French Oak Barrel Aged Bois -- Part 5 of 5 of Our Anniversary Beers

It's the end of May, our 5th anniversary month, so we're finishing off the month of barrel blogs with a focus on the barrel industry itself and some thoughts on French American Oak! This time we went straight to the source (of barrels) and chatted with Kelvin Cooperage to learn about French oak. We just wish there was a way we could explain online how delightful Kevin McLaughlin's Scottish accent is over the phone.



Although our variation of Bois aged in French oak barrels will not be ready until late this year and it is available exclusively to our Hoarders Society members, our bourbon barrel aged Bois is available nationwide to the public right now. As we've mentioned, the rye, brandy, and new American oak barrel aged variations are available exclusively to our Society members.

New American Oak Barrel Aged Bois -- Part 4 of 5 of Our Anniversary Beers

Now in our fourth week of May, we're ready to profile yet another barrel we used to age one of our variations of Bois, our fifth anniversary ale. The rye, brandy, and new American oak variations pictured below are available exclusively to our Society members, while the bourbon barrel aged Bois is available nationwide. We turned to one of our former employees (and bloggers) to share some words about new American oak barrels. He just might know a thing or two about this subject since he moved on from The Bruery to work at Corsair Artisan Distillery. Enjoy the one and only Matt Strickland's bountiful knowledge of all things American oak!

If you think about it, wood is pretty miraculous stuff. Just take a moment to ponder all the wonderful things you can do with it. It provides shelter in the form of homes. It can be whittled into a snazzy phone case