The life of a brewer is a hectic one. between finding some stable work, networking, getting settled in a new city, and all that other stuff I have not had time for as much immediate progress as I had hoped. That being said, true to my nature, I haven't shut up about exactly what my plans were.
A lot of people have been really supportive, and I've been very excited to see how many people in Oklahoma want some new beers in the state. However, there are also quite a few people who just want to turn their noses up at someone gypsy brewing or contract brewing production. This is something I don't get at all, and I thought I'd take a minute to defend not only my own business plan, but many brewers putting out great beers, especially here in the state of Oklahoma.
First of all, the anti contract logic usually seems to be flawed. One guy told me he only likes to support local products as he was drinking his 80 acre from Boulevard, which was brewed in Kansas City. This one I can't figure out. Most brewers who contract or gypsy brew have most, if not all of their production within 100 miles of where they are located. And even if it's being brewed somewhere else, I promise that the brewer who lives in the local area is still putting the money back in the local community by, you know, living there. Isn't that the point of supporting local business? to help support the economy of your community and make sure everyone around you prospers? A local clothing store doesn't sew all their own clothes in the back of the shop, but that doesn't make them any less of a local business. Why am I somehow a "lesser" part of the local community by outsourcing some of my production?
Another thing I've heard a lot is that people want to be able to know who brewed their beer. It's me. I'm the one who brewed the beer! I don't own the brewery it came out of, but I made it happen! Most contract brewers will brew the specialty batches of beer themselves, will do all the quality control monitoring, and damn skippy all the recipes come from the guys who started the company. What do folks think a more conventional brewery is like? Sam Calgione doesn't brew all the beer at Dogfish head, he hires people to brew beer that he oversees, then pays them for their time. The only difference is that the Dogfish head building only produces dogfish head beer, while a contract brewer pays another brewer a rental fee of sorts to brew in their facility, and then they pay the workers who produced their beer. Again, what's the difference?
The thing that grinds my gears the most though is that this whole thing is very selective. Those contract breweries like Prarie (out here in Oklahoma) or Stillwater (in Baltimore) that put out really artisinal quirky batches and nothing else get the highest of praise for what they're doing while breweries like Mustang (also in Oklahoma) and Schmaltz (based in New York) who produce some high quality lagers and a more consistent and less over the top product line get slammed over and over again for somehow being less then authentic. This is just straight up snobbery. Mustang wins medals on a national level every year, especially for their wheat beer which is CONTRACTED. Schmaltz might be producing the best lagers on the east coast, they're objectively in the top 3. What it comes down to is that somehow contracting turned into a dirty word, and I'm not quite sure why.
For what it's worth, I'm 22 and have very little money or credit, certainly not enough to open a brick and mortar place. Eventually I'll get there, but for the time being I'll be contracting. My product line is posted up here, and there will be a few one offs, but mostly it's going to be those six beers. And they are all great beers. I hope you'll try them, and maybe some of you will become regular customers of mine. If you don't like my products after you've tried them, that's fine. But hey, if you don't want to try my beers because my business plan wasn't good enough for you, that's your loss.
Monday, August 12, 2013
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Home Remedies
Hey there folks.
Our first brew is getting really close. things are as close as they can be to in place without beer actually fermenting. I wanted to do something to get the good people of Oklahoma excited about my beer, and since you can't taste it just yet, I thought the next best thing would be for you all to try and brew it.
So here are three homebrew size recipes for 5 gallon batches of some of the more warm weather appropriate beers I'll be releasing:
(sorry extract brewers, I'm not exactly sure what appropriate substitutions would be)
Lazy Bully Lager:
7 lb Pilsner malt
4 lb Munich 2 or Dark Munich (I prefer Weyerman, but other brands will do)
8 oz carahell
4 oz carared
Mash at 153 for 60 minutes or until conversion is complete (I prefer to do a step mash with this one on the big system, but I know that's a pain for homebrewing. 153 should get things just about right(
After mash and run-off is complete, its boil time. this beer has a 90 minute boil with the following hop schedule:
.5 oz northern brewer hops @90
1 oz Northern brewer hops @15
.5 oz Northern Brewer and 1 oz Tettnang @KO
Cool to between 60 and 65 degrees and ferment with a steam beer yeast. I prefer the san fran lager strain from wyeast, but they're all good.
