tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-82145489814196120062024-03-12T19:58:56.226-05:00515's Blood, Sweat and BeersSharing all things beer from 515 Brewing Company in Des Moines, IA. 4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.comBlogger32125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-42812580126098415392017-09-06T15:36:00.001-05:002017-09-06T15:36:52.004-05:00WHAT'S HOPPENING: Camp Harvestivus is Sept. 11 - 17.<i><span style="color: #999999;">What's Hoppening </span></i><i style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: "trebuchet ms", trebuchet, verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">is a regular series highlighting points of interest and events that have taken place or will be taking place in the 515 Taproom. </i><br />
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Welcome to Camp Harvestivus!<br />
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<b>"Wait a second...Camp Harvestivus? I thought Harvestivus was just your typical Oktoberfest-style entertainment."</b></h3>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3tfHgKvQKQjXlwqKVN8ZTkwTyVhQdpNlSImv8ZJcFLhacosHSHAk39Ikhw2Q6gzh0zMTu4NhNdq1PwDz_-agVH8potNR8UvFW7Mw-vaU7R8XkX5xOHVcg9Bn-iKvlzasVlrnOR0OHIcU/s1600/Harvestivus_Logo_2017_PMS.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3tfHgKvQKQjXlwqKVN8ZTkwTyVhQdpNlSImv8ZJcFLhacosHSHAk39Ikhw2Q6gzh0zMTu4NhNdq1PwDz_-agVH8potNR8UvFW7Mw-vaU7R8XkX5xOHVcg9Bn-iKvlzasVlrnOR0OHIcU/s1600/Harvestivus_Logo_2017_PMS.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="792" height="153" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3tfHgKvQKQjXlwqKVN8ZTkwTyVhQdpNlSImv8ZJcFLhacosHSHAk39Ikhw2Q6gzh0zMTu4NhNdq1PwDz_-agVH8potNR8UvFW7Mw-vaU7R8XkX5xOHVcg9Bn-iKvlzasVlrnOR0OHIcU/s200/Harvestivus_Logo_2017_PMS.png" width="200" /></a><br />
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While last year's Harvestivus had the air of a traditional German-style harvest festival, this year, we've decided to make it our own. We're still using the name, Harvestivus, and tapping our Oktoberfest beer during the week, but we're adding a scouting angle. We've harkened back to our youth, where days were spent learning new skills, having fun and achieving goals.<br />
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Join our merry band of beer scouts for an entire week of Camp Harvestivus fun. You'll have the opportunity to earn Merit Stamps by completing challenges for prizes. The more stamps you earn, the more and better the prizes.<br />
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<b><br /></b><b>"What kind of challenges are we talking about?"</b></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpD4VXgV-a6MPdjoMmyjMGz68Rrdf8X8Ib-HWMUdpQ3Kx4i_IsPM2qwGHoIayJ7VOic7lw853DzuCr06d1d8SeYE8c1EXVc-KMMmyPn3PYDsgcDoweVbl5Q8IedFhnJC_uufjxDXqB8H4/s1600/Coasters_sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="831" data-original-width="1152" height="142" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpD4VXgV-a6MPdjoMmyjMGz68Rrdf8X8Ib-HWMUdpQ3Kx4i_IsPM2qwGHoIayJ7VOic7lw853DzuCr06d1d8SeYE8c1EXVc-KMMmyPn3PYDsgcDoweVbl5Q8IedFhnJC_uufjxDXqB8H4/s200/Coasters_sm.jpg" width="200" /></a>There are 20 challenges in all; from the creative, to the athletic, to just plain fun. Here is a sample.<br />
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<b>Beer it backwards (pay it forward): </b>Buy a beer for a perfect stranger in line behind you or at the bar.<br />
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<b>515 Athlete:</b> Prove you ran or biked to 515. Or do 20 jumping jacks in the taproom.<br />
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<b>Owner Brandon Selfie:</b> Find 515 Owner Brandon and take a selfie with him. Post to social and tag 515 Brewing.
Must be taken and posted the week of Harvestivus.<br />
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To become a beer scout you <b>must get your Participation Stamp first by purchasing your Harvestivus wooden coaster for $1</b>.<br />
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<a href="http://www.515brewing.com/assets/515_meritstampchallenges.pdf" target="_blank"><b>Check out the full challenge list and prizes here</b>.</a><br />
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<h3>
<b>"I see for one of the challenges there is an opportunity to donate to the Iowa Homeless Youth (IHYC) Rooftop Gardens. What is this?"</b></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-DrR-i409ec-J1KQaSCzz2MkRLSs7dWSee5VHDTD3tCSxQGos0bPaDbqOPjs3vSxxCAQzKObgzWRq0xPx2gWZpI1ZgbsxM57y0PCgWSy8Xvk8PkZS3VFLbRjFj_sThaOVeKDj-ylUQVw/s1600/Rooftop-Gardens_logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-DrR-i409ec-J1KQaSCzz2MkRLSs7dWSee5VHDTD3tCSxQGos0bPaDbqOPjs3vSxxCAQzKObgzWRq0xPx2gWZpI1ZgbsxM57y0PCgWSy8Xvk8PkZS3VFLbRjFj_sThaOVeKDj-ylUQVw/s1600/Rooftop-Gardens_logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="191" data-original-width="240" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-DrR-i409ec-J1KQaSCzz2MkRLSs7dWSee5VHDTD3tCSxQGos0bPaDbqOPjs3vSxxCAQzKObgzWRq0xPx2gWZpI1ZgbsxM57y0PCgWSy8Xvk8PkZS3VFLbRjFj_sThaOVeKDj-ylUQVw/s200/Rooftop-Gardens_logo.png" width="200" /></a><br />
For one of our merit stamp challenges, we wanted to encourage you to donate to a local cause with a harvest angle. We couldn't be more excited for Iowa Homeless Youth Center's Rooftop Garden project. The program will provide employment opportunities, access to locally grown healthy foods and food and nutrition education to transition-age homeless or low-income youth (ages 16-22). The gardens will include a combination of hydroponic growing systems (inside of a year-round functioning greenhouse), raised beds and vertical growing techniques on top of their downtown Des Moines location. </div>
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In addition to growing food for themselves, the youth apprentices will operate the growing, harvesting, and packaging of the organic herbs, that will be distributed to local grocery stores, markets, and other retailers to sell to consumers. After construction and initial operating expenses, the Rooftop Gardens will be a self-sufficient program.<br />
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Even if you don't participate in our merit stamp challenges, we hope you'll consider donating a few bucks to help get this worthwhile project off the ground.<br />
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Learn more about the program <a href="http://www.yss.ames.ia.us/index.cfm?nodeID=89080&audienceID=1" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a>. </div>
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<h3>
<b>"What if I'm not wild about doing the challenges? (Asking for a friend.)"</b></h3>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JohPAnQLn1FrX18rwgb0ID6izZSdWp6ibq-sAsPBpE5gw5LIndyrnOr6X3a_nwQ8KveXv0Yg4tLt1131JmH56rR-e-iVW-GYVABMB_Y7l4keK59pN2sEqaKZcCd5WH8RvJNa-epIDsg/s1600/Harvest_Stein_sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1419" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JohPAnQLn1FrX18rwgb0ID6izZSdWp6ibq-sAsPBpE5gw5LIndyrnOr6X3a_nwQ8KveXv0Yg4tLt1131JmH56rR-e-iVW-GYVABMB_Y7l4keK59pN2sEqaKZcCd5WH8RvJNa-epIDsg/s200/Harvest_Stein_sm.jpg" width="176" /></a>No worries. On top of the merit stamp challenges, we have several key events going on throughout the week that you won't want to miss.<br />
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<b>9/11 - Trivia with a Charity Twist</b>, 6 p.m. Bring in a new or gently used book, suitable for kids 11-14, and receive half off your first beer.<br />
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<b>9/13 - Harvestivus Tapping</b> (with special ceramic steins!), 5:15 p.m.<br />
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<b>9/14 - 2017 Anniversary Bottle Release</b> (it’s only 6 mos. late), 5:15 p.m. Limit 2/person. Buy 2 and get free beer coupon. (Stout of the Closet, our imperial stout, aged 6 mo. in Buffalo Trace barrels.)<br />
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<b>9/15 - Growler Happy Hour</b>, 2 - 5 p.m., $2 off all growlers</div>
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Get full details <a href="http://www.515brewing.com/events.html" target="_blank"><b>here</b></a>.</div>
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Join us for Camp Harvestivus week. You won't want to miss the fun. Cheers!</div>
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<b>Camp Harvestivus</b></h3>
September 11th - 17th, 2017<br />
During normal business hours</div>
Mo 3 – 9 • We 3 – 9 • Th 3 – 9 • Fr 12 – 11 • Sa 12 – 11 • Su 12 – 7<br />
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<span style="color: #999999;">________</span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;">Written by:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;">Cinnamon Rost (yes, that is my real name)</span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">Marketing/Design Director || 515 Fan Support || Girl Friday</span>Cinnamon Rosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07107759072142284588noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-5914819221141497292017-08-16T10:41:00.001-05:002017-08-16T10:41:21.937-05:00WHAT'S HOPPENING: ApocEclipse - Don't be Blinded by Science!<i><span style="color: #999999;">What's Hoppening </span></i><i style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">is a regular series highlighting points of interest and events that have taken place or will be taking place in the 515 Taproom. </i><br />
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It is a time to celebrate some Science.<br />
There is a near total eclipse of the sun coming to Iowa on August 21st. In Central Iowa, we will reach 95 to 96% of totality, an amount not seen in 63 years and this is the first total solar eclipse to move from coast to coast in America in 99 years! <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_a9yYzNThejf-_zaPivkdB1e8oaLRDNMYqrhGVuF5qZNk_MFLgLyheu6oYyn3Sd-b3Qyndz3JjZr6hrYx0X9a8RXiZSsVLgRPDJNYuAr_aouce7tLMx8WCk6PZP_jKRvhLGHWiNk7q3k/s1600/eclipse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="215" data-original-width="236" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_a9yYzNThejf-_zaPivkdB1e8oaLRDNMYqrhGVuF5qZNk_MFLgLyheu6oYyn3Sd-b3Qyndz3JjZr6hrYx0X9a8RXiZSsVLgRPDJNYuAr_aouce7tLMx8WCk6PZP_jKRvhLGHWiNk7q3k/s200/eclipse.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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We are going to have two events in conjunction with this historic day.<br />
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<b>Saturday, August 19th. </b><br />
Staff from the <a href="http://www.sciowa.org/" target="_blank">Science Center of Iowa</a> will be on hand for presentations about the upcoming Eclipse.<br />
The first will be at 11:30 (we will open at 11:00 a.m.) and the second at 1:30 p.m. <br />
You can NOT safely view an eclipse without special equipment. The Science Center will have telescopes, special binoculars and glasses to demonstrate proper safe viewing procedures as well as talk about how eclipses have been "viewed" in the past (hint, it was pretty dire, but we assure you everything gonna be okay this time around. No end of the world dragons are expected in 2017.) This event will be family friendly and, shock, gasp, educational.<br />
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<b>Monday, August 21st.</b><br />
Need a place to go over lunch and enjoy the darkness? We will open at 11:30. We'll have a few things to help safely view the eclipse, but if you are planning on going to an event (<a href="http://www.sciowa.org/event-calendar/?id_category=3&view_by=d&day=2017-08-21" target="_blank">The Science Center is setting up at the capitol</a>.) come by afterwords. If you mention that you "Survived the Eclipse" we will give you half off your first pint!<br />
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<b>Here are some links and facts:</b><br />
The eclipse starts in Iowa at 11:42 a.m. It will hit maximum darkness at 1:08 p.m. and end at 2:33 p.m.<br />
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What will it look like? <a href="https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/des-moines" target="_blank">Here is a nice link </a>with pictures and video.<br />
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Want some good reading on eclipses? <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2017/07/27/the-sights-safety-and-science-of-the-great-american-eclipse/#370b6d5e5280" target="_blank">Try this article </a>by Dr. Ethan Siegel.<br />
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<br />Iowaoakshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843204102545543529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-82103265847667018252017-08-16T10:41:00.000-05:002017-08-16T19:40:53.625-05:00THE BEER FACTS: Gruits!<i><span style="color: #999999;">The Beer Facts is a regular blog feature discussing all things beer and brewing.</span></i><br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>What is a Gruit anyways?</b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGa9syVmrL97UsBCOyB3VAwzig0QVE1pY8UFLER3R4KMzM1pgAdC7ug42TfURL1IIPZvE_uzkuQLE_iBZtFvUsWibTVIUNA-Doo7uVJSBvNPqQtYGU30w-DKYu-PW3mxKRb948zqYT4zo/s1600/Groot2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1339" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGa9syVmrL97UsBCOyB3VAwzig0QVE1pY8UFLER3R4KMzM1pgAdC7ug42TfURL1IIPZvE_uzkuQLE_iBZtFvUsWibTVIUNA-Doo7uVJSBvNPqQtYGU30w-DKYu-PW3mxKRb948zqYT4zo/s200/Groot2.jpg" width="166" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not the Guardian of the Galaxy,<br />
