The First Collaboration Beer

This past week Schlafly was happy to host brewers from New Albanian Brewing of New Albany, Indiana and our local brethren O'Fallon Brewing for a collaborative brew day.

The project? A smoked rye IPA.

A long, somewhat serious, somewhat joking, conversation, during road-trips and beer festivals, plans were eventually made to jump in with a collaborative batch of beer.

After the grain and hop bills were agreed upon, a small test batch was brewed up by O'Fallon. Happy with the results, the recipe was prepared for the 15bbl brewhouse at the Schlafly Tap Room.

Despite several stuck mashes due to the two (count 'em, 2) varieties of rye (it helps to have extra brewers around to take turns stirring the mash), the smoked rye IPA was cast out, pitched and set to ferment. After fermentation is complete, the beer will be dry hopped and aged on oak.

No doubt that part of the conversation when we tap this beer early next year will be, "What do we do next?"

The smoked rye IPA will be available only on draft at several locations and in several markets. As we get closer to its release date, we will update where you will be able to try it. You can expect we'll also have a cask or two of this as well...

Kolsch Takes the Cake at Indiana Brewer's Cup

For the second year in a row, Schlafly's Kölsch has beer awarded first place in the Light Hybrid category in the Indiana Brewer's Cup.

The competition has been going on for several years now as part of the Indiana State Fair. The contest has two tiers, one for home brewers and one for professional breweries. Keep an eye out for photos.

The Schlafly Kölsch has been a proud member of our lineup for many years. We have been brewing it with a traditional German Kölsch yeast at temperatures lower than normal ale temperatures to allow it to develop the unique, crisp and clean flavor that typifies a Kölsch. Once you've tried the National Beer of Cologne (the German city where the style originated) you'll recognize it as an ale apart.

Originally distributed as the seasonal Summer Kölsch, we are now happy to provide Kölsch year-round. The response we have received from our customers led us to bring it on full-time. Not to mention, Kölsch is a beer that is always in season. Refreshing when it's hot and satisfying when it's cold.

While the brewers back in Cologne may dispute hanging the "hybrid" label on their beloved Kölsch, there just aren't that many Kölsch beers being submitted to the Cup, although the overall interest is growing. That said, Kölsch shares the category with Blond Ale, Cream Ale and American Wheat or Rye Beer, a potentially crowded field.

First Wort!

We have had the brewhouse off-line for the past two weeks as we upgrade it to accommodate the demand of the thirsty Schlafly fans. We have added a new, larger kettle that will utilize an internal calandria to provide a more efficient and effective boil.

We are also automating much of the process utilizing Siemens technology and their Braumat Compact software. It will allow our brewers to focus on producing the best beer possible with the new tools, rather than juggling valves and connections.

Well, the first batch of beer has made its way through the new brewhouse yesterday (Saint Patty's Day, appropriately enough). Here James "Otto" Ottolini, our production manager and resident engineer, and brewer Eric Roy examine and taste the first batch, sampled from the whirlpool. This is just prior to being transferred to the fermentation cellar.

I am happy to report the first batch is happily fermenting away...

Bière de Garde is back

Bière de Garde will shall return to store shelves soon.

Schlafly's first foray into the world of bottle-conditioned beers, the September 2007 release of the Bière de Garde, topped with its jaunty orange crown, has been well received.

This past week, a fresh batch of BdG was krausened and bottled at the Schlafly Taproom. This cousin to the Saison will now spend the next two weeks conditioning at about 70 degrees (give or take a few), before we cool it down to age.

Provided we hit the mark and the dash of freshly fermenting wort added to each bottle doesn't cause the CO2 to exceed the bottle's pressure rating, thus making small rockets out of the Bière de Garde bottles, we should have them back on sale within the month.

For those of you unfamiliar with bottle conditioned beer, a quick primer. A staple for homebewers seeking to carbonate their creations, the method has been used for centuries in brewing.

Bottle conditioning is often used as a finishing touch in the brewing process to provide carbonation, character or add stability to the beer.

The bottled beer is condition through the addition of yeast and sometimes priming sugar or wort to add carbonation.

By measuring the amount of sugar in both the fermenting beer and the amount of residual sugar in the beer to be conditioned, we know how much yeast/sugar mix to add to achieve our desired goal. In this case, a particular carbonation level as well as a certain finished character.