The Molly Rae Wit Beer:
5 lb pilsner malt
3 lb white wheat malt
1 lb unmalted wheat
1 lb flaked oats
I'd really recommend a protein rest for this one, but if you can't make it happen that's no big deal. rest at 149 until conversion.
Boil for sixty minutes
.5 oz perle hops at 60
since this is a wit beer, you're sure gonna need some spices. A half ounce of orange peel for 10 minutes and a teaspoon or 2 of corriander at 5 minutes should do the job. I don't think I'll release my exact spice blend, but some lavender and chamomile wouldn't be amiss for a clone beer.
.5 oz tettnang at KO
ferment with a classic belgian wit strain, try to hold it around 68 to 70 degrees.
Snake Oil IPA
10 lbs pale malt or american 2 row
1 lb biscuit malt
2 lb Munich 2 or Dark Munich
1 lb cara-red
8 oz cara aroma
Mash this around 153. I know homebrewers can sometimes be shy about using more then whatever percent of crystal malt Gordon Strong has advised to use in any given beer, but trust me here. the sweetness and extra body is going to balance really really well with the hops that are going into this beer. Also, a tablespoon of gypsum in the mash might help give a better mouth-feel, depending on your local water chemistry.
This one is a 120 minute boil.
1 oz perle @ 120
2 oz fuggles @ 15
4 oz EKGs @ 5
ferment with your favorite english ale yeast, and dry hop with 2 oz of EKG and 2 oz of Fuggles.
Our first brew is getting really close. things are as close as they can be to in place without beer actually fermenting. I wanted to do something to get the good people of Oklahoma excited about my beer, and since you can't taste it just yet, I thought the next best thing would be for you all to try and brew it.
So here are three homebrew size recipes for 5 gallon batches of some of the more warm weather appropriate beers I'll be releasing:
(sorry extract brewers, I'm not exactly sure what appropriate substitutions would be)
Lazy Bully Lager:
7 lb Pilsner malt
4 lb Munich 2 or Dark Munich (I prefer Weyerman, but other brands will do)
8 oz carahell
4 oz carared
Mash at 153 for 60 minutes or until conversion is complete (I prefer to do a step mash with this one on the big system, but I know that's a pain for homebrewing. 153 should get things just about right(
After mash and run-off is complete, its boil time. this beer has a 90 minute boil with the following hop schedule:
.5 oz northern brewer hops @90
1 oz Northern brewer hops @15
.5 oz Northern Brewer and 1 oz Tettnang @KO
Cool to between 60 and 65 degrees and ferment with a steam beer yeast. I prefer the san fran lager strain from wyeast, but they're all good.
The Molly Rae Wit Beer:
5 lb pilsner malt
3 lb white wheat malt
1 lb unmalted wheat
1 lb flaked oats
I'd really recommend a protein rest for this one, but if you can't make it happen that's no big deal. rest at 149 until conversion.
Boil for sixty minutes
.5 oz perle hops at 60
since this is a wit beer, you're sure gonna need some spices. A half ounce of orange peel for 10 minutes and a teaspoon or 2 of corriander at 5 minutes should do the job. I don't think I'll release my exact spice blend, but some lavender and chamomile wouldn't be amiss for a clone beer.
.5 oz tettnang at KO
ferment with a classic belgian wit strain, try to hold it around 68 to 70 degrees.
Snake Oil IPA
10 lbs pale malt or american 2 row
1 lb biscuit malt
2 lb Munich 2 or Dark Munich
1 lb cara-red
8 oz cara aroma
Mash this around 153. I know homebrewers can sometimes be shy about using more then whatever percent of crystal malt Gordon Strong has advised to use in any given beer, but trust me here. the sweetness and extra body is going to balance really really well with the hops that are going into this beer. Also, a tablespoon of gypsum in the mash might help give a better mouth-feel, depending on your local water chemistry.
This one is a 120 minute boil.
1 oz perle @ 120
2 oz fuggles @ 15
4 oz EKGs @ 5
ferment with your favorite english ale yeast, and dry hop with 2 oz of EKG and 2 oz of Fuggles.
Thursday, July 4, 2013
Who's got the funk?