the beer silly!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Gruits (pronounced Groo-it, kin-a like the Marvel comic book character) are historic ales dating thousands of years back that use herbs, flowers, and spices as the bittering agents to balance the beer instead of hops.<br />
This could be a single herb or any combination of herbs, in an anything-goes kind of way, depending on what the brewer wants to put in or has access to locally. Below is a list of herbs that have been historically common in Gruits. (Note that yarrow was also recently used in the Pink Boot’s collaboration strong ale that was released!)<br />
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· Yarrow<br />
· Bog myrtle<br />
· Heather<br />
· Marsh or Wild Rosemary<br />
· Sweet Gale<br />
· Horehound<br />
· Ground-ivy (also known as Creeping Charlie)<br />
· Sage<br />
· Juniper<br />
· Ginger<br />
· Mugwort<br />
· Aniseed<br />
· Caraway seed<br />
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Really, the list is endless as long as the plant is safe to ingest and not treated with chemicals.<br />
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Like a lot of styles, Gruits favorability waned due to a lot of reasons. In the 15-16th centuries, taxes, purity laws, preservation methods, and the rising popularity of hops contributed.<br />
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<b>What’s in 515’s Gruit?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSAp_EPB8maG7affBau4MOt7-CXHE-eI8RnVngRvT14PxxscCV3yths1XrhxU8cmB14MASvoommnjqyqDKvw_W78g5WKsHcZV3WVB9SeystXGXKPie0JGUieG7Qx_rWN_thN3oq8_I10U/s1600/old+brewing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="895" data-original-width="677" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSAp_EPB8maG7affBau4MOt7-CXHE-eI8RnVngRvT14PxxscCV3yths1XrhxU8cmB14MASvoommnjqyqDKvw_W78g5WKsHcZV3WVB9SeystXGXKPie0JGUieG7Qx_rWN_thN3oq8_I10U/s200/old+brewing.jpg" width="151" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brewing and Partying <br />
like it's 999</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</b><br />
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515’s Gruit is taking a traditional method of using very locally sourced ingredients. The 3 herbs include - Prickly Lettuce (which is false milk thistle), Dandelion, and Creeping Charlie (ground-ivy).<br />
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While Dandelion is quite known in wine making, the other herbs are a bit more unusual, but fascinating because we all know these as weeds right in our own backyards. Creeping Charlie is actually related to Mint and Prickly Lettuce is part of the Dandelion family.<br />
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In addition to these herbs for bittering, the gruit has Castle Malting Belgian Pale for the malt and a saison yeast that will give it additional character and mouthfeel.<br />
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It will be called Baby Groot.<br />
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<b>"Why are you brewing this?"</b><br />
<br />
Why not?! This style lends it self to endless experimentation and there has been a lot of interest lately in revived historic libations, such as meads and brews found at the bottom of the ocean in shipwrecks. With Gruits being some of the first types of beers to be made, and still very rare to find in breweries and brewpubs today, it’s an interesting history lesson in what our ancestors might have been enjoying. What might seem unusual by today’s ingredient standards were quite common then, and still can be quite flavorful to the palate. Come on down to 515 and try what might possibly be your first Gruit!<br />
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<span style="color: #999999;">________</span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;">Written by: Monica Ortiz Shinn</span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;">Beertender</span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">Monica lives in Des Moines, Iowa and aside from craft beer, she enjoys a ludicrous amount of cheese, dreaming of time travel and annoying her taproom manager with New Wave 80's music (That she does!)</span></div>
Iowaoakshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843204102545543529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-37760551214351655192017-08-16T10:40:00.000-05:002017-08-16T10:40:58.476-05:00WHAT'S HOPPENING: Board Game Sunday<i><span style="color: #999999;"><br /></span></i>
<i style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">What's Hoppening is a regular series highlighting points of interest and events that have taken place or will be taking place in the 515 Taproom. </i><br />
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"I've just bought this awesome board game and no where to play it. I like beer too."<br />
Well, I've got the solution to your problem.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Board Game Sunday</b> is the second Sunday of every month. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRKyniCjP7NAY5PESRAC1hZb6_2IEDqqAzlTRXLVd5zpyBeyft0pEgwb8SFShdYn3uBI_a4rks5a4EhzeH-ManWoxCC3brIhF67xYw5gro_6c4Eg8qXi1fXPAAkExP8leOC6xn6i9jPJ8/s1600/mayhem.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="493" data-original-width="430" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRKyniCjP7NAY5PESRAC1hZb6_2IEDqqAzlTRXLVd5zpyBeyft0pEgwb8SFShdYn3uBI_a4rks5a4EhzeH-ManWoxCC3brIhF67xYw5gro_6c4Eg8qXi1fXPAAkExP8leOC6xn6i9jPJ8/s200/mayhem.jpg" width="174" /></a></div>
We are partnering with <a href="http://www.mayhemcomics.com/" target="_blank">Mayhem Comics</a> and offering a special deal too. <b>Bring in a receipt dated during the week before and get half off your first beer.</b> It doesn't have to be a game purchase either. Go pick up a comic book or trade paperback and come sink into one of our comfy chairs in the lounge. Beer and comic books go well together.<br />
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Board Game Sunday is something near and dear to a couple members of our staff's hearts. (Yes, there are nerds on staff here at 515 Brewing.) <br />
IF you have a large group coming, let us know and we'll reserve a table for you. Those library tables work well for the really big games.<br />
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Iowaoakshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843204102545543529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-22435680836533143202017-06-26T16:10:00.000-05:002017-06-26T18:57:47.972-05:00WHAT'S HOPPENING: Book Signings!<i style="background-color: white; color: #999999; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px;">What's Hoppening is a regular series highlighting points of interest and events that have taken place or will be taking place in the 515 Taproom. </i><br />
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Here at 515, we are pretty lucky to know some very talented people. Two of those people, our very own beertender, Micah, and 515 superfan and super artist, Carter Allen, will be having a joint book signing on <b>Monday July 17th 5-7pm</b> for their respective books that have just been released. There you'll have the opportunity to chat with Micah and Carter, as well as buy their books and have your copy signed.<br />
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You're probably asking, "What kind of books? What are they about? What are the deets? WHAT." Well, lucky for you, we talked to Micah and Carter beforehand to get those deets.<br />
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First up, Micah for her book <i>Behind in the Count</i>:<br />
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<u><b>Summary of<i> Behind in the Count:</i></b><b> </b></u><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFuVOmHakIYd78B4FJVCvEKqwD6oMbfL2UlPeq4IwM8uZQ98FQoR56-9O8YMsQI-SkUciJ4v5sxaiDb1uk1O5ET5nmE87ZyrYakWfW6zOEQ2q6M1z11maFsNet2ekSyDpWfgkHr8ucX1o/s1600/Micah%2527s+book.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFuVOmHakIYd78B4FJVCvEKqwD6oMbfL2UlPeq4IwM8uZQ98FQoR56-9O8YMsQI-SkUciJ4v5sxaiDb1uk1O5ET5nmE87ZyrYakWfW6zOEQ2q6M1z11maFsNet2ekSyDpWfgkHr8ucX1o/s320/Micah%2527s+book.jpg" width="320" /></a>Derek Beaman had it all - a career in baseball, a marriage to his high school sweetheart, and a newborn daughter. Then, he suffered an injury that sent him into a downward spiral, and he lost it all. After a break and recovery, he's getting a second chance at his Major League aspirations with the Portland Pioneers. His future as a pitcher is bright, but he's still contending with the demons of his past.<br />
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Zella Hansen is pursuing her lifelong dream of a career in baseball management. Her role in the Pioneers' front office introduces her to Derek. Zella soon realizes her feelings are more than just an admiration of his talent, but Derek's history may be enough to end the game early.<br />
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<b><u>Get to know Micah Chaplin:</u></b><br />
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<b>When did you start writing novels?</b><br />
Micah: I wrote my first novel in 2002 and published it two years later. <i>Behind In The Count</i> is my fifth self-published work and the second in this baseball romance series about the Portland Pioneers.<br />
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<b>What got you going in the direction of baseball books?</b><br />
M: After I fell in love with the sport of baseball, I decided to merge it with my romance writing hobby. I was influenced by the books of Kate Angell. While I obviously liked the love stories in her books, I also enjoyed the dynamics of her fictional team, the Richmond Rogues.<br />
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<b>What is your writing inspiration?</b><br />
M: I'm not sure I have a particular writing inspiration. However, Brandon Finnegan (currently pitching for the Cincinnati Reds) was the visual inspiration for the lead character in <i>Behind in the Count.</i><br />
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<b>Anything exciting coming up in your future?</b><br />
M: Nothing exciting anytime in the near future, but I am getting married next summer.<br />
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<i>Behind in the Count </i>is available in paperback as well as on Kindle, which can both be found here: <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y97z6s5m" rel="nofollow noopener" style="background-color: white; color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: "San Francisco", -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: -0.24px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">https://tinyurl.com/y97z6s5m</a>. She will also have copies available for purchase at the July 17th book signing.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Next up, Carter Allen's new comic book: </span><i><span style="font-size: small;">Ectyron Against Lagaxtu</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b><u>Summary of <i>Ectyron Against Lagaxtu</i></u></b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrZ0-iNl_ZjBlTympmTBxI8cS_dU5Sm9WfvB0gVf3C1nq63pvuEqAYclI0Y-28_LJ3TC52wrxx6jXmXdeBU5FmCRxxXNFuw8p67qzGZX3VBzLh5wLjEo4XbCaF2xTxVPYVq6LDPiGgxk4/s1600/image.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrZ0-iNl_ZjBlTympmTBxI8cS_dU5Sm9WfvB0gVf3C1nq63pvuEqAYclI0Y-28_LJ3TC52wrxx6jXmXdeBU5FmCRxxXNFuw8p67qzGZX3VBzLh5wLjEo4XbCaF2xTxVPYVq6LDPiGgxk4/s320/image.jpeg" width="224" /></span></a><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">When the ancient evil of LAGAXTU emerges from the depths of the Earth, it is up to the tag team of the radioactive rooster ECTYRON and ATOM.I.K.E., the cybernetic giant, to take it down!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b><u>Get to know Carter Allen:</u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>When did you start getting into comics and why?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">Carter: I started getting into comics when I was a kid. I think the biggest reason I first got into them was the bright, colorful pictures. As time marched on, I got hooked on the storylines and the characters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>What is your drive to draw?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">C: I try to draw every day. It's been something I've been doing for a long time and hope to keep doing in the future. It gives me a creative outlet, a chance to express myself visually.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>What do you enjoy most in comics?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">C: I'd say the first thing I enjoy in comics is the visual art, but the characters and story need to be equally engaging to make me love them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b><u><br /></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;"><b>What is your favorite comic book?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: small;">C: My favorite comic book is a three way tie between Walt Simpson's Thor, Marvel's Godzilla comic and the 1970s-1980s Star Wars books.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Ectyron Against Lagaxtu </i>will be available for purchase July 17th at the book signing. Additionally, you can join Carter the 3rd Wednesday of every month for <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1259583857474111/?acontext=%7B%22source%22%3A5%2C%22page_id_source%22%3A318670374818769%2C%22action_history%22%3A[%7B%22surface%22%3A%22page%22%2C%22mechanism%22%3A%22main_list%22%2C%22extra_data%22%3A%22%7B%5C%22page_id%5C%22%3A318670374818769%2C%5C%22tour_id%5C%22%3Anull%7D%22%7D]%2C%22has_source%22%3Atrue%7D" target="_blank">Drink and Draw</a> 6-9pm in the 515 taproom. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999;">Written by:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;">Whitney Knightly</span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;">Assistant Taproom Manager</span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">Whitney has been trained by MI6 in England and is a renowned super spy and international woman of mystery.</span></div>
