Schlafly Photo of the Day

The ultimate in last minute dry-hopping; or how to make your beer pals jealous.

*Note: a small vial of isomerized hop extract may be easier to transport than a bale of whole leaf hops. But a hope head must do what a hop head must do....

Schlafly Photo of the Day

Nalgene sculptures.

All you need is an autoclave and Nalgene bottles that refrain from indicating whether they are autoclave-friendly polypropylene or the more pliable polyethylene.

Schlafly Photo of the Day

Ahhhh....The Friday tasting panel.....

Schlafly Photo of the Day

A look at the brewhouse as it once was. This photo is actually from this past summer. We are beginning the final phase of our brewhouse upgrade this weekend. The upgrade includes: a new, larger kettle with an internal calandria; an integrated CIP system; and automation provided by Siemens and their Braumat software.

The kettle is actually in place already, it was installed after the above photo was taken. It's located between the whirlpool and the existing kettle, which will become a hot wort receiver, allowing us to collect sweet wort from the next batch before the prior batch has finished boiling.

By integrating a wort receiver, automating the remaining mechanical systems on the brewhouse (most of the valves are already run using air-powered actuators-and using the Braumat computer control system to seamlessly drive the process, we hope to increase our efficiency greatly, allowing the brewer to produce more wort per shift.

This will help us keep up the growing demand for Schlafly beer. We thank everyone who made this upgrade necessary. Cheers!

Schlafly Photo of the Day

In order to sample our fermenting beer in an aseptic fasion, we have to bring the heat....

By hitting the sampling port with some flame from a hand-held butane torch after spraying it with ethanol (which is why the blue flame seems to spread so far), we can be assured that the port is free of any airborne contaminants that may have alighted upon it.

Schlafly Photo of the Day

Some fresh oak barrels we are testing out...

Schlafly Photo of the Day

A Spundaparat. Otherwise known as a bunging device. It allows us to capture the CO2 generated in the fermentation process in order to naturally carbonate the beer. It's set to a vent only when the tank reaches a pre-determined pressure.

Schlafly Hefeweizen wizzing by, just about to be packaged in pink packaging for Breast Cancer Awareness month last year.

Tanks are in place.....

Let the brewing begin....

The two new tanks are in place and plumbed with glycol. The inaugural batch, a 200bbl batch of Schlafly Pale Ale, is fermenting away.

Up till now, the largest fermenters in the cellar were a quartet of 125 bbl tanks, two of which are visible from the parking lot through the windows.

This will give Schlafly the potential fermentation capacity to brew more than 30,000 bbl a year.

We might not tap into the full potential yet, but given the support we have received from the growing numbers of thirsty Schlafly fans, having the extra head-space gives us room to plan for the future.

These photos were taken just prior to the first batch being cast into the tank.

New Tanks!

Schlafly was the welcoming recipient of two 200 bbl fermenters yesterday. Provided to us by JV Northwest in Oregon, the two tanks are about as large as we can accommodate in the building. The addition of 400 barrels of capacity will allow us to continue to grow and make sure that there is a pint ready for every thirsty beer fan.

The Post-Dispatch's Jeremiah McWilliams and a photographer were in attendance for the fly in. Williams wrote up a short piece about it on his P-D blog Lager Heads.