Today, while many of you were likely asleep, resting up for your barbecues, I was hard at work. I was in the brewery in Pittsburgh filling some barrels of beer with the help of the guy who will be taking over my post. The last barrel that we were supposed to fill came up short. And that's when things got exciting.
It's unbecoming for a doctor in good standing with the community to myself to admit a thing like this, but there are some things about brewing that still just get me going. And taking a perfectly good beer like the Imperial Irish Red we moved today and just funking it up so good is one of those things. I don't know if there will be a time in my career when this stuff gets less fun. I sure hope not.
That barrel of beer was about a third empty, and we need to make it all the way full in a day or two in order to prevent a serious bit of oxidization. We did purge it with co2 before we filled it to be safe, but wood is porous and soon there's gonna be too much atmosphere in our beer. So we hatched a plan.
As I mentioned before, I spend a lot of time working on and pondering other sour and wild beers. And just so happens, we've got a strain of wild yeast that needs a new home. The other brewer mentioned that a really clean brett character would be great in this beer, and even though that sounds like an oxymoron, I tend to agree. We've got just the boys for the job, and will be adding the yeast strain along with a similar beer to the barrel tomorrow to make something new and hopefully very tasty.
That beer won't make it to Oklahoma, and due to the nature of wild yeast, it will probably never be replicated exactly the same ever again. I probably won't get to taste it in all it's finished, funky glory.
That is the coolest thing I've ever heard of. The idea that you can take a barrel and a few million misunderstood but well meaning wild yeast cells, and with a little love you can keep putting out unique beers that change by the batch. Drinking a beer that is totally unique, and can't be replicated is another one of those things that really gets me going.
A lot of breweries don't like having wild yeast in their facilities. That's understandable. Those little fellas, even though they're just trying to help, can often make their way into places they're not wanted. And once you've got a tank infected with wild yeast, it's pretty hard to get it out. And you probably ruined a batch of beer finding out you had the wild yeast in there in the first place.
I bet it'll be even harder for a gypsy like me to find a place for my sour and wild stuff. if breweries are hesitant about taking the risk with their own products, they will very likely be hesitant about taking the risk with mine.
I've never been one to shy away from hard work, and I will hopefully be giving some kind hearted wild yeast of my own a home and a healthy meal sometime in the near future. That way when people ask who's got the funk you can say "Doc. Doc Buckman's got the funk."
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
The Good Doctor
After a conversation with a brewer in OKC about potential space to brew in yesterday, I thought it would be a good idea to give you guys a little background about me and my company.
I've been enamored with brewing beer for quite some time now. When I was about sixteen I became aware home-brewing was a thing you could do when I started noticing a bunch of bubbling buckets my friend's older brother had stashed around the house. I thought that was about the coolest thing anyone could ever do. That year I did a project for my business class in high school about how I was going to open a brew pub later in life. I still have that dream, and when I'm done being a gypsy I probably will settle down and open up a tiny pub somewhere.
The summer after my freshman year in college, right after I had turned 19, I was at my parents house in South Jersey on vacation and brewed my first batch of beer. It was an extract cream ale kit. I certainly didn't taste it being under-age and all, but a few of my older buddies did. They told me it was "definitely better then Miller". That was a pretty high compliment back when we were still so young and naive. I was hooked. I spent all my savings on brewing books, read about beer either in a book or online for several hours a day, and home brewed twice a week. It took me three batches to go all grain. I remember that beer too. It was a dark mild. That beer was really good (say my older friends who were of legal drinking age when I was under age). I figured if I could pull off such a solid beer brewing the "real" way on my kitchen stove, I probably had enough of what it takes to really hang with the big boys.
When I went back to school in Pittsburgh, I called every brewery in the city every day offering to work for free. It took some time, but by February the guys at the Church Brew Works were so fed up with hearing from me that they told me I could come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays to volunteer on the bottling line. I was working three part time jobs, attending college as a full time student, and was the president of my fraternity at the time, but i made it work.
Things went well. All I was doing was bottling and making variety cases (two things that I couldn't despise more by now) but I couldn't have been happier. The first time they let me scrub yeast out of a tank I nearly fainted I was so excited. I made the decision that this was the career path I was going to head down, and decided to take a year off of college and see what happened. The Church still didn't have any paid work for me, so that summer I worked as a short order cook for the snack shack at a country club, and did my best to keep up with my two day a week internship.