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</style>Whitneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17747580706430011744noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-4874880712478285322017-06-15T14:50:00.000-05:002017-06-19T10:50:10.761-05:00THE BEER FACTS: Nasty Woman Strong Ale<i><span style="color: #999999;">The Beer Facts is a regular blog feature discussing all things beer and brewing.</span></i><br />
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Des Moines Beer Week! So exciting with so many events! So many new brews to share!<br />
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Collaborations abound this week, and we have one to put on tap a few of our staff helped contribute to. Five of the 515 staff - Whitney, Barb, Micah, Aleigh and myself are all part of an organization called the Pink Boots Society. It sounds like a super, secret society, but I promise you it isn’t. PBS, for short, is an organization with chapters all over the world bringing women together to “assist, inspire, and encourage women beer professionals through education.” The local chapter, which started this past January, has women come together from all parts of Iowa and from all different areas of the craft beer industry to learn from each other. We have brewers, beertenders, managers, owners, hop farmers, and even staff educators who work for brewpubs as part of our chapter.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of the Pink Boots crew on brew day! Employees from 515, Peace Tree, El Bait Shop, New American, Firetrucker, C and S Brew Supply, Lion Bridge, and Front Street were in attendance.</td></tr>
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Our first project to tackle was to get involved in the annual Big Boots Brew Day that happened on International Women’s Day in March. Megan McKay, owner of Peace Tree Brewing and member of PBS as well, was extraordinarily kind enough to host her brand new brewing facilities in the Des Moines location to brew our beer, with the help of her head brewer Joe Kesteloot. We are pretty proud to note that our beer was only the second batch to be brewed there!<br />
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We all decided to go with a variation of a historic ale style, so Molly Frana, Barbara Lynn Becker, and Sheri Houdesheldt all researched recipes and ingredients, coming up with a hybrid of a strong and old ale style. In attempting to make the beer a bit different, we went with using adjuncts of yarrow, a historically more typical herb used for bittering, as well as adding molasses to the end of the boil for some sweetness. To temper these strong ingredients we took advantage of the Templeton Rye barrels that Peace Tree has readily available, and barrel-aged the brew for a solid 3 months. The outcome is a malt forward brew, with notes of caramel and toffee, and an undercurrent of oak, vanilla, and whiskey. The herbal bitterness of the yarrow is just <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Watching and learning about the mash-in process. </td></tr>
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enough to balance the brew and reign in the sweetness of the molasses that also comes through smoothing out this 9% ABV beer. It’s a delicious sipper of a beer that is certainly unique and a must try!<br />
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With such a strong beer, it needed a strong name, so it was dubbed thee “Unite: Nasty Woman Strong Ale.” A portion of the proceeds of the beer sold will go to PBS’s scholarship fund, and another portion will stay local to help a women’s charity. You'll be able to find this beer at different breweries and brewpubs across the metro soon, but 515 Brewing will be tapping it as part of our Des Moines Beer Week festivities on Wednesday, June 21st. We hope to see you there!<br />
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Cheers!<br />
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<span style="color: #999999;">Written by:</span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">Monica Ortiz Shinn</span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">Beertender</span></div>
<span style="color: #999999;">Monica lives in Des Moines, IA as part-time domestic goddess, part-time super hero kicking ass and pummeling everyday sexism where she sees it. Her super powers include parallel parking, regenerative palate, and turning a crappy situation into a not-so-crappy situation. Her sidekick is a cat named the Melodramatic Melody, who’s super powers include sleeping for 20 hours a day and Jedi powers that have something to with big eyes and overwhelming cuteness, just like a manga character (you will do what she says, put the tuna down and no one gets hurt). You can also follow Monica on Twitter @BeerMeMon for beer and cat related nonsense.</span></div>
Iowaoakshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843204102545543529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-15637072504317667172017-06-15T14:49:00.000-05:002017-06-20T11:16:40.656-05:00What's Hoppening: Des Moines Craft Beer Week 2017<i style="color: #999999;">What's Hoppening is a regular series highlights points of interest and events that have taken place or will be taking place in the 515 Taproom.</i><br />
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Here is a list of 515 Brewing's events for <a href="http://dsmbeerweek.beer/" target="_blank">Des Moines Craft Beer Week</a>:<br />
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<u><b>Azacca K.I.S.S. Tapping</b> </u><br />
- Friday, July 16th at Noon<br />
Azacca is our SMaSH release for the Craft Beer Week. Barb decided to Keep It Simple (get it?) and created an amazing pale with some really good and interesting flavors. You aren't going to taste anything like this, this week.<br />
Single Malt - Castle Malting Belgian Pale<br />
Single Hop - Azacca.<br />
Did you know? This hop is named after the Haitian god of agriculture.<br />
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<u><b>Iowa Craft Beer Festival</b> </u><br />
- Saturday, July 17th<br />
If you are going to the fest downtown, come find us.<br />
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<u><b>Nasty Women Strong Ale Tapping</b> </u><br />
- Wednesday, July 21st at 3:00<br />
Several of our staff worked on the creation of this beer and we'll be tapping it Wednesday.<br />
Want to read more about this look on this blog. Monica has a whole write up about it.<br />
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<u><b>Tap takeover at Hello Marjorie with Alluvial Brewing</b> </u><br />
- Wednesday, July 21st<br />
<a href="http://hellomarjorie.com/" target="_blank">Marjorie</a> reached out to us and <a href="http://www.alluvialbrewing.com/" target="_blank">Alluvial</a> and the answer was "of course!" Come on down and hang, might be able to win prizes. Oh, there will be good beer too.<br />
If you haven't been down to Marjorie yet, you should try it.It's very nice.<br />
(They are located <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hello,+Marjorie/@41.5865245,-93.6265986,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xa405890f8ca2a870!8m2!3d41.5865245!4d-93.6265986" target="_blank">on Grand in the old Register and Tribune building</a>)<br />
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<u><b>Big OJ Tapping</b> </u><br />
- Thursday, July 22nd at 5:15<br />
This is the much anticipated Imperial American Pale Wheat. Oh, My Stars and Garters, this is a good beer. We will sell the first 40 pours for only $1.00 starting at 4:15 and tap it at 5:15.<br />
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</u> <u><b>Azacca K.I.S.S. w/ Lychee & Thyme Firkin</b> </u><br />
- Thursday, July 22nd at 3:00<br />
From the depths of the brew house comes another of Barb's Frankenstonian creations. We'll have this little baby on tap when we open. Come have a pour while you wait for Big OJ to tap.<br />
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Iowaoakshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843204102545543529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-37868965120811851412017-05-24T14:51:00.000-05:002017-05-24T14:51:44.802-05:00WHAT'S HOPPENING: Charity Trivia at 515<span style="color: #999999;"><i>What's Hoppening is a regular series highlights points of interest and events that have taken place or will be taking place in the 515 Taproom. </i></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Almost a year ago we started an "every once in awhile" event; a way to try and give more back to the community while making for a fun night. It was a laid back trivia night where WE created the questions, the format and the prizes. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">May 8th - "What number did Jackie Robinson wear in the Major Leagues?"<br />
Answer: 42, also the answer to "what is the Douglas Adam's meaning of life?"</td></tr>
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<span style="background: white; color: #454545; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">We have a blast doing this, not only because you guys (seem) to be having fun, but also because each trivia night we partner with a different DSM charity. At the last event, we donated over 25% of sales that night to The Project, a member of Primary Health Care, one of the largest HIV/AIDS service and prevention agencies in the state of Iowa. </span><span style="font-family: "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjswZCJ7AQffCHyedJkKU-vn9-oVhKSeJGUAXwZwlo5CDzw1SclKMu1Ky94_ImZp-JkMz72XVJSKMjzupS97BkgogNZs6WBFjsvdtn1k7hSmKjfuK3yziiViEV0GgbgvVBJw-1EVilWHRI/s1600/trivia2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjswZCJ7AQffCHyedJkKU-vn9-oVhKSeJGUAXwZwlo5CDzw1SclKMu1Ky94_ImZp-JkMz72XVJSKMjzupS97BkgogNZs6WBFjsvdtn1k7hSmKjfuK3yziiViEV0GgbgvVBJw-1EVilWHRI/s320/trivia2.jpg" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Wink Martindale he is not, but that's a sweet jacket!</td></tr>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">What you may or may not know is Matt, our resident idiot MC, and I research all the trivia questions, with help from the rest of our trusty and brainy staff. Our trivia nights early on were largely curated by Micah (one of our lovely beertenders) and June will feature categories and questions researched by Joe (maybe our most "lovely" beertender.) Go team!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Trivia nights are the <b>second Monday of every month</b>, which makes our next event….<b> June 12th!</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">We are partnering with <a href="http://clivecommunityservices.com/" target="_blank">Clive Community Services</a>, a local food bank and clothes closet. They are in need of laundry detergent in June, which means if <b>you bring in</b> <b>a</b> <b>jug of laundry soap, you get 1/2 off a beer!</b> </span><br />
