Sunday, January 30, 2011

Kate the Great Scratch Tickets Are Sold Out!

They went on sale at 2:00 PM Saturday afternoon and by 6:30 Sunday evening all ten thousand tickets were sold. We're stunned.

Thanks to all of you who made the trip and bought tickets. Congratulations to those of you who scratched winners!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

BC in the hizzy...

Hey all,

The Coffee Milk Stout is gone, hope you all got to try it. We have replaced it with our Black Cat Stout. Tod is leaving for Belgium tomorrow for a week so i will be holding down the fort here at the P-brew. Wish me luck!

Cheers,
Tyler

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Regarding the Sale of Kate the Great Scratch Tickets





"Sometimes you win.  Sometimes you lose.  Sometimes it rains."


A lot of you have been asking when Kate the Great scratch tickets will be available for purchase. We still do not have a date set!

How can that be, you ask? We are waiting for the tickets to be delivered by the printer and expect to receive them late next week or early the following week. We plan to put them on sale shortly thereafter.

Why the delay? That's a long story - here's the thumbnail version: we actually started this process the day after last year's Kate Day, when I asked Brewery staff to relay feedback and provide suggestions for this year's release. After several meetings and much lively discussion about what went well and what we could improve on, the form of 2011's Kate release began to take shape. The suggestion of some sort of lottery evolved into the scratch ticket proposal.

Once we worked out the details internally, we went down the bureaucratic rabbit hole: our plan had to pass muster at three different state agencies, each of which had veto power, but all of which ended up being enthusiastically supportive of our idea. But, as you can imagine, this took time, as did getting just right the legal mumbo-jumbo that appears on the back of the tickets and drawing up contracts up between the various stakeholders. Then, once approved, the tickets had to be designed & laid out, printers' proofs approved and the order placed.

And so a project I innocently believed would take a couple of months at the most actually ended up taking over five months to complete. In these circumstances, we were reluctant to set a fixed date for the start of ticket sales, knowing that we might have been forced to change it at the last minute, or worse yet, abandon the idea altogether and shift to some unknown Plan B at the last moment. But as of this moment, Plan A is still in effect. Hooray!

For those of you who were were hoping to queue up our doorstep overnight in order to be first in line to buy tickets on January 24th, precisely six weeks before Kate Day, I apologize.  Bear with us. We are committed to making this year's Kate release the best yet.

Cheers,

Peter

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

5 C's if you please...

Hey all,

The rumors are true. 5 C's is on tap and tasting great. For those of you who don't know about the 5 C's IPA you should get into the brewery ASAP! Because minus Kate this is one of out beers that doesn't last too long on tap here at P-Brew. The 5 C's is our version of a "West Coast" IPA. Big citrus/spicy/earthy hop character with some malt backbone to handle all the IBU's.

On the guest beer front, we went through all the Curieux that Allgash had in the state of NH. So we brought in the un-oaked version. A.K.A. the Allagash Triple. We will be running the Triple until next month when something else fun is coming in. Keep an eye on the blog :)

Cheers,
Tyler

Saturday, January 15, 2011

"Hidilly-ho"...

hey all,

So the wait is over the Flanders Red (a.k.a. Maude) is on tap. This is one of the very few full sour mash beers we make here at the P-brew. What is a sour mash you ask? I am glad to fill you in. So we mash in a red ale like any other normal brew. then we fill the mash/mash tun with CO2 to make it an anaerobic (without oxygen) environment. Then add a handful of raw wheat on the top, seal up the Mash tun up as tight as we can and let it sit for 3 days! There are natural microscopic organisms that are on the surface of the raw wheat. These "bugs" will eat sugar and create and acid, or a sourness. Almost like yeast is an organism that eats sugar and creates alcohol. So after the Mash sits for 3 days you open it up to get these beautiful mango, kiwi and tropical fruit aromatics off the mash tun. Then you run it off, boil it to kill the souring "bugs", then add your hops and a Belgian yeast strain when it hits the fermenter.

After all that you get this tart, refreshing, tropical fruit flavor/aromatic 4.5% abv Belgian beer that is so much fun to sit and enjoy.

Hope all this "bug" talk doesn't make you all too squeamish.

Cheers,
Tyler

Friday, January 14, 2011

Beer for breakfast... Don't mind if I do.

