Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Kate's Volume

To answer your question about why we can't make more Kate then we already do. Here at the Portsmouth Brewery we are a 7bbl Brewhouse, some brewpubs are 10bbl even 15bbl capacity. Us, being smaller allows for more flexibility and creativity to create a wide variety of beers from our blond ale all the way to the complex Kate RIS. But this small size limits the max volume we can make of one type of beer as well. Our biggest Fermenter (we have 2 of them) is 14bbl in capacity. These are designated for our more popular beers to ferment out in so we can keep up with the demand; Blonde Ale, IPA to name the few stand-bys that are always on. To be able to fit our specialty brews into these takes a few months of planning making sure we have enough back up in our serving tanks and in our horizontal condition vessel to allow us to use the big double Fermenter to make a specialty beer. So after all this planning we can finally brew a double batch of Kate. But since Kate is a RIS we use an insane amount of grain and only run off 5bbl of wort. This gets our original gravity to 26 oP and what allows the Kate to be 11% abv. So this means that with a double batch we get a total of 10bbl of beer to serve. So 10bbl is the most that we can make with our current fermentation space we have now.

This year we are changing up the service slightly. We are transferring 7bbls of Kate into a serving tank to serve off our taps. And the remaining 3bbls we are going to bottle off before June 24th @2:27pm so there will be plenty of bottles available that day (40ish cases or so). About the limit of bottles one person can buy I will have to talk to a few people to see what the state law is and our regulations as a brewpub. But I do know that Three Floyds in Indiana has there Dark Lord Day (their RIS that isn’t as good as ours). Where they release 600 Cases (40bbls) and their limit is 6 bottles per person. But I will be getting back to this soon.

Cheers,
Tyler

10 comments:

  1. Since you are bottling them ahead of time, how about making a cool label for the bottle. Not that the magic marker and the regular label isn’t cool enough :-)

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  2. The last time I stood in line waiting for something downtown was for beanie babies in front of tree house toys. My wife made me do it now it’s going to be her turn. Some how I think this will be better or at least warmer

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  3. Keep in mind that Dark Lord Day didn't start off with that kind of volume, limit or crowds. They don't compare. But, you are correct ...Kate is better than Dark Lord. :-) When Foothills released the bottles of Sexual Chocolate, they did something like 4 bottles/per for the first 100 people and 2bottles/per for the next 50. PLEASE plan to give out armbands, numbers or something to kill the line cutting and other bad line behavior. Also can you let the little kitchen store on the corner know that June 24th would be a good day for a sale?

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  4. I'm totally on board with the armband/ticket idea. I think loyal followers of this blog should, of course, get first preference.

    I'm already recruiting friends from out of state to come visit that first weekend. Thinking of making it an annual event!

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  5. What about growler fills ? will they be limited as well?

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  6. Hey Tyler,

    Great blog!

    So, Imperial Pint Clubbers get 1st dibs, right? And more, too, eh?? ;-)

    Prosit!

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  7. Hey Tyler,

    Great blog!

    So, first dibs go to Imperial Pint Clubbers, right? And more, too, eh?? ;-)

    Prosit!!

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  8. special invitation mailed to imperial pint clubites would be good; then open the flood gates to all the thirsty masses.

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  9. If that happens, would you have to enforce a record date to keep people from signing up the day before? I'm not a member (yet), but I know if I got priority for Kate, I would sign up this afternoon!

    For current members, is it worth the $50 (ignoring the potential preferential Kate treatment)?

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  10. If you wanted to reward your regular patrons you should go by a number of Hoppy points not by the pint club (just my two cents)
    To answer the Question is the pint club worth it?
    Yes. The only thing that I have a problem with is, having to drink my Belgians and all the other less Sessionable Beers out of a pint glass instead of a Sniffer. You could solve that with a larger Sniffer and two fill lines. It would even cut down on spilled beer at the tap. Just another thought while I am on the subject a Weizen Glass would be a cool add to the pub as well
    Oh well enough ranting
    Can’t wait for the Kate
    Joe

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