<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Teams may be comprised of 1-4 people. Prizes include: free growlers to the winning team and free pints to the second and third place finishers. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">BONUS! If you follow us on Snapchat, there’s a good chance we’ll give you a free trivia answer the day of the event... Our username is fiveonefivebrew. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Charities on deck: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">July: Furry Friends Refuge<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">August: Central Iowa Shelter and Services</span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">September: Back to School Book Drive for Indian Hills Junior High <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #454545; font-family: "segoe ui" , sans-serif; font-size: 11.5pt;">Lastly, we are always open to suggestions on how to make the evening better! For example, if questions are too easy or too hard, or if you think Matt sucks… only kidding, because if you say that he will make me host trivia night and I can guarantee it’ll be less fun. Plus, the jacket doesn’t fit me. Nonetheless, we are open to your input.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;">Written by: </span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">Whitney Knightly</span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;">Assistant Taproom Manager</span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;">Whitney has been trained by MI6 in England and is a renowned super spy and international woman of mystery.</span></div>
Iowaoakshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843204102545543529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-73542734465653142952017-05-04T16:46:00.001-05:002017-05-12T13:48:25.804-05:00THE BEER FACTS: ESB or Extra Special Bitter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSVi4r98ZZLN3cSERGrgjOXYhYLckNDhT-nBZBlWJh4kUX4C6aUYrB2Y5zL_KNkbHoQ5mBJoMsOzxtm7RWXaXCm4SnxR9qX3DWEYheO6U7kieJc5s0iAjK03GR_VdLABKhLzHSH3RSQZk/s1600/SpidersFromClive_sm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Spiders From Clive" border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSVi4r98ZZLN3cSERGrgjOXYhYLckNDhT-nBZBlWJh4kUX4C6aUYrB2Y5zL_KNkbHoQ5mBJoMsOzxtm7RWXaXCm4SnxR9qX3DWEYheO6U7kieJc5s0iAjK03GR_VdLABKhLzHSH3RSQZk/s400/SpidersFromClive_sm.jpg" title="Spiders From Clive" width="263" /></a></div>
<i><span style="color: #999999;">The Beer Facts is a regular blog feature discussing all things beer and brewing. </span></i><br />
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515 Brewing's <b>Spiders from Clive</b> is an Extra Special Bitter in the classification of English Pales...that's right, they are Ying to the Yang of American Pales. Weird, huh? We'll be discussing the specific differences a little later, but American Pales are derived from this sessionalable English classic. ESBs are also sometimes known as "Bitters" in the general term when poured from draft or cask, while "pale ale" is usually reserved for bottled versions of the beer. I know, confusing, right?<br />
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<b>What is in an ESB?</b><br />
The ESB is the strongest in a the ladder of styles- with Ordinary Bitter and Best Bitter being the other two- in terms of ABV, alcohol by volume, and IBU, international bitterness units, strength. Despite the use of the word "bitter" though, this is often deceiving when compared to most American beer varieties. IBUs typically range between 30-50, and the English hops used tend to be much more mild in their bitterness with flavors often characterized as herbal, earthy, woodsy, or even floral- I often think they actually have an English tea-like quality. ESBs can be fairly balanced in terms of malt and hop, with the malt notes of toast, biscuit, and caramel or toffee sweetness due to a dash of crystal malt added into the recipe. Fruity esters from English varieties of yeast aren't uncommon either, although sometimes you get a much cleaner and drier finish. The color, or SRM, of this style can range wildly from Pale to Copper, due to crystal and specialty malts, but most don't reach above 18 and tend to be an Amber shade.<br />
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<b>Characteristics</b><br />
While American Pales have evolved to be hoppy, citrusy, piney, resinous, and give you a punch of bitterness, the English Bitters have remained rather subdued in character in comparison. Like many other English beer styles, they've remained low in ABV as well, keeping them drinkable and sessionable (any beer 5.1% ABV and under) with a range of usually 4.6-6.2% just as American Pales have. Malt is not only darker in color, but also takes more prominence in a light, but often complex flavor compared to the true pale orange and golden hues of American pales. Carbonation is usually minimal as well, a traditional that has come from UK's Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA).<br />
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</b> <b>Diacetyl?</b><br />
While Diacetyl is usually an off flavor in most beer styles, it is actually acceptable in low quantities in Bitters, and sometimes even desired by the brewers. Buttery or butterscotch flavors often accompany the malt sweetness. It's also acceptable without diacetyl.<br />
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</b> <b>Did you know?</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKccmXtwGPwMbqmxIjQUPO_qY1xilSkbT5SAdodkOzrD37GMD1t8sIL1GVvbfFAEnfWvaQPRE4DdJpkMl-r0gu4YdCQTSAFzszkFzL2RsJhb1Xhe1bfuqPpwJNXOs3ta0xOubA7yF-ccw/s1600/spiders.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKccmXtwGPwMbqmxIjQUPO_qY1xilSkbT5SAdodkOzrD37GMD1t8sIL1GVvbfFAEnfWvaQPRE4DdJpkMl-r0gu4YdCQTSAFzszkFzL2RsJhb1Xhe1bfuqPpwJNXOs3ta0xOubA7yF-ccw/s320/spiders.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Spiders from Clive artwork by Carter Allen</td></tr>
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"ESB" itself is a guarded trademark in the UK by British brewery Fuller, Smith & Turner. But it is used widely worldwide outside the UK to denote the style otherwise. Technically, the style is recognized by the BJCP and Cicerone as "Strong Bitter."<br />
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<b></b> <b>Other Examples of a "Strong Bitter"</b><br />
Interested in trying some other authentic examples from across the pond? Head to your local grocery store or specialty bottle shop, or better yet, Royal Mile and see if you can find these classics: Samuel Smith's Old Brewery Pale Ale, Bass Pale Ale, Morland Speckled Hen, Timothy Taylor's Boltmaker, Fuller's ESB, Fuller's London Pride ...or until it runs out, our very own Spiders from Clive.<br />
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<span style="color: #999999;">Written by: </span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;">Monica Shinn</span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;">515 Beertender</span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;">Monica is working on her Cicerone certification (and will tell you all about it soon). </span></div>
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Iowaoakshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01843204102545543529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-36681992050776061612017-05-02T10:08:00.000-05:002017-05-08T12:05:06.560-05:00515 Brewing...now with blogging capabilities!<br />
Welcome to the second iteration of our blog, <i>515's Blood Sweat & Beers</i>.<br />
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Wait...515 already had a blog? Yep, we did. Let's fire up the DeLorean and head back to 2011, when 515 was just a dream of four homebrewers. Brandon, Bailey, Dave and Ryan started <i>Four Guys and a Keg</i> blog to highlight the headaches and joys of starting a brewery. By the time June 2012 came around, the craziness of getting the brewery off the ground took center stage and the blog became a distant memory. (Our old posts are still there if you care to read them.)<br />
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With 515 now in its fourth year, it is time to polish off the blog. And luckily, we have the help of 515's talented taproom and brewing staff excited to share their knowledge. In upcoming posts you'll learn about general brewing and beer (The Beer Facts), the story behind specific 515 beer (Near and Beer to my Heart) and news and upcoming events (What's Hoppening).<br />
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Pour yourself a beer, pull up a chair and enjoy the read.<br />
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Cheers!<br />
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<span style="color: #999999;">Written by:</span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">Cinnamon Rost</span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;">Marketing/Design Director || 515 Fan Support || Girl Friday </span><style type="text/css">
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</style>Cinnamon Rosthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07107759072142284588noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-24233400730015863452012-06-12T20:06:00.003-05:002012-06-12T20:06:39.708-05:00800 Pound Gorilla...Check!Call it what you will, an "800 pound gorilla", "red tape", "royal pain in the ass", "elephant in the room"...whatever you call it, we have had it. Ever since we started the hunt for a location we had heard the possibility that we would have to have a grease trap installed at whatever location that was. We thought that this "requirement" was due to a misunderstanding of the liquid waste that we would produce and that we could talk to either a person or representatives for various city agencies and they would realize that we had no need for one.<br />
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Then we found our location and thought that we had everything covered because it appeared a grease trap was already in place. Sweet! Now we don't have to worry about it and we could go forward! Well, not so fast, we learned. Turns out that there was no grease trap...just a few floor sinks. Then we began formulating ideas, hashing out plans and generally chasing our collective tails. Should we apply for a financial variance and try to get by with smaller grease traps under our brewing area and bar, should we seek out other sources of funds to just bite the bullet and pay for it, should we pack it up and find a new location (meaning there was virtually no way for us to open this year) or should we do something else?<br />
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Well, whatever frustration and discouragement we felt over the last several weeks while dealing with this uncertainty has finally come into focus. We have a definitive plan and the support of our landlord who, throughout this entire process, has been absolutely wonderful to work with. From the initial lease negotiations to this most recent issue he has been up front, honest and very willing to work with us. Being a small business still trying to get off of the ground, that has been extremely helpful.<br />
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Soon we will begin the installation of a large in-ground grease trap and subsequent piping which should allow us to obtain signoff by the WRA (Water Reclamation Association), which (we believe) is the final signoff we need in order to get our building permits so that we can start building instead of demolishing! While I am in no way suggesting that we have seen the last of the red tape and frustration, this has been such a huge deal (and potential deal-breaker!) that it is an incredible weight off of our shoulders.<br />
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I am really starting to feel like we are picking up steam right now. It is helped out a lot by the fact that our brewhouse equipment (boil kettle, mash tun, hot liquor tank, etc) are currently in transit and should be at home in the brewery this Friday. Additionally, we hit the final submit button on our TTB application which officially notifies the federal government that we are planning on opening a brewery and we need them to certify us and give us a license to brew! On top of all that, this Saturday Dave is coordinating the volunteer army to help the <a href="http://iowabeer.org/iowa-craft-brew-festival/" target="_blank">Iowa Craft Brew Fest</a> run (VIP tickets are currently sold out, but regular tickets are still available...get em now!)! What an incredible week! <br />
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Cheers!4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-17902988824262028722012-05-27T17:16:00.000-05:002012-05-27T17:16:08.111-05:00Delivery!Those of you that have found our <a href="http://www.facebook.com/515Brewing" target="_blank">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/search/users/%40515brewing" target="_blank">Twitter</a> pages (kudos to you, by the way!) know that we got a pretty large delivery the other day. Though we have talked about it for awhile, we figured that the Craft Brewers Conference was a good time to unveil those outlets. So, those of you who have found us, thanks for the follows and likes and for those of you who haven't found those outlets yet, we are going to be periodically updating things via those outlets...so give us a follow or a like (just no pokes...yet!). So, back to the point of this post...yes, it was a large delivery, but was still rather comical that it took an entire semi to deliver it to us given the actual size. <br />
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Here comes the goods!</div>
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Dave doing his best to guide the driver</div>
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Though it looks like they are intentionally ignoring the driver, they truly did discuss the truck positioning!</div>