That August, one of the brewers hurt his back and they wanted me in full time. It was a significant pay cut, but I took it without a second thought. I got trained to filter and transfer beer, clean and sanitize tanks, and do everything else that didn't actually involve brewing. I wasn't allowed to brew because I was under age, and the owner at The Church felt that if I couldn't taste beer I certainly wouldn't be effective at brewing it. I was getting a little restless by that point.
By that next February, a year after I started my internship at the Church, I took a job at Hofbrauhaus branch in Pittsburgh. There was no creativity, and I had to trim my beard (those Germans are crazy, that's unheard of in the American beer scene), but I was brewing beer and learning from an old German dude who'd been brewing longer then I'd been alive. He told me I had to taste everything, but that I had to taste it in the corner of the cellar since I was under age. I hit the ground running and was brewing Hofbrauhaus beers a week after I started. My first solo commercial size batch was the Hofbrauhaus Helles Lager, a beer I'm still pretty fond of. I also got trained running a very complicated type of filtration system that usually only larger breweries could afford, and that's a skill I'm very proud to have.
I gained invaluable experience working at Hofbrauhaus, and was really proud of the beer we made, despite sometimes calling it "corporate swill", but I hated it there. The old German dude that I admired and had come to work for had been let go, and I was answering to a corporate style restaurant manager who's former gig was running a TGI Friday's in the airport. He didn't know a mash tun from his own ass, but he was in charge of us and was the one who told us what to do. Being managed by a guy who openly admitted he didn't know anything about my job was the most frustrating experience in my life. Plus he made me trim my beard even shorter and implemented a dress code. We had to wear t-shirts tucked into khaki pants. If I had wanted dress codes and tidy facial hair I would have gone to law school.
By now I was 21, and I had still kept one day a week part time working at the church brew works. Brewers work long hours, usually 9 or 10 hour days. 60 hours a week was really rough, especially without a car. From my neighborhood in Pittsburgh it was a mile and a half walk to the Hofbrauhaus every morning, and on Saturdays an hour bus ride to the Church. I was exhausted all the time, and miserable at the corporate brewery I was at.
But I was always taught hard work pays off, so I kept plugging along. I had developed a nack for a few things as my interests and skills became more specialized. I was offered full time hours again at The Church, and of course I jumped at the opportunity to come back. This time, along with cellar work I was able to brew. I got to make recipes for specialty beers (St. Agricola ale is mine, and it's on right now. keep a look out for a black saison and a beer we're calling "inside out stout" as well, those are my recipes) and was put in charge of and given creative control of the sour beers, the barrel aging program, and cask ales.
And so that's what I've been up to. Your math is right if you're following along, I'm only 22. But now it's time for a move, since my better half got placed in Tulsa with Teach for America. I've worked so hard to get to the level I'm at, and I feel I'm ready, so I'm deciding to take the big leap into opening my own brewing operation once I'm in Oklahoma. The sole reason this is a gypsy operation and not a brick and mortar one is so I have the option to move around with my lovely lady. We're both young and have a little wanderlust going on.
That's my story, and I'm sticking too it.
I've been enamored with brewing beer for quite some time now. When I was about sixteen I became aware home-brewing was a thing you could do when I started noticing a bunch of bubbling buckets my friend's older brother had stashed around the house. I thought that was about the coolest thing anyone could ever do. That year I did a project for my business class in high school about how I was going to open a brew pub later in life. I still have that dream, and when I'm done being a gypsy I probably will settle down and open up a tiny pub somewhere.
The summer after my freshman year in college, right after I had turned 19, I was at my parents house in South Jersey on vacation and brewed my first batch of beer. It was an extract cream ale kit. I certainly didn't taste it being under-age and all, but a few of my older buddies did. They told me it was "definitely better then Miller". That was a pretty high compliment back when we were still so young and naive. I was hooked. I spent all my savings on brewing books, read about beer either in a book or online for several hours a day, and home brewed twice a week. It took me three batches to go all grain. I remember that beer too. It was a dark mild. That beer was really good (say my older friends who were of legal drinking age when I was under age). I figured if I could pull off such a solid beer brewing the "real" way on my kitchen stove, I probably had enough of what it takes to really hang with the big boys.
