be close to our pilot batch, a touch more dark malt, so it’s a little bit redder, and we’ll dry hop with Mosaic. That will go to Tomahawk or Newstead.
After the decision is made, we have to figure out how to make 4 different commercial beers for the event.