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Hopefully we were the last stop for this driver (and not the only one!) as the trailer was pretty empty, albeit for a couple of pallets with shiny stainless steel attached.<br />
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Brandon showed up a little late...but in style!<br />
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Frankly, it was all a little surreal. Yes, we had a signed lease, a place to call home as well as a lot of paperwork indicating that we were a brewery. True, we had written some pretty big checks many months ago when we ordered our equipment, but we couldn't really point to anything that proved that we were starting a brewery. We could just be a few random people leasing a commercial property with an LLC. That all changed recently with our shiny new fermenters. First, however, we had to get the friggin' things off of the truck and into the building! <br />
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We did think ahead a little bit and adjust a furniture mover to accommodate our new arrivals </div>
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Delivery driver pulling the first one off of the truck</div>
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Ryan doing his best to help out...appears the driver is doing more work than Ryan!</div>
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">We all had pretty big grins on our faces as we inspected everything to make sure it met our requirements</span>
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Of all of the pieces included with these fermenters (we purchased fittings, racking tubes, valves and other equipment along with the fermenters themselves), we were only missing one single nut on the manway hatch. Pretty successful, I'd say!</div>
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All 3 fermenters positioned outside the front door...now, how to get them in the building?</div>
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So, the first step was to remove the wooden guards that had been constructed around the fermenters. The wood wasn't especially high quality, but they didn't skimp on the fasteners!! As we removed the wood, I'm somewhat amazed that none of us got injured when things like this were everywhere!</div>
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After removing from the original pallets, we put them on our improved furniture dolly and rolled them in the front door. Had we gotten anything bigger, there was no way in the world that they would have fit in the door. So, when we are able to increase capacity and get a 7 or 10 barrel fermenter, we'll have to figure out a different way to get the silly things into the building!</div>
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First fermenter has entered the building!</div>
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We repeated the process with the remaining two fermenters and finally had all three fermenters safely inside the building.</div>
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Now, since we are still doing some demolition and still have some construction to do within the building, we wanted to make sure that we protected our investment from all of the dust. Granted, we still will need to clean them thoroughly to remove any oils and materials left over from manufacturing, but we want to minimize any contamination that can get in there before we clean them! So, after finally being unveiled to us, we had to wrap them back up with furniture pads and a really large roll of saran wrap from CostCo!</div>
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Brandon wrapping up fermenter number two. You can see #3 pre-wrapped with saran wrap to close up all open ports.</div>
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So, it took a little while, but we now have three brand new fermenters just waiting for some freshly prepared wort. Hopefully we will be able to fill them up somewhat soon and put them through their paces! So, as mentioned earlier, though we all know we are starting a brewery and we have been working towards this point for quite some time it is really hard to describe how cathartic a feeling it is to have some of this equipment finally delivered to its new home. Step by step, we continue to move towards our final goal...delivering hand crafted specialty beer to the Des Moines area. Or, to throw out the tagline mentioned on our business cards, we wish to provide "exceptional beer for exceptional folks". Look out Des Moines, we are on our way!</div>
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Cheers and have a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend!</div>
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<br /></div>4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-42808667213549416552012-05-10T10:19:00.000-05:002012-05-10T10:19:24.905-05:00Iowa Craft Beer Festival 2012 is coming!I don't know about you guys, but I love beer. And I love bridges. What could be more f'ing awesome than drinking beer ON A BRIDGE? Not a stupid viaduct. A real bridge that crosses water and everything!<br />
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Are you going to be in or near the state of Iowa on June 16th? The second annual <a href="http://iowabeer.org/iowa-craft-brew-festival"> Iowa Craft Beer Festival</a> is coming up and you need to be there. Seriously. A metric truckload of delicious, handcrafted, Iowa beer, a bunch of amazingly talented Iowa craft brewers to serve it to you, a signature bridge in Des Moines, and most importantly - you - are going to all hook up with live music in the background and make sweet, sweet love to each other that day from 1-5 (2-5 if you aren't a VIP - you should really be a VIP, and it'll only cost you an extra 5 spot to sample beer for an extra hour). <a href="http://midwestix.securemytix.com/event/IowaCraftBrewFestival">Tickets</a> are available now, and if you don't get your money out of this, well, let's just say you'll get your money's worth out of this. Come out and enjoy the camaraderie that we, as craft beer lovers, enjoy. Mingle with the breweries that bring you delicious beer. And, most importantly, drink beer. On a bridge. You get to drink beer, ON A BRIDGE. Seriously. A real live freaking bridge! There might even be whales*.<br />
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*there probably won't be whales.Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12731281428859523634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-39542086581873134812012-05-06T17:30:00.002-05:002012-05-06T17:31:11.520-05:00What a week!So, one of the things that all four of us have been looking forward to for quite some time now is the 2012 Craft Brewers Conference, held this year in San Diego. Brandon and Ryan went to the 2011 edition in San Francisco last year and were a little overwhelmed with everything. They attempted to describe how incredible the experience was to Dave and I, but were really struggling to come up with the words to adequately describe it.<br />
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I now know why!<br />
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This was an absolutely amazing experience. We were literally rubbing elbows with and talking to brewing industry greats like Sam Calagione from Dogfish Head, Jim Koch of Sam Adams and Charlie Papazian, world renowned homebrewer and president of the Brewers Association. We had a random lunch conversation with Chris White, founder of White Labs yeast and author of <i><a href="http://www.whitelabs.com/education/book.html" target="_blank">Yeast: The Practical Guide to Yeast Fermentation</a>. </i>There were really too many of those experiences to name, but those give you just an idea of whose company we were in this past week. It was truly surreal for a few reasons. 1. We were actually in their company and at their events. 2. they actually talked with us! 3. They seemed actually enjoy talking to us!<br />
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Then came the primary reason we were there, the conference itself and the expo. There were seminars on all sorts of things, but it was kicked off by Sam Calagione talking about nano breweries. It was really encouraging and exciting to be in the room with all of those people who were either in various stages of planning or had been open for awhile. One brewery in particular had a ton of great information, <a href="http://hessbrewing.com/index2.html" target="_blank">Hess Brewing Company</a>. The brewery opened a couple of years ago on a 1.6 barrel system (51 gallons at a time), which is half the size of our operation! He started a <a href="http://hessbrewing.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=4" target="_blank">blog</a> about their process as he couldn't really find a ton of information out there on the interwebs about starting small breweries. This <a href="http://hessbrewing.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=4" target="_blank">blog</a> has helped many of the small breweries out there get started...we kind of called them the grandfather of the nano brewery!<br />
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Next came seminars on taprooms, yeast propogation, brewing with fruit, tips and tricks, and on and on. So much information to absorb, but so much wonderful information. Then came the beer. Oh my word was there beer. Everywhere you went there was wonderful, wonderful beer. Throughout the day there were hospitality tents everywhere with food and drink. Mixed in with the booths trying to sell us everything from full brew houses to bottle openers were booths with random wonderful beer. Much of it we don't have being distributed in Iowa, but I sure wish it was.<br />
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After the last seminar of the day there were shuttles taking us to various places each night. One night we went to Mission Brewery in downtown San Diego. Absolutely gorgeous building. Used to be an old bakery, but they had converted it to a brewery and tasting room. Another night we went to Karl Strauss Brewery (no idea where it was, my sense of direction was so screwed up all week!) where there was more food and 16 separate breweries with beer....also a mechanical bull! Once we returned, we were presented with even more opportunities to sample incredible beer. In one of the courtyards of the hotel, they had constructed two cold boxes with 50+ taps in each one. You could either filter through the two page list of available brews or just play brewery roulette and pick a number! <br />
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I could go on and on and on about this week and everything we learned and did and saw...but I can't put it all into one post. I do plan on adding another post shortly that will include some of the images we captured throughout the week, but I want to leave you with an image of Ryan's protector. This print was hung over the foot of his bed and watched over him each night. Frankly, it's rather creepy! I think the eyes do follow you around the room...however, he made it through!<br />
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Now, if we can just get an airplane to pick us up from the airport and actually get us home, that would be great!</div>
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Cheers!</div>
<br />4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-24548624064187810432012-04-22T10:12:00.001-05:002012-04-22T10:12:35.131-05:00Demolition Day 1What a day! As I mentioned the other day, we have signed a lease on a building where we will eventually open the doors of 515 Brewing Company to the public. The building has been many things in its life...a restaurant or two, a bar or two and possibly a couple of things we haven't heard of yet. Needless to say, we have to do some work to it in order to match our vision for the brewery and tasting room.<br />
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With the receipt of our insurance paperwork this last week and a floor plan more or less finalized, we are finally able to get our hands dirty and start work on cleanup/construction prep. We have not acquired our official building permit yet so we aren't doing anything major, but one thing was known from the moment we all first laid eyes on the space...the carpet had to go! <br />
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It had to go for many reasons, really. First of all, it had so much stuff spilled on it in the last however long it had been down that it didn't exactly smell of roses! Then take into account the fact that we will very likely have liquid spill onto the floor on occasion and carpeting seems like a pretty silly floor covering! We thought that once we loosened a couple of edges that the stuff would just pull up without too much trouble. Um...no...how wrong we were. I arrived first, thinking it wouldn't be that much trouble. An hour later, this is all that I accomplished:<br />
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I had to stop pulling every couple of minutes to let my hands rest!<br />
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So, Ryan arrived after I had been working for about an hour and with a couple more tools and after about another hour we got this far:<br />