When I went back to school in Pittsburgh, I called every brewery in the city every day offering to work for free. It took some time, but by February the guys at the Church Brew Works were so fed up with hearing from me that they told me I could come in on Tuesdays and Thursdays to volunteer on the bottling line. I was working three part time jobs, attending college as a full time student, and was the president of my fraternity at the time, but i made it work.
Things went well. All I was doing was bottling and making variety cases (two things that I couldn't despise more by now) but I couldn't have been happier. The first time they let me scrub yeast out of a tank I nearly fainted I was so excited. I made the decision that this was the career path I was going to head down, and decided to take a year off of college and see what happened. The Church still didn't have any paid work for me, so that summer I worked as a short order cook for the snack shack at a country club, and did my best to keep up with my two day a week internship.
That August, one of the brewers hurt his back and they wanted me in full time. It was a significant pay cut, but I took it without a second thought. I got trained to filter and transfer beer, clean and sanitize tanks, and do everything else that didn't actually involve brewing. I wasn't allowed to brew because I was under age, and the owner at The Church felt that if I couldn't taste beer I certainly wouldn't be effective at brewing it. I was getting a little restless by that point.
By that next February, a year after I started my internship at the Church, I took a job at Hofbrauhaus branch in Pittsburgh. There was no creativity, and I had to trim my beard (those Germans are crazy, that's unheard of in the American beer scene), but I was brewing beer and learning from an old German dude who'd been brewing longer then I'd been alive. He told me I had to taste everything, but that I had to taste it in the corner of the cellar since I was under age. I hit the ground running and was brewing Hofbrauhaus beers a week after I started. My first solo commercial size batch was the Hofbrauhaus Helles Lager, a beer I'm still pretty fond of. I also got trained running a very complicated type of filtration system that usually only larger breweries could afford, and that's a skill I'm very proud to have.
I gained invaluable experience working at Hofbrauhaus, and was really proud of the beer we made, despite sometimes calling it "corporate swill", but I hated it there. The old German dude that I admired and had come to work for had been let go, and I was answering to a corporate style restaurant manager who's former gig was running a TGI Friday's in the airport. He didn't know a mash tun from his own ass, but he was in charge of us and was the one who told us what to do. Being managed by a guy who openly admitted he didn't know anything about my job was the most frustrating experience in my life. Plus he made me trim my beard even shorter and implemented a dress code. We had to wear t-shirts tucked into khaki pants. If I had wanted dress codes and tidy facial hair I would have gone to law school.
By now I was 21, and I had still kept one day a week part time working at the church brew works. Brewers work long hours, usually 9 or 10 hour days. 60 hours a week was really rough, especially without a car. From my neighborhood in Pittsburgh it was a mile and a half walk to the Hofbrauhaus every morning, and on Saturdays an hour bus ride to the Church. I was exhausted all the time, and miserable at the corporate brewery I was at.
But I was always taught hard work pays off, so I kept plugging along. I had developed a nack for a few things as my interests and skills became more specialized. I was offered full time hours again at The Church, and of course I jumped at the opportunity to come back. This time, along with cellar work I was able to brew. I got to make recipes for specialty beers (St. Agricola ale is mine, and it's on right now. keep a look out for a black saison and a beer we're calling "inside out stout" as well, those are my recipes) and was put in charge of and given creative control of the sour beers, the barrel aging program, and cask ales.
And so that's what I've been up to. Your math is right if you're following along, I'm only 22. But now it's time for a move, since my better half got placed in Tulsa with Teach for America. I've worked so hard to get to the level I'm at, and I feel I'm ready, so I'm deciding to take the big leap into opening my own brewing operation once I'm in Oklahoma. The sole reason this is a gypsy operation and not a brick and mortar one is so I have the option to move around with my lovely lady. We're both young and have a little wanderlust going on.
That's my story, and I'm sticking too it.
Monday, June 24, 2013
The Method Behind the Madness
Time for a little progress report. I think I've settled on a supplier for a potential pilot system, though I won't name him just yet so as not to jinx things. Hopefully this 3 vessel, 1 bbl system finds some floor space to live in, otherwise it's just going to be the most over-powered home brew system I've ever heard of in my life.
