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A concise brewery bio
Winters, California has a new brewery (with tap room underway) in Berryessa Brewing.
Aside from the cool logo, there is litle on the official Berryessa websites about their brews that I could find in a quick search so, like I asked with Southern Pacific Brewing, if you have sampled their beers at Sacramento or San Francisco beer weeks, let me know your thoughts and give me recommendations.
Should I try Freshie, their pale ale or their Common Sense California common first?
I have posted about quite a few new breweries and it is only March! And here we go again, Latitude 33 opened on the 3rd! So this is really fresh beer.
The name comes from where they are located in North San Diego county and also the fact that they have a theme of adventure running through their branding which leads me to the beers and their names…
The Pasha’s Rye Brown sounds tasty (I love a good brown ale) and I love the name.
“Roasted malts and rich, spicy rye offset with a unique hop character. The Pasha’s is a unique brown ale worth fighting for.”
Now I really need to plan a San Diego beer adventure!
Camel Corps IPA heads toward the New Zealand hop route.
“Our signature India Pale Ale combines English roots with a little twist from New Zealand hops to create a delightfully unique San Diego-style IPA.”
Our second stop in Ireland courtesy of interwebs help at the Beoir site is at Messrs Maguire
But there are not going to be any stouts, Irish or otherwise for me, if I visit. I will be heading straight to two German styles.
No2: BOCK
“A classic of the style, winner of the Best Overall Beer Award at the Independent Irish Beer & Whiskey Festival 2009. This strong beer is easy drinking, with a mild malty aroma and a medium body. Reasonably sweet for a stronger beer, this finishes clean and crisp and leaves you wanting more.”
No3: HAUS LAGER
“A classic European pilsner-style lager, hopped with specially imported continental hops – Czech Saaz and Bavarian Hersbrucker – to impart a crisp, moderately bitter flavour. This beer has a dry, subtle maltiness with a nice floral aroma.”
Since it is March, it is time to head back to the Emerald Isle and e-tour some breweries from Ireland that I found while on THIS website. Our first destination is 8 Degrees
Beer # 1 that intrigued me is, “Like tackling the Knockmealdowns in a blizzard, this beer is not for wimps. This robust malt-driven ale balances dark malts with some old world bitter hops. It won’t weigh you down like a stout and offers a rich chocolaty aroma with a burst of espresso. Perfect for a cooler evening: year round in Ireland.”
Beer # 2 is their “first ever seasonal beer …. ‘A Winter’s Ale’, at 7.5% ABV it’s a real winter warmer. Made with Green Saffron mulling spices.”
I saw this on the fabulous Brookston Beer Bulletin site. Jay Brooks writes,“Currently there are seven Trappist monastery breweries authorized to use the “Authentic Trappist Product” label by the International Trappist Association. Six are in Belgium, one is in the Netherlands. It looks like an 8th monastery is applying for authorization to brew beer under the official designation. The monastery of Engelszell Stift has filed an application and expects to be notified of the ITAs decision in 4-5 weeks.
According to Trappist-Beers.com, the Engelszell Stift monastery was “founded in 1293 and needs financial input to recover the old paintings, fresco’s and paintings” and has decided to start a small brewery to raise the necessary funds. It is located a little over 120 miles from Munich in Austria. According to Wikipedia, it’s the only one in Austria and is located in the northwest part of the country known as the Innviertel.”
I wonder how the whole application process is for this designation? Are there check-ups from inspectors? A letter grade like restaurants in California? And most importantly will this open the floodgates to more?
Our last stop in our February tour of breweries that opened just last year is Kane Brewing.
This coastal New Jersey outfit brews up offerings like Head High IPA, Afterglow Rye Pale Ale and Driftline Oatmeal Brown. Focusing on American and Belgian influenced offerings. Slaking the thirst of Northern New Jersey!
To work around the big, big start up costs in equipment and material, new breweries have turned to Kickstarter or they have had their beer brewed for them but this is the first time that I have seen a brewery just begin with barrel aging space. Barring Almanac Farmhouse ales (also of the northern part of California) that has a similar working style.
Here is what the press release says about The Rare Barrel, “Northern California is rich in brewing tradition and is home to some of the best breweries in the world. Hoping to add to this proud history, we are pleased to announce that we will be launching an all-sour, all-barrel aged “gypsy” brewery in the San Francisco Bay Area named The Rare Barrel.
What do we mean by “gypsy” brewery? We plan to partner with the great breweries of the Bay Area for our brewing needs, and we will be building our own barrel warehouse for fermentation, packaging and serving our beers to the public.
Our team is made up of people committed to producing the highest quality sour beer. Co-founders Jay Goodwin, former Brewer and Head of Barrel Aging at The Bruery in Orange County, Alex Wallash, homebrewer and Sales Representative in biotechnology, and Brad Goodwin, entrepreneur in the pharmaceutical industry, make up our crew of passionate craft beer lovers.
We hope to release more details of our plan over the next few months. We look forward to producing beer with experimental methods, a singular focus on quality sours, and a commitment to the craft beer community.”
I talk of Eagle Rock Brewery here in Los Angeles but now I turn my attention many miles away to Eagle Bay Brewery in Australia.
I would really like to try some of the beers that are oftentimes shunned here in the U.S. like the kolsch, ESB and the English Mild. I think those would work in many a warm weather clime. The low ABVs would be perfect for the hot weather.
And not only do they do beer but they do wine and food as well and if the photos from their website are even close to accurate, this is one seriously beautiful place to sip a beer.
My idea of heaven would be Hood River. Small town. Beautiful view of the Columbia river. Restaurants aplenty. Fruit orchards. Oh and breweries. Lots of breweries now and when Solera and Pfriem come online.
Pfriem Brewery will (legalities willing) be pouring by Memorial Day. Josh Pfriem (formerly of Chuckanut and Full Sail will be manning the kettles. Belgian-styles and Northwest-style hoppy beers will be the focus at the start. For More information read the interview over at the New School HERE.
And it is pronounced FREEM.
We travel all the way back across the country for our second highlighted brewery of February to get to http://www.pacbrewlab.com/about/ in the Bay area.
And they have started with two unique beers. Squid Ink which is a black type IPA and a Hibiscus saison. And that second one sounds really good. I wish more people would use hibiscus in beers. It has such a distinctive and refreshing flavor.
And as many a brewery before it they started via the home brew route, “Pac Brew Lab started in a garage as a place for Patrick and Bryan to experiment with new beer flavors, styles, and brewing techniques. What started out as a place to share new creations with friends grew into a bi-monthly, totally free event with hundreds of our “new” friends and great local street food vendors.”