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That stuff just absolutely did not want to come up! Next we tried to pull smaller sections up (about 12" wide). That worked a whole lot better and the work on the carpet went much quicker...but was still pretty difficult.<br />
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One other thing we absolutely had to do was to remove a wall full of mirrors off of one of the walls. One of the previous tenants in this place had even covered up two windows with mirrors. Why, you ask? We have no idea whatsoever! It makes very little sense, but overall it doesn't matter because we have to pull them off anyway! Below is what the wall looked like with all of the mirrors on it (forgive the horrible photo...just for an idea of the mirror wall!):<br />
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Our initial attempt at the first mirror (about 4' x 4') did not go well and we quickly broke a piece off. It had been secured to the wall by half a dozen or more of these solidified putty-like disks. Since neither one of us wanted to get cut and have to get medical attention on our first day of work we decided to unleash a little bit of frustration. If the mirror didn't want to come down in one piece, we would make it come down in as many pieces as possible! A few seconds later and a flying ice scraper and crowbar later and the mirror was down, Ryan and I were laughing somewhat maniacally and we could finally see what was behind the mirror wall!<br />
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After a suggestion by Ryan's wife during dinner, we did finally find a way to pull the mirrors down without breaking them (at least most of them) and finished off pulling down the rest of the mirrors. If I remember right, we salvaged 3 or 4 of the 4' x 4' mirrors. Not sure what we'll do with them, but once we get the wood out of the windows it will be great to get some natural light into the brewery.<br />
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Photos of progress from day one:<br />
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<br />4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-1283088239026216792012-04-08T16:59:00.000-05:002012-04-08T16:59:22.870-05:00Home Sweet HomeSo, it has been awhile since my last post and work has continued to progress. The website is continuing its evolution, recipes continue to be refined and we have looked at several more potential properties. The property search, as I have mentioned before, is a very critical step in our plan as we can't file for our brewer's license without a location. <br />
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Our Realtor has been great to work with thus far. He has put up with all of the requirements we threw at him and has been willing to work with us after normal business hours since all four of us continue to work at our original jobs. We have been through some tough decisions and some tough moments in our search for a location, however, that search has finally come to an end! We all got our keys to the new brewery (we can call it that now!!) on Friday. I won't post just yet where exactly it is, but rest assured, that announcement will come soon enough. <br />
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This means that we can cross another huge "to-do" off of our checklist and now we can really start to build up steam towards actually opening our doors (now that we have them!). You should be seeing some more activity in the next month or so. We should be launching our website, opening up our Twitter and Facebook accounts, and, finally, releasing the location where we will be brewing and serving our beer.<br />
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I think I can speak for all of us that we were all a little giddy on Friday when we finally were able to put our hands on those keys. It is a great feeling to make that huge step. Now we need to finalize the ultimate layout of the brewery so we can submit our paperwork to the TTB (The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau) so that we can get them working on issuing our brewery license. That notice, along with similar notices from the State of Iowa and the City will allow us to finally use our commercial 3 barrel system to brew beer for sale. Up until then, we can only continue to brew on homebrew setups in order to finalize our recipes. Which, Brandon and I happen to be doing right now! My Kolsh is now in the fermenter and Brandon's Shandy is coming out of the mash tun as we speak.<br />
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So, while it has been hard work up to this point in our plan, I anticipate things are going to get even more difficult over the next couple of months. What is up next is to submit our licensing applications, clean up and build out the brewery/taproom, launch our official marketing plan and conquer the hundreds of smaller tasks remaining on our list. It's going to be a crazy, crazy spring and summer, but it sure is nice to finally have a home for our venture!<br />
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Cheers and happy Easter everyone!4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-60248598440733322782012-03-05T20:19:00.000-06:002012-03-05T20:20:11.717-06:00Experimental AdventuresSo, Brandon and I had a long, but productive brew day yesterday and got to experiment a little bit. Before I get to that, however, a quick update on the status of our business. Still no location, ugh. This part has been, by far, the most difficult part of the process to date. We have a very narrow set of requirements and there are only a certain number of spaces out there (available or not!); making it a needle-in-a-haystack sort of search. There are obviously a lot of federal, state, county and city regulations to juggle which makes the search just that much more difficult. We continue to scour all of the commercial listings on our own as well as with the help of our agent.<br />
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Now, on to the brew day. We were brewing a beer that was the idea of my girlfriend, essentially we were trying to recreate the flavor of a salted caramel in a beer. For those who haven't done much (or any) brewing, there are some grains available that create some of that caramel flavor. We have all used these in varying amounts in other brews, but this is the first where I really wanted to highlight the caramel flavor instead of using the caramel to support other flavors. <br />
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Time for a little Brewing 101! A quick run-down of the initial steps we go through to make beer. Beer is basically fermented sugar water with alcohol and carbon dioxide being the by-products of the yeast eating the sugar in said sugar water (yep, we're drinking yeast poop!). The first step is to get the sugar out of the grain so the yeast will have something to eat. We do this by soaking the grain in water at a specific temperature, allowing enzymes to convert starches to sugars. Normally we just throw water in at a specific temperature, let it sit for an hour or hour and a half, then get the water out. For this, though, I wanted to try something new.<br />
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I had been wondering about a mash method called decoction mashing for awhile and, while this is really more of an antiquated mash technique for use with grains that have not been modified with modern malting techniques (as well as other reasons), I thought that the process might help me extract more caramel flavor from the grain. Essentially, for this method, the beginning is the same except we let it rest at a lower temperature than the "single infusion" method I described above. After a period of time, a specific amount of grain is pulled out of the main mash and brought to a boil for a little while. This is then added back to the main mash in order to bring the temp up to the temp we normally aim for with the single infusion. From there, the rest of the brew day is the same. This should, in theory, add more of a caramel flavor to the beer, and our first taste of the unfermented, cool wort seemed to bear that out. I'm really excited about this beer. If nothing else, it was (and is) a great experiment! If you are interested in learning more about decoction mashing and seeing a video about it, try this <a href="http://vimeo.com/22026139" target="_blank">link</a> to Northern Brewer, Brewing TV. Brandon also took a couple of photos during:<br />
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Stirring the Decoction</div>
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Decoction Close Up</div>
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While brewing we also bottled 3 batches of beer that had been carbonating: Mexican Spring (an Agave Lime Wheat), Sour Power (our version of a Berlinner Weisse) and Rooster Red (Irish Red brewed for the Des Moines Roosters Aussie Rules Football team). I'm sampling Mexican Spring right now and I really like it. Brandon's friend and wife tried it the other day as well and could really envision themselves drinking it while floating down the river in a canoe or kayak. We also tasted 3 others that should be ready relatively soon: A Belgian Quad currently aged about 6 months, Big Nuts (Imperial version of Numb Nut Ale) and Sweet Grits Ale. All 3 have a lot of potential, but are still a little young and the flavors need to blend a little more.<br />
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Mexican Spring</div>
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Anyway, I think I have rambled on long enough. If you made it this far, thanks again! I need to find a way to make some of these shorter...apparently I'm a little long-winded! Either way, have a great night and we'll have more news later! <br />
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Cheers!4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-64219670770012806582012-02-16T13:57:00.000-06:002012-02-16T13:57:28.725-06:00Reflections and RevelationsI've been doing quite a bit of reading recently. Reading about the brewing process as a whole, differing mash schedules, yeast pitch rates, hop utilization, overall efficiency, recipe formulation, brewery operations, and on and on and on. It occurred to me that one of the most rewarding (so far) parts of this process of opening a commercial nano-brewery is the learning. There are so many parts of this process that relate back to me sitting in a classroom, bored out of my mind, because I had no idea how any of the information I was being taught would ever relate to the real world...but now I know <i>exactly</i> how they can relate! I recently posted a photo of a stir plate in action that I had just completed building on Facebook and had several comments about it. The one that stuck the most, however, was from my sister who said, "You guys should speak to a hs science class. Seriously. What
could possibly get U.S. kids excited about science more quickly than the idea
that they could use their new skillz to make BEER?! I just solved the science
brain drain problem right there, people." While I don't think there is a high school in the world that would let us come in to talk about our process, I do think there is a serious grain of truth there. I have heard several stories of current professional brewers who happened to be in the right place at the right time and had the right professor steer them in the direction of brewing.<br />
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I always enjoyed science class and was generally pretty adept at many of the concepts, but still had no idea how in the world it was going to translate to my everyday life after high school and college. My aspirations at the time really had nothing to do with applied science. I had also always enjoyed building things and, sometimes more so, tearing things apart. Now I am entering into a world that I should have known about years ago because it meshes virtually all of the skills and subjects that I have enjoyed! <br />
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I'm not sure I can speak for the other guys in this little self-reflective discovery, but what I do know is that I am unbelievably excited about moving forward. All of these random interests are now concentrated into one specific endeavor. Much to my girlfriend's chagrin, I am excited enough about this on a daily basis to come home after a full day of work only to cook dinner and go right to work on some project for the brewery. Whether it is reading about craft beer trends, sourcing suppliers for our ingredients or building small electronics projects I have a hard time sitting around and <i>not</i> working! Last night I forgot to eat dinner for the first time (I had a snack, but that really doesn't count!) because I was researching appropriate rpm rates for yeast starters on a stir plate! Really? I eschewed pork loin for research on stir plate usage? I think I might have a sickness of some sort. While I don't think my experience is identical to those of the other guys, I think all of us are really, truly enjoying this process. Even though it has, at times, been extremely frustrating, it has been an overwhelmingly positive experience to this point, and many would say that we haven't even gotten to the fun part yet!<br />
