Howdy, folks. Peter E. here. A lot of people have written us with questions and suggestions for 2011's Kate Day, the day we release our famous Kate the Great Russian Imperial Stout. This year, we'll be managing the release differently than in years past, especially our procedure for bottle sales.
Here are the highlights, in Q & A format:
• When will Kate Day take Place in 2011?
Kate Day will take place on Monday, March 7, 2011.
• How much Kate the Great will be brewed?
We will brew the same quantity as in years past: ten barrels, divided equally between draught and bottles. Approximately 900 bottles will be available for purchase.
• How much do bottles of Kate cost?
After holding the line on price for the last four years, in 2011 the price of 22-ounce bottles of Kate will increase to $15 apiece.
• Will growlers of Kate be available?
No.
• What time are you going to start passing out calendar pages to people who wish to purchase bottles?
We are not going to use calendar pages this year!
• WHAT? If you're not going to use calendar pages, how are you going to handle bottle sales?
We're glad you asked! This year, we are going to organize bottle sales using custom-printed scratch tickets. Ten thousand tickets will be available, with nine hundred "winners" mixed randomly among them. These tickets will be sold at the Portsmouth Brewery for $2 apiece starting six weeks prior to Kate Day, until they run out. All of the revenue generated by the sale of these scratch tickets will be donated to a non-profit of our choice. Sale of scratch tickets will be limited to ten per person per day. Scratch tickets must be purchased in person at the Brewery. None will be sold by mail.
• If I don't live near Portsmouth, how will I be able to purchase a ticket?
This is where you become resourceful and ask your Aunt Tillie in Kittery or your BA trading partners to help out and buy tickets for you.
• So I've bought a winning scratch ticket, now what to I do?
A winning scratch ticket has no cash value - it merely entitles the bearer to purchase a single bottle of Kate at his or her convenience any time from March 7 through April 15, 2011. An individual can purchase as many bottles of Kate as he or she has winning scratch tickets. Winning scratch tickets become invalid after April 15, 2011. Any bottles of Kate remaining unsold after that date will be made available to the general public in our retail store.
• So no camping out on the sidewalk in front of the Brewery the night before?
Not for people wishing to buy bottles of Kate - that will no longer be necessary.
• How is draft Kate going to be released?
We've made some changes here, too, compared to years past. The Portsmouth Brewery will open its doors for business at eleven on Kate Day. We will let people into the building in groups of 50, spaced 15 minutes apart, until the restaurant is fully seated. This is to assure that service (and beer) flows smoothly, enabling us to provide the best hospitality throughout the day. The official tapping of Kate will take place around 12:30-ish.
So that's the general shape of our next Kate Day. We will provide more details over the coming weeks. Stay tuned!
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Dirty Blonde can't jump
Hey all,
The Dirty Blonde has no Hop in it any more. I am definitely cutting him from my fantasy Basketball team. We are back to our traditional Dirty Blonde. I hope you guys had a chance to try the Dirty Hop Blonde and enjoyed it.
cheers,
Tyler
The Dirty Blonde has no Hop in it any more. I am definitely cutting him from my fantasy Basketball team. We are back to our traditional Dirty Blonde. I hope you guys had a chance to try the Dirty Hop Blonde and enjoyed it.
cheers,
Tyler
Winter Weizen JA!
Hey all,
It is our first winter beer of the year is on tap, winter weizen. Well...the truth is we don't really have a fall weizen, technicalities. So The winter weizen is a bigger version of our hefeweizen. We added some crystal malts as well as more malts in general. This give you a beer that has the banana and clove characteristics that you love in the hefe, with more malt sweetness, more body, a bit more color and more alcohol then your summer time hefe's. Like the St. Bernard dog with a small barrel of whiskey around his neck. The alcohol with help warm you up for the colder days to come.
cheers,
Tyler
PS where can you get those little dog sized barrels? You could make individual oaked aged pints of beer.
It is our first winter beer of the year is on tap, winter weizen. Well...the truth is we don't really have a fall weizen, technicalities. So The winter weizen is a bigger version of our hefeweizen. We added some crystal malts as well as more malts in general. This give you a beer that has the banana and clove characteristics that you love in the hefe, with more malt sweetness, more body, a bit more color and more alcohol then your summer time hefe's. Like the St. Bernard dog with a small barrel of whiskey around his neck. The alcohol with help warm you up for the colder days to come.
cheers,
Tyler
PS where can you get those little dog sized barrels? You could make individual oaked aged pints of beer.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Pull the cord... Arrow spins.. "And the Cow says, 'Mooooo'"
Hey all,
It is Milk Stout time! This is one of our stouts we rotate through. With the addition of Lactose Sugar (which is a long chain unfermentable sugar) you get a nice sweetness in the glass. This milk sweetness helps round out the harsh roasty edges that would normally be found in a stout. So much so that the chocolate and sweet coffee flavors are the bulk of what you are tasting. Yummy! I am sipping on my morning coffee wishing it was a Milk Stout right now! Come on in a try the GABF Bronze Medal wining beer.
cheers,
Tyler
It is Milk Stout time! This is one of our stouts we rotate through. With the addition of Lactose Sugar (which is a long chain unfermentable sugar) you get a nice sweetness in the glass. This milk sweetness helps round out the harsh roasty edges that would normally be found in a stout. So much so that the chocolate and sweet coffee flavors are the bulk of what you are tasting. Yummy! I am sipping on my morning coffee wishing it was a Milk Stout right now! Come on in a try the GABF Bronze Medal wining beer.
cheers,
Tyler
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Not messing around
Hey all,
You we not messing around finishing up the Pumpkin. I guess you were all excited for the Rye Not, and "rye not" be excited it is a delectable beer.
Rye malt has an extreme high Beta-glucans (long chain/branched starch molecules) content. These beta-glucans are extremely hard for the enzymes in the mash to break down. Thus leaving behind a lot of unfermentable sugars as well as shorter chain beta-glucans. Both of these are what give the Rye not such a unique mouth feel. Very close to the mouth coating character of say a Oatmeal stout, but with a totally different malt flavor.
Man, re-reading my previous paragraph I geeked out on you guys for a bit. I guess what i was really trying to say is that you need to come on in and try one.
Mmmm, Glayvin!
Tyler
You we not messing around finishing up the Pumpkin. I guess you were all excited for the Rye Not, and "rye not" be excited it is a delectable beer.
Rye malt has an extreme high Beta-glucans (long chain/branched starch molecules) content. These beta-glucans are extremely hard for the enzymes in the mash to break down. Thus leaving behind a lot of unfermentable sugars as well as shorter chain beta-glucans. Both of these are what give the Rye not such a unique mouth feel. Very close to the mouth coating character of say a Oatmeal stout, but with a totally different malt flavor.
Man, re-reading my previous paragraph I geeked out on you guys for a bit. I guess what i was really trying to say is that you need to come on in and try one.
Mmmm, Glayvin!
Tyler
Monday, October 18, 2010
Last wet hop beer of the season..
Hey all,
We put on the Dirty Hop Blonde on Sunday. This beer is almost the same recipe as the regular dirty Blonde. Though we took out the whirlpool hops and replaced them with 13#'s of freshly picked hops from Strawberry Banke. They have had these hops growing on their property for who knows how long as an ornamental plant. We just found out about them last year too late to use them, so we made sure to keep an eye on them this year. John Forti was nice enough to get a bunch of the employees from Strawberry Bakne to join him in the picking party, and he ran them over as soon as they were done. They are very similar to the hops we used in our Hop Harvest I, an old school British hop grown in the US for many years. They add a nice hoppy earthy resin flavor to the Dirty Blonde. Defiantly worth a try.
Other news the Pumpkin and the Le Chat Noir are both getting very low. They are going to be replaced by the Rye Not and the Milk Stout respectfully. These are the same recipes that we won our medals from GABF this year. So keep and eye out for those going on tap!
Cheers,
Tyler
We put on the Dirty Hop Blonde on Sunday. This beer is almost the same recipe as the regular dirty Blonde. Though we took out the whirlpool hops and replaced them with 13#'s of freshly picked hops from Strawberry Banke. They have had these hops growing on their property for who knows how long as an ornamental plant. We just found out about them last year too late to use them, so we made sure to keep an eye on them this year. John Forti was nice enough to get a bunch of the employees from Strawberry Bakne to join him in the picking party, and he ran them over as soon as they were done. They are very similar to the hops we used in our Hop Harvest I, an old school British hop grown in the US for many years. They add a nice hoppy earthy resin flavor to the Dirty Blonde. Defiantly worth a try.
Other news the Pumpkin and the Le Chat Noir are both getting very low. They are going to be replaced by the Rye Not and the Milk Stout respectfully. These are the same recipes that we won our medals from GABF this year. So keep and eye out for those going on tap!
Cheers,
Tyler
Monday, October 11, 2010
I'm Back!
Hey all,
So, I am back to work. The two weeks on the couch made me miss this place so bad. I'll be gimping around the brewery on a cane for a couple more weeks and going to PT twice a week. Hopefully I'll be feeling half-way back to normal after that. Time will tell though.
Ok i need to go figure out what happened here in the last two weeks I have been out since Tod is on a much deserved couple of days off.
Go Go Gadget Brain!
Cheers,
Tyler
So, I am back to work. The two weeks on the couch made me miss this place so bad. I'll be gimping around the brewery on a cane for a couple more weeks and going to PT twice a week. Hopefully I'll be feeling half-way back to normal after that. Time will tell though.
Ok i need to go figure out what happened here in the last two weeks I have been out since Tod is on a much deserved couple of days off.
Go Go Gadget Brain!
Cheers,
Tyler
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
As the leaves fall......
Greetings beer lovers,
As the post implies it is Fall and as the leaves fall so do the levels of our favorite Fall beers.... Ocktoberfest, Hop Harvest 1 and Hop Harvest 2. If you have not had a chance to taste these fine Fall classics you'd better get in here soon as they are almost gone. A little more than a keg of each. But don't sweat. We've got a Bock, a Hefeweizen and our Pumpkin Ale to get the line up back to full strength. We are serving Smuttynose Big A IPA (YEA!) as a help out to get us thru the dwindling stocks! Hope you are enjoying the Fall and get ready for some of our Imp. IPA that we are brewing today and tomorrow and should be ready in about a month. Cheers! Todm
As the post implies it is Fall and as the leaves fall so do the levels of our favorite Fall beers.... Ocktoberfest, Hop Harvest 1 and Hop Harvest 2. If you have not had a chance to taste these fine Fall classics you'd better get in here soon as they are almost gone. A little more than a keg of each. But don't sweat. We've got a Bock, a Hefeweizen and our Pumpkin Ale to get the line up back to full strength. We are serving Smuttynose Big A IPA (YEA!) as a help out to get us thru the dwindling stocks! Hope you are enjoying the Fall and get ready for some of our Imp. IPA that we are brewing today and tomorrow and should be ready in about a month. Cheers! Todm
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