I'm shopping around for cooperage as well. I like the idea of renting kegs rather then buying them, partly because I expect Tulsa won't be the last stop on my journey, but mostly because I have a pretty tight (i.e. almost non-existent) budget to work with. I am going to try and go with a company that offers lease to own options, which is something I would recommend other brewers in a similar situation to my own do as well. Every brewery I've worked for, with, near to, or heard about in my career so far has a cooperage issue, and stainless steel sure ain't getting any cheaper.
I'm also still in the market for some stable space. I'm starting to look for a brewer somewhere in the Midwest (preferably Oklahoma, but beggars can't be choosers) Who has the capacity to contract my flagship, Lazy Bully Lager. This will free me up to find a space in either Tulsa or OKC to physically brew all the various specialty beers, one offs, and seasonal products I want to do, which is really my bread and butter.
So that's that. I'd also like to take a moment here and elaborate a little bit on what exactly I'm trying to do here. For lack of a better term, this is the "beer philosophy" that Doc Buckman's will be operating under.
The way I brew is very simple. I pick one ingredient like a particular yeast strain, a type of malt, a particular hop variety, or a specific technique like a sour mash or decoction, and then I work backwards. I try my best to then highlight that particular item in a unique beer style. For example, Lazy Bully Lager is all about dark Munich malt. The breadiness and amber color are the focus of the beer. But the key for me always has been and always will be balance. You're not gonna see a beer from me at 112 IBU or 18% ABV. Of course, many breweries do that kind of stuff and do it really well. I'll drink those on my (few and far between) days spent not working.
Brewing for me is about the challenge and the art form. I know it sounds corny, but if I was looking for a career to make a serious profit in and then live off my 401k once I hit 65, I'd be doing anything but this. Anything I brew is going to be challenging to get right. I'm confident enough to think I'll be able to get it right most of the time, but there will likely be some mistakes and less then amazing batches as well. I think that's part of the fun, and hopefully my customers (that's all you fine folks) agree.
I also believe the challenge goes both ways. I don't intend to put out a lot of "Easy drinking" one note type of products. These beers are gonna pack a punch, they're gonna be complex. I want someone drinking my beers to be able to take a few minutes and really think about what they're tasting.
Yeah, it's a little ideological for sure. Hopefully it works out. I think it'll be fine. Trust me, I'm a doctor.
I'm shopping around for cooperage as well. I like the idea of renting kegs rather then buying them, partly because I expect Tulsa won't be the last stop on my journey, but mostly because I have a pretty tight (i.e. almost non-existent) budget to work with. I am going to try and go with a company that offers lease to own options, which is something I would recommend other brewers in a similar situation to my own do as well. Every brewery I've worked for, with, near to, or heard about in my career so far has a cooperage issue, and stainless steel sure ain't getting any cheaper.
I'm also still in the market for some stable space. I'm starting to look for a brewer somewhere in the Midwest (preferably Oklahoma, but beggars can't be choosers) Who has the capacity to contract my flagship, Lazy Bully Lager. This will free me up to find a space in either Tulsa or OKC to physically brew all the various specialty beers, one offs, and seasonal products I want to do, which is really my bread and butter.
So that's that. I'd also like to take a moment here and elaborate a little bit on what exactly I'm trying to do here. For lack of a better term, this is the "beer philosophy" that Doc Buckman's will be operating under.
The way I brew is very simple. I pick one ingredient like a particular yeast strain, a type of malt, a particular hop variety, or a specific technique like a sour mash or decoction, and then I work backwards. I try my best to then highlight that particular item in a unique beer style. For example, Lazy Bully Lager is all about dark Munich malt. The breadiness and amber color are the focus of the beer. But the key for me always has been and always will be balance. You're not gonna see a beer from me at 112 IBU or 18% ABV. Of course, many breweries do that kind of stuff and do it really well. I'll drink those on my (few and far between) days spent not working.
Brewing for me is about the challenge and the art form. I know it sounds corny, but if I was looking for a career to make a serious profit in and then live off my 401k once I hit 65, I'd be doing anything but this. Anything I brew is going to be challenging to get right. I'm confident enough to think I'll be able to get it right most of the time, but there will likely be some mistakes and less then amazing batches as well. I think that's part of the fun, and hopefully my customers (that's all you fine folks) agree.