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Stir Plate Assembly (yes, it's even on the kitchen counter!)<br />
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Completed Stir Plate in action</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-81621861537306916672012-02-14T13:53:00.000-06:002012-02-14T13:53:00.442-06:00Progress and SaisonsWell, it has been a little while since my last post so I figured I'd post an update and some photos from recent brew days. We have really been working hard on finding a location and have discovered that it is a truly difficult task! There are so many city, state and federal regulations to weed through (some of them contradictory) that it makes it quite a daunting task to figure out what is required. We have visited several places, put a bid in on one location, are planning a bid on another location and all while keeping our eyes on the city for other potential locations. Throughout this process we have known that much of our equipment has been ordered and has no place to go! So, we are also making contingency plans in order to store our equipment until we have secured a lease.<br />
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T-shirts have been printed, business cards have been received, Polo's are ready for embroidery, website design is in full swing and, of course, beer has been brewed! We continue to feel very confident about our preparation and just need to nail down a location to get all of the licensing requirements underway. While this location search has been difficult, the confidence I have in my partners and those who have been kind enough to help us along this journey continues to grow every day. Our meetings are relaxed and fun, but we still get stuff done (occasionally Ryan's or Brandon's wife has to prod us to get back on topic, but that's another story)! We are all ready to start brewing beer and formally introduce our beer to the Des Moines area...just need to find a spot to settle down!<br />
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Speaking of brewing, we have been pretty busy on that front as well. We continue to experiment with different hop varieties, malt bills, yeast, spices, fruit, etc to develop a wide variety of high quality beer. <br />
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One example is a Sour Cherry Lavender Saison. For those unfamiliar with the style, a Saison is also called a Farmhouse Ale. It was traditionally brewed as an alternative drink for farm laborers during the harvest. It is moderately hoppy, lots of floral aroma and traditionally is on the low end of the alcohol spectrum (laborers don't get much done when they're wasted!). This version is an attempt to stay (sort of) within the spectrum of a traditional Saison regarding the hops, floral aroma and alcohol; all while adding a little extra bit of something (i.e. Lavender and sour cherries!). Below are some pictures from transfer day (moving from secondary fermentation over cherries into the keg for carbonation):<br />
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Cherries turn a really strange color after sitting in fermenting beer for a week and a half!<br />
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Another shot of the cherries and beer being transferred to the keg.<br />
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Me trying to get the last bit of beer out of the fermenter. There were 4 pounds of cherries in that bucket so it was a little difficult getting to the beer! (As a side note, Brandon would have been in this photo as he was helping me, but he was doing something inappropriate for the web and had to be cut out of this!)</div>
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More to come later, as usual. <br />
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Here's to a quick appearance of spring!<br />
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Cheers!4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-55045143774129904102012-01-24T19:12:00.000-06:002012-01-24T19:12:14.946-06:00Brewery's First ChristmasShortly before the holidays Brandon noticed an advertisement for a beer and food pairing at a local restaurant, <a href="http://sbroccowine.com/">Sbrocco</a>. All the food was to be paired with a select beer from <a href="http://www.boulevard.com/">Boulevard Brewing Company</a>'s Smokestack series. This series has 4 year round releases as well as limited releases and seasonal offerings. We thought it would be a good time for us to sit down together, with our significant others, and just have a little fun. We also thought it would be a good idea to reward the women in our lives for sticking with us and dealing with our craziness during this whole thing! <br />
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I just have to share the menu because it was outstanding! <br />
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Soup:<br />
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Pecan wood smoked scallop bisque with celery leaves &
caviar toast.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Paired with Harvest Dance</div>
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Bruschetta:</div>
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Brushed with Foie Gras & topped with Grana Padano
cheese, bacon scented tomatoes & arugula.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Paired with Long Strange Tripel</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lamb:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Braised
Colorado lamb with roasted root vegetables, homemade rosemary pasta & lamb
jus.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Paired with Sixth Glass</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hazelnut-cocoa
nib sponge cake with a salty caramel sauce & stout creme anglaise.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Paired with Dark Truth Stout</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was a wonderful dinner and the beer and food pairings were outstanding. It was a really great way to celebrate all that we had accomplished to that point as well as prepare us for all that we had to tackle going forward. We all left completely stuffed and utterly satisfied from both the beer and the food.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">From what we were told during the dinner, Sbrocco is going to try to do events like this on a semi-regular basis and they actually have another one coming up soon, as in <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120112/ENT/301120017">February 21</a>. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17px;">I will post some more information later on regarding our progress, but I just wanted to take a moment and thank those of you who have read and continue to read this blog. We are extremely encouraged by all of the positive responses we have received regarding our little venture. It seems like everyone we talk to believes this is a good idea and if they don't live near, are willing to travel to come visit us and sample our beers. I can't even begin to explain how great it is to receive this feedback and it just continues to push us forward. So, though it is a little late, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and we look forward to many more nights like this one!</span></div>
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<br />4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-85405155560824415072011-12-21T22:12:00.000-06:002011-12-21T22:12:17.540-06:00What's in a name?When Ryan first proposed the idea of opening a nano-brewery we all had a slighly different picture of what it would take to get it off the ground, but most of our ideas followed a relatively similar path. Obtain funding, develop recipes, get a location, file appropriate paperwork, brew beer and sell it. Some of us went a little more detailed into different parts of the above equation, but, for the most part we all were ont the same page about the work required on various parts in order to be successful. <br />
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We started having weekly meetings so we could stay on track and check off all the boxes that needed to be checked off. We discussed our name, our image and our brand often, but mostly in a high level discussion, not really drilling down to the specifics of the question, "What do we call ourselves?" Then one week we decided it's time to really start answering these questions more specifically. So, we had a brainstorming session with pieces of paper taped on Ryan's dining room wall where we each wrote down our ideas for actual names of our brewery (after making sure the markers didn't bleed onto the wall underneath, of course!). Now we had 30+ different ideas, some still pretty general, some specific. We mulled over these individually, but no one was ever really sold on any of them. The more we tried to label ourselves, the more difficult we found it to really settle on one small set of characters to define our entire business venture. We wanted to convey that we were local in mindset, but not have it sound weird if we hit it bigtime and were able to distribute nationally. We wanted to make sure people knew we were brewing beer, not making park benches. We wanted it to be memorable, but not memorable in the way you remember when your co-worker had a few too many at the office holiday party. On and on our requirements went until we didn't think there was a single combination of numbers and letters available to us with the English language that would accomplish everything we wanted it to.<br />
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During this process there were several concepts and several ideas from the original brainstorming session that continued to be brought up. It seemed like every meeting we were discussing the same four or five names and each time we had different arguments for each of them. Who knew naming a company could be so friggin difficult??!!?! Then we stopped talking about it for awhile. We had narrowed it down to a few different options, much more manageable than 30, and we all just sat on them for a couple of weeks. We moved on to different challenges that needed to be addressed more urgently than a name did. After resolving those issues we came back to the name and a funny thing happened. In the time that we took to address other issues and stew privately on the potential name of the brewery we had all come to the same conclusion. We were making it too complicated. We couldn't come to a consensus because we were trying to convey too many different messages with a single phrase. In the end, what mattered is that even though we put it on the back burner and dealt with other issues, one option was clearly more easily recalled than any other. We had finally chosen our name.<br />
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Now, how do we display that name? Crap. As I have mentioned in previous posts, we are extremely lucky to have two very talented graphic designers at our disposal. We gave them the name and politely asked them to come up with some logo concepts for us to review. I never probed too much into their development process, but I gather that they both worked on some ideas separately. Then, when they had narrowed down their individual concepts to a dozen or so each, they combined their ideas and began collaborating more extensively to develop an overall design to present us. They were extremely professional in their initial presentation to us. They did not want color preferences to sway us in a particular direction so we first reviewed 7 different primary designs, with a few different font variations of the basic design, all in black and white. Following an almost identical pattern to our struggles coming up with a name, it took us almost a month to decide on a main design. We then asked them to use the main design, but with some different font options. They came back a little later with 8 different fonts for us to choose from (this had been narrowed down from a total of around 48 different options before it even got to us!). We worked a little quicker this time around and were able to come up with 2 that we liked a lot within a week. So, one more meeting and they were kind enough to add a dash of color to our otherwise black and white logo options with the two different font options. In a rare moment of clarity, we were able to actually decide on the final version that night after only reviewing the color/font options for a couple of hours! That is lightning fast compared to the other logo/name decisions we have made!<br />