Hey all,

So we just put on the Coffee Milk Stout and it is tasting quite nice. We used a Costa Rican coffee called "El Conquistador", which in Spanish means "THE Conquistador". (Chris Farley may you rest in peace) We got the coffee right down the street at our local Breaking New Grounds. Then we did a cold water extraction which gives you a very intence coffee aromatic/flavor with out the oils or acridness that comes from adding it to the boil. Add that creation to our Milk Stout you have an amazing coffee flavored beer, that is perfect for breakfast.

We also put on the last 5 gal cask of Black IPA. Which is the last of the Black IPA until the next time we make it.

Hope everyone is shoveled out and can come down for a pint!

Cheers,
Tyler

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Please Join Us for Our First Annual Beer and Pie Social



Come celebrate National Pie Day with us at our First Annual Beer and Pie Social on Monday, January 24th,* from 7pm to 9pm in the Jimmy LaPanza Lounge, downstairs at the Brewery.

Chef Todd Sweet and Head Brewer Tod Mott have created a delicious four-course menu of sweet and savory pies inspired by pie cultures from around the world and beers drawing from the outer reaches of the flavor spectrum. Click here for details.

Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at the Brewery or through our website. Space is limited, so get yours now.


* A sharp-eyed reader is inevitably going to point out that our Beer and Pie Social takes place the day after the actual National Pie Day. Why have we done this? We didn't think it would be fair to the Patriots to force them to compete with our event during their AFC Championship Game.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The "Garde"ing is over

Hey all,

So the Black IPA is gone and was loved by all. So we decided that we have "garde"ed the Biere de Garde long enough and are going to put it on today! Biere de Garde is a really interesting style. Traditionally were brewed in the colder months in France so the yeast they used, Belgian strain, was a little more consistent flavor profile. Because as most of you probably know Belgian yeast produce many esters during fermentation which dramatically change the flavor of the beer. So with a Belgian yeast stain fermented a bit cooler then traditional Belgian beers, this will cut back a bit on the big fruity/spicy flavors you would normally get off the yeast. Then this beer was lagered (Garde au Frances) for almost a month before we put it on. Which is really going to clean up the finish on this beer. So basically it is an easy drinking French/Belgian style where the fruity/spiciness is really mellowed out.

Though if you want a crazy Belgian beer we do have Allagash Curieux on tap. Which is their Triple aged in Bourbon barrels. Dangerously drinkable at 10% abv!

Cheers,
Tyler

Friday, January 7, 2011

Wild Thang!

Hey all,

The Dunkelweizen kicked last night so we put on the Wild Thang. This is our beer we brew with some cooked wild rice, that we add to the mash tun. The rice adds a nice nuttiness to the beer. When that nutty flavor gets with the hop flavor from the sterling hops you get almost a cherry pit flavor. Yummy!

And yes the Black IPA is on!

Cheers,
Tyler

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

A New Year brings New Beers...

Hey all,

So with 2011 just starting it brings a lot of excitement here at the brewery. People keep coming in to try our delicious food and our hand crafted libations. So with the demand higher then ever the the production space the same as it was in 1991 when the place opened we are trying to get creative to keep the Portsmouth Brewery tap lines filled with great beer for you guys. Here is our plan.

We are going to increase our guest taps from three to four at the Portsmouth Brewery. Three of the guest taps will be a Smuttynose products. This could be any combination of Finest Kind IPA, Shoals Pale Ale, Old Brown Dog, Star Island Single and maybe a Big Beer or even something super special. This leaves us the fourth tap to be our rotating guest tap. On the rotating guest tap you will find that we are trying to showcase a certain beer or a certain Brewery for a month. As the regulars most likely noticed we have had on Sierra Nevada Celebration for the month of December. For the month of January we are going to be getting in some Allagash very soon. You will be quite curious what we are going to be putting on tap:) Then looking forward to February we are about to finalize some delicious beers from the Berkshire Brewing Company (BBC). So as you see we are going to keep the guest beers fresh and interesting.

With this is place we are hoping that we the brewers of the Portsmouth Brewery will be able to keep making interesting, flavorful and unique beers for all of you out there. With the hope that the quality of the beers will meet up to the discerning taste buds of our loyal customers and everyone that puts there lips to a pint of Portsmouth Brewery beer.

Cheers to 2011,
Tyler