Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Time for Celebration

It seems summer is just flying by with all of the work we are doing for the brewery and all of the events that come with summer.  We continue to work hard on our business plan and are really getting into some of the nitty-gritty parts of it like cash flows, revenue projections and marketing plans.  We have also begun some building projects to verify that our ideas on temperature control for our fermentation vessels are viable.  I may need to do a post about Ryan's most recent project which has been dubbed The Brew Coffin!  While all of these projects have been (and continue to be) very tedious tasks, we know that the more work and effort we put into those things now, the easier it will be to keep ourselves on track once we open the doors for business. 

However, I am here to update you on something else.  Sweet Celebration, the grapefruit and rose water infused wheat beer that seemed like it was going to turn into a complete catastrophe during brew day has turned into a very solid and drinkable beer!  To quote myself from "Zen and the Art of Brewing":

"What will make every bit of it worthwhile is if, in a month or two, I crack open a nice cold beer that tastes outstanding and know that if I can make a great beer while floundering around like an idiot the entire time, imagine what I can do on a good day!!"


Turns out that while floundering around like an idiot, I managed to produce a pretty darn good beer!While I plan on upping the amount of rose water only slightly (I used less than 3/8 of a teaspoon of it in this batch) and am considering actually fermenting over grapefruit, those changes should only slightly alter the taste profile.  It's a cloudy beer because the grain bill is almost 50% wheat; but it is light, crisp and very refreshing with it's citrus flavor and the little something extra that the rose water adds.  It is exactly what I was looking for when I decided to develop a summer beer that is different from all the others.  I can't wait to brew it again...but this time without all of the floundering!