I also believe the challenge goes both ways. I don't intend to put out a lot of "Easy drinking" one note type of products. These beers are gonna pack a punch, they're gonna be complex. I want someone drinking my beers to be able to take a few minutes and really think about what they're tasting.
Yeah, it's a little ideological for sure. Hopefully it works out. I think it'll be fine. Trust me, I'm a doctor.
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Beers in Progress
Our first batch of labels are pretty much done! We've still got a tiny bit of work to do to make sure they fit with Oklahoma's requirements, but they sure do look pretty. These labels were designed by my future sister-in-law, she'll hopefully be doing most of our design work going forward. here's a sneak preview of what our bottle's might look like
The Doctor's Reserve is going to likely be our first release, sometime in early fall. It's a decently hopped american strong ale with a whole bunch of rye in the mash to create a very distinct character. It'll be fermented with our house yeast strain to add just the right bit of funk.
In addition to that, here's a few others in the works you can look forward to.
Lazy Bully Lager: This'll be our only bottom fermented product. We'll be using an old school steem beer yeast and shooting for a fuller bodied beer with a bready and earthy character. Northern brewer hops and a heavy dose of Munich malt are what set this beer apart.
The Uncle Neal: This beer starts as american stout heavy on the roasted malts, with some nugget hops for a little kick. Fermented with a Belgian yeast strain, this unique brew represents the godfather himself. Thoughtful, but entirely inappropriate.
The Molly Rae: A Classic belgian wit, mainly brewed with unmalted wheat and oats. We'll be going through a traditional multi step mash for this one, and then adding the traditional coriander and orange peel into the kettle, along with a few other herbs and spices from the Doc's medicine cabinet.
Old Country Ale: Amarillo hops, a bit of crystal malt, and our house ale yeast put a unique spin on an old style taste. Sour mashed like a classic Kentucky Common, this is one for the real beer geeks among us.
Snake Oil IPA: A spicy, earthy, and bitter IPA in the British style of things, and again fermented with our house ale yeast.
They'll be out as soon as possible, keep an eye out.
In addition to that, here's a few others in the works you can look forward to.
Lazy Bully Lager: This'll be our only bottom fermented product. We'll be using an old school steem beer yeast and shooting for a fuller bodied beer with a bready and earthy character. Northern brewer hops and a heavy dose of Munich malt are what set this beer apart.
The Uncle Neal: This beer starts as american stout heavy on the roasted malts, with some nugget hops for a little kick. Fermented with a Belgian yeast strain, this unique brew represents the godfather himself. Thoughtful, but entirely inappropriate.
The Molly Rae: A Classic belgian wit, mainly brewed with unmalted wheat and oats. We'll be going through a traditional multi step mash for this one, and then adding the traditional coriander and orange peel into the kettle, along with a few other herbs and spices from the Doc's medicine cabinet.
Old Country Ale: Amarillo hops, a bit of crystal malt, and our house ale yeast put a unique spin on an old style taste. Sour mashed like a classic Kentucky Common, this is one for the real beer geeks among us.
Snake Oil IPA: A spicy, earthy, and bitter IPA in the British style of things, and again fermented with our house ale yeast.
They'll be out as soon as possible, keep an eye out.
Take once daily for a healthy soul.
It looks like its happening. Three years brewing beer at home and at work have given me the desire to cut out on my own. Unfortunately, like most fake doctors, I've got sort of a funding problem. To remedy this, I'll be working cheap and looking to gypsy brew all the beer we produce.
Gypsy brewing in a nutshell means that I'll be renting space from breweries who are willing to work with me, and I imagine bouncing around a bit. I intend to be brewing all of the beer I possibly can. Any brewing work that has to be contracted out for some reason (hopefully not much, I like to stay hands on) will be done using my recipes only.
The beer at first is going to be available just around Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and we'll see how it goes from there. I'll be updating regularly to show our progress, and hopefully you fine folks will follow us through the process.
Today, a lot of start up work has gotten done. All that business type stuff, costs and taxes and whatnot has taken shape.
I'm also shopping around for a solid pilot system. This will let me experiment at home, and hopefully if I can get a space for it, I'll be able to do a lot of my brewing on this little guy. It'll take a large bit of work, but anything that can keep me off the streets practicing medicine without a license is a good thing in my book.
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