Peace Tree Brewery Visit

I figure that I should catch you up on some of the things that we have been doing before we started the blog.  We thought it would be a good idea to visit some local breweries and see how things are done.  One in particular we knew we needed to visit was Peace Tree Brewing Company.  Based in Knoxville, Iowa this brewery has not been around more than 2 years, but they are already distributing to an extremely large number of stores, bars and restaurants around Iowa.  Brandon and Ryan had met Megan and Joe from Peace Tree while at a craft brewers conference in San Francisco a couple of months earlier and they had invited us to come out, ask any questions we needed to ask, tour the brewery and enjoy the beer!  It's pretty hard to say no to something like that!

Brandon, Brandon's wife, my girlfriend and myself took the short trip to Knoxville a few weeks ago.  Both Ryan and Dave had family events that were going on and were not able to make the trip.  We first arrived in the early evening and the entertainment had already begun.  A local duo (whom I can't remember for the life of me...memory is going at my old age apparently!) was playing and were very good!  The tap room had a great feel to it and really inspired Brandon and myself regarding how we wanted ours to look.  It was just the right size for a decent crowd to gather and listen to a small band playing on the recently constructed stage.  It felt a lot like a really comfy coffee house, to be perfectly honest!  A comfy coffee house that served great beer!

Megan gave us an initial tour of the facility and really helped us understand the importance of laying out how the brewhouse will look and function.  According to Megan, they had originally had a completely different design in mind for the building when someone asked, "Where are you going to put the silo?"  That immediately changed how they could set things up so they ended up drawing out the layout on a bar napkin...and it works really well!  Since it was just Brandon, our significant others and myself we were able to talk really specifically about their operation and it was incredibly informative.  Thanks Megan!!

After the tour we, of course, had to sample some of the beer!  Brandon had tried some before, but this was my first experience.  Blonde Fatale is definitely my favorite of the beer I tried that night.  It is a great Belgian style Blonde ale and I have definitely ordered it at Des Moines establishments since!  However, the Black River Gumbo Stout is a very close second place!

Later on we got another tour from Joe, the brewer.  His tour was originally intended for patrons who had come to listen to Nathan Moore (http://hippyfia​sco.com/) as well as for his webcast.  Apparently he and those in his crew had been streaming their lives over the web, live, throughout this tour.  Once that tour ended, Brandon and I snagged some time with Joe to talk some more about brewing on a larger scale.  Joe had a wealth of knowledge and appeared to be really eager to share knowledge about the craft.  Thanks Joe!  When we figured we had taken enough of Joe's time we went back out to listen to the rest of the show, and even got to participate a little with sock puppets, kazoos and makeshift drums!  It was pretty entertaining...particularly trying to watch Brandon work a kazoo! :)

Thanks again to everyone at Peace Tree for your hospitality, knowledge and wonderful beer!  We'll be back, I promise!