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If you have stuck with me this far (thank you!), I won't tease you any longer. This post really does intend to officially release our name and logo to the public (well, public being those of you reading this blog!). So, without any further explanation, I hereby proudly present:<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p-HhL0tC58A/TvKs_dXRoxI/AAAAAAAAAKs/c7TJ26qIrDw/s1600/515_Logo_RGB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-p-HhL0tC58A/TvKs_dXRoxI/AAAAAAAAAKs/c7TJ26qIrDw/s320/515_Logo_RGB.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-73805066565486917472011-12-11T13:43:00.001-06:002011-12-11T14:15:50.861-06:00Next steps, and another birthday!Well, I wrote recently about the birthday of our company. That was really the first big step for us as in order for us to make any real movement towards selling our first beer, we had to legally form our company. Since then, we have opened our bank account (resulting in the first official mailing to our company...checks!), visited/reviewed potential locations, contacted our Trademark attorney and started the process of getting our name trademarked. It's like Dominoes, once we get one thing taken care of, that leads us to our next step. While there is a lot to do, it is helpful that much of the big stuff has to be tackled in a very specific order.<br />
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While the four of us have been busy with the above, Ryan and Brandon's wives have been working hard to produce a logo that we can use in marketing materials as well as the front of the tap room. Those two have put up with lots of differing opinions and suggestions from all of us, but have truly come up with a wonderful design. They are now hard at work designing business cards, letterhead and promotional materials. If I haven't said it before, we are <em>extremely</em> lucky to have these two talented women helping us with this journey. They have made our choices extremely difficult by providing many wonderful logo options for us to review and decide between and we are all eager to unveil our name and our logo to the public!<br />
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We have narrowed down our fermenter options and our brew house options and are very nearly ready to write a really big check to place our order for these critical components. Ryan has been heading this search, but all of us have weighed in on the options he has presented to us. This is obviously a very important decision for us, not only because of the money involved, but because these are the pieces of equipment that we need to trust to produce the quality of beer we want to deliver. We can adjust our malt supplier(s), our hop supplier(s), etc. but once we purchase our brew house and fermenters, we have to raise a lot of capital to replace them!<br />
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In addition to the logistical part of getting this company off the ground, we were actually able to share our beer with a group people we didn't know for the first time. We brought 3 styles (Numb Nut Ale, Berliner and an American Wheat yet to be named) to a pot luck at the Valley Junction Foundation a few weeks ago. The tastes of these individuals ranged from someone who drank nothing but Coors Light, but came back up time and time again asking for Numb Nut by name to another who enjoyed all styles of beer and asked for a different flavor each time and truly seemed to be enjoying himself and the variety! It was really great to see the reactions that strangers had to our beer partially because it was an extremely positive reaction, but also because it really was the first time we got to experience the realization of the basic reason we wanted to start this business in the first place. While our actual mission statement has yet to be formally drafted, we all wanted to provide a higher quality, better tasting beer to the people of the Des Moines area. Seeing the smiles and feeling the excitement that our beer helped create was a really fun experience and I can't wait to do it again.<br />
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If all that wasn't enough to be excited about, Dave and his wife welcomed a new baby girl to their family! Dave's cell phone had been a constant companion at our meetings for awhile, never knowing if he would need to take off. In the end, it was a very happy early, early morning for Dave and his family. Congratulations you guys, now get some sleep if you can! :)<br />
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Until next time, Cheers!4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-24283743815071763472011-11-14T21:56:00.000-06:002011-11-14T21:56:55.164-06:00A beer is bornWell, maybe not a beer...but a brewery was certainly born on 11/14/2011, weighing approximately 830 pounds and 12 ounces (ok, that might have gone a little too far!). Our company was officially created with the signing of certificates and legalese filled documents by all four owners around 5:45 this evening. While it may have seemed that we had fallen off the face of the earth the last several months, we truly have been working hard. Though much of it was difficult to blog about and describe in a way that would produce anything other than a powerful sedative effect on the reader, we have been diligently refining our business plan, evaluating our marketing strategy, meeting with potential realtors and finally giving our lawyer the go-ahead to produce the documents in a 6-8 month effort to establish a local Des Moines-based craft brewery. All of that hard work and effort (not all of the brewing business is about brewing and sampling craft beer!) has resulted in a 2 inch thick binder filled with about a quarter of an inch of paper officially declaring us a "business". <br />
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It may seem like I am leaving something out...like a name, perhaps? I am doing that intentionally as we need to verify that we can actually market under actual name of the LLC without infringing upon anyone else. So while our company does have a name, owners, etc. we don't want to get anyone referring to us by a particular name just in case we can't market under it. Rest assured, we will have all of that figured out in time and I will definitely publish it and let everyone know by screaming it loudly from the rooftops (free advertising, right??)...just not yet! <br />
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While we have been finalizing all of the nitty-gritty details, we have been brewing beer too! I have made more Numb Nut Ale (still love that beer) and have a Milk Stout quietly fermenting away; Ryan has been diligently working on producing a killer IPA that is absolutely wonderful with plans for a Ginger Pale Ale and another beer with coconut as a focus; Dave has produced a highly hopped American Wheat that is unique but extremely good; Brandon has been on a kick recently making a Belgian Quad, an American Wheat, an IPA and a couple others that I can't even remenber right now! <br />
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All in all, we are extremely excited to have made it to this point and to have taken this first large and significant step in the process to provide outstanding, flavorful beers to the people of Des Moines and (hopefully) beyond! We are getting to a pretty busy point in the formation of this brewery as many steps we simply could not take until the company was officially formed. Now that we are "official" we can move on to purchasing the brewhouse equipment, securing suppliers, locating and finalizing a location, applying for our licenses and many more exciting steps! Becoming official has, and I feel I can speak for all of us without hesitation here, really provided a boost of energy and excitement (not that any of that had really drained, but you can only reformat and rework a business plan so much before everything starts looking the same!) and I can't wait for the next steps!<br />
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Now, I think it is time to take a moment and reflect on the progress we have made before getting up again tomorrow and getting right back to it. I think it is only appropriate to have a nice craft beer! Cheers and good night!4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-73337391327093956052011-08-10T22:08:00.000-05:002011-08-10T22:08:59.828-05:00Time for CelebrationIt 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 <u>The Brew Coffin</u>! 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. <br />
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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 "<a href="http://4guysandakeg.blogspot.com/2011/06/zen-and-art-of-brewing.html">Zen and the Art of Brewing</a>":<br />
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<em>"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!!"</em><br />
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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!<br />
4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8214548981419612006.post-58962138976935815372011-07-10T20:30:00.000-05:002011-07-10T20:30:50.296-05:00BrewfestSo, I've been a little slow on the posts recently as there has been quite a bit going on. 4th of July, family, friends, brewery operations, etc. all seem to get in the way a little bit of writing everything down. However, an event occurred yesterday that I have to write about. For those of you not in the Des Moines area, there is an annual event known as <a href="http://www.brewfestdsm.com/">Brewfest.</a> This was the 5th incarnation of the event, held at Principal Park, and really proved to me how much more accepting people are of craft beer. When Ryan brought the idea to us about starting the brewery he mentioned the reasoning behind his decision to start it now instead of 5 years ago or 5 years from now. One of the deciding factors is that more people are choosing craft beer instead of reaching for a Bud Light. The availability of good beer has increased as has the demand which only means good things for a small local brewery. The attendance at Brewfest is a testament to the growing demand for really good beer. <br />
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My girfriend and I arrived around 2:45 and the doors opened at 3. The line when we got there was already about 200 yards long, with another line about 50 yards long of people showing ID's and getting their bracelets. By the time we got our bracelets we were able to walk right in, grab our goodie bag and our tasting glass. We guessed that most people would start on the lower level so we went straight upstairs. I tried a stout, a porter, a wheat and a dopplebock in pretty quick succession. My tastebuds were already overwhelmed and we hadn't even been there 10 minutes! I had to tell myself to relax and enjoy it because the beer would still be there! I didn't have to taste all 400 beers in the first hour!<br />
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I made it over to Peace Tree Brewing Companies tap and was able to talk to Megan again. I haven't spoken with her since we visited their brewery a couple of months ago, so it was nice to take a little time and talk with her. Also, check out their sweet tap!!<br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">This photo really doesn't do it justice as the front of it is designed like an old car. It is seriously sweet! Blonde Fatale was just as wonderful a beer as when I last had it at the brewery. Ryan has actually placed this beer in his top 10 beer list!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">We made our way down the rest of the breweries on the top floor, then ventured to the lower level. Many of the more mainstream breweries were located down here including MillerCoors, New Belgium, etc. There were still some very good smaller breweries represented on the lower level which made me happy. I'm glad that the organizers included some smaller breweries in amongst the Big Boys. I was also very happy to see that not all of the patrons were huddled around the Big Boys. Everyone seemed to really be sharing the wealth and experimenting with beers they aren't terribly familiar with.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">More than anything else, events like this allow beer drinkers to expand their horizons and see what wonderful beer is out there. They are also exposed to beer that *gasp* might be better than their old standby of Bud Light or Coors Light! Huge thanks go out to everyone that helped to organize and run this event. It was a wonderful day and even though it was pretty warm, there was a great breeze blowing through both levels that only messed with a few of the tents that were set up around the breweries. All in all it was a wonderful afternoon and I left satisfied and even more excited about our venture. All those people moving from brewery to brewery trying new and interesting beers can only be a good thing when we are striving to deliver some of the best local beer a person can get. The more educated people get about good beer and how wonderful it can be compared to the old standards, the more our chances improve of being able to actually pull this whole thing off!</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Again, thanks to everyone who put this wonderful event on and I truly hope that we are able to participate next year as one of the newest breweries at the 6th Annual Brewfest!</div>4 Guys and a Keghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17923437253232537954noreply@blogger.com0