In addition to giving a well carbonated pour, the additional active yeast provides other benefits. The fermenting yeast consumes much of the remaining dissolved oxygen in the beer. Oxygen, of course, being one of the great enemies of beer quality. It can also consume some of the other compounds like diacetyl and acetaldehyde that may be undesired in a beer, depending on the style.

Bottle-conditioned beer continues to age and mature when kept at cellar temperatures of around 50° to 55°.

Schlafly Bière de Garde is ready to drink in a few weeks following bottling. While bottle-conditioning can give a beer the ability to age for some time, Bière de Garde is best consumed before too long. In the Belgian and French regions, the farmers would brew their Saisons and Bière de Gardes in the winter and then drink them while tending their fields from the late spring into early fall. Fortunately, Schlafly Bière de Garde will be available most of the year.

Hop In It

In order to get the aroma and extra hit of hop in our dry-Hopped APA, we need, naturally, hops; and lots of them.

In this case, fresh Cascade hops. It's not exact, and sometimes we add more, sometimes less. It all depends on the quality of the hops. But the more the better.

It may not be the hop-bomb style that has developed a strong following the craft beer and homebrewer worlds, but its hoppiness is not to be denied.

The APA began it's life as a seasonal beer that was our version of a Hop Harvest. Being the hoppiest of our beers it soon developed dedicated fans who wanted to see it brewed more often.

A non-dry hopped version of the APA made its debut in 2004 as the Expedition Reserve APA, which was brewed to commemorate the Anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Again, the beer developed fans who wanted a pint of the hoppy brew year-round.

So, in 2005, the APA made its way onto the list of year-round beers.

The beer followed in the tradition of the highly-hopped American-style Pale Ales (where the APA's name originated). Over time, however, the desire for more hop flavor and aroma, propelled by our regular APA fans, led to some trials with dry-hopping in late 2006.

The trials involved trying several methods to best impart the hope flavor and aroma we looked for. For the smaller batches the Tap Room brews we suspend weighted bags of hops in a unitank and then move the beer into the tank.

At the Bottleworks, however, the concern was that the much larger volume would not pick up the hops evenly. Several methods were tried including a variation on the hop-back which circulated the beer through a pressurized vessel (the "hop-coffin" as it was known) containing the hops.

The method finally decided upon is similar to what is done at the Taproom. the beer is moved into a horizontal tank in which has the hops on the bottom and covered with domed stainless-steel screens. This prevents the hops from floating to the top and provides for more even exposure.

After getting the thumbs up from hop-heads within the company and our hop-craving customers, the operation was ramped up and officially became the Dry-Hopped APA.

The new beer required new packaging and as such you will now see the Dry-Dopped APA label on tap handles around town, as well as new bottle packaging in the stores.

Remembering Michael Jackson

The Brewer's Association is hosting an online collection of remembrance for Michael Jackson. The compiling of messages is long so far. To add to our own thoughts send a message to mark@brewersassociation.org.

Schlafly Features Local Wheat for Witbier

Schlafly Beer is continuing its commitment to local purveyors with the inclusion of Alhambra Wheat in this year's Witbier.

The Alhambra Wheat Company is located just across the river in Alhambra, Illinois. The unmalted soft red winter wheat grown by John Gorenz and his partners is ideal for witbiers and other wheat ales.

So far they have provided several sacks of herbicide-free and pesticide-free wheat for the brewery at the Schlafly Taproom. Some the wheat was used for the witbier, but there is talk of possibly experimenting with the Hefeweizen to see if it could be more regularly integrated into the beer.

Early in June, owner Dan Kopman, chief brewer Steven Hale and quality control manager Christian Artzner took a trip across the river to visit the farm at harvest time.

While there, they shared a pint or two with the crew as they watched over some of the harvesting operation.

They were even given a chance to take the massive combine for a spin around the field.

"It's like riding on an oceanliner," said Hale.

The Alhambra-accentuated Witbier will be available beginning this afternoon with the kickoff of Schlafly's Mussel Mania at the Schlafly Taproom, at 21st and Locust streets downtown. The festival features mussels and belgian-style beers such as Witbier and Belgian Dubbel.