Rauchbier.. Ja!

Hey all,

Smutty pumpkin kicked and we replaced it with our Smoked Dunkelweizen. We home smoked 50#'s of malt for this beer using Crab Apple wood. This wood give a very unique smoke character to the beer. The traditional Rauchbier's use Beech wood smoked malt with give a very harsh and dry smoke flavor/aroma. With the Crab Apple wood you get a little of the fruitiness and some nice woodsy/earthy smoke flavor in the aroma and in the after taste. What better beer pairing for a herb roasted turkey... Or a smoked holiday ham... Or a apple cider and clove brine roasted Turkey... I think this list could go on for ever!

cheers,

Tyler

Cel-e-bra-tion beer is on... It's a celebration

Hey all ,

Sing the tittle of this blog post to the tune of "Celebration" by Kool & The Gang and it will make much more sense. Also this means that we have Sierra Nevada's Celebration on tap. This is one of our favorite beers that Sierra puts out every year and if you been coming to The Portsmouth Brewery for a while you know we try to get some every year. It is their winter seasonal but it isn't the normal winter beer that you think of all malty and spiced out. It is a hoppy beer that is well balanced out with some great malt flavors. A Super Pale Ale would be the description of the beer if you asked me.

Cheers,
Tyler

I was a little slow on the uptake..

Hey all,

I apologize for not keeping the blog updated for the past few days. We have been brewing Kate the Great, which is a very time consuming brew and leaves little time to do anything other then brew Kate the Great :)

So the tap line up changes:

Milk Stout has kicked and been replace with the Black Cat Stout

5 C's IPA is gone and we brought in some Smuttynose Pumpkin. I know what you are all thinking, "Sam's Winter is out, why put on a Pumpkin beer?" Because Thanksgiving hasn't even happened yet! The rush to put out the next seasonal drives me crazy. What will taste better with Thanksgiving dinner, a nice medium bodied ale spiced with pumpkin flavors, or a big malty beer that wont complement anything other then the dessert. You tell me.

Now for the Dunkel Gose, It went on Monday. If you got to try the Gose this summer you have an idea of how this is going to taste. Gose is an ancient German sour wheat beer that is brewed with coriander and salt. We get the sour characteristic from a partial sour mash rather then using the Pedio in the secondary. In the Dunkel version we bumped up the malt profile and added some caramel malts to give some color and a little malt sweetness. To compared it to any other beer is hard because I only know of one Dunkel Gose being brewed in the world (if you know of any others let me know), Goslarer Dunkel Gose brewed in Goslar Germany. Compared to that beer, ours is a little darker and a bit higher in alcohol (5.5% vs. 4.9%). Leave it to an American to take a traditional European beer style and bump up the body and alcohol.

Cheers,
Tyler

Last drops out of the carton...

Hey all,

I just checked the volumes in the serving tanks. Milk Stout is most likely going to kick today. So if you haven't tried it come in for lunch before the last drop of Milk is gone.

Cheers,

Tyler

Welcome back my old friend...

Hey all,

The Bottle Rocket IPA is back!!!! The Rye Not kicked last night, which i am sad to see go. Though it was replaced with our famous Bottle Rocket IPA. Now we have a hop heads dream of three IPA's on at the same time. Drink with cautions, because who knows how long the 5 C's IPA is going to last.

cheers,

Tyler

New 2011 Kate Day Information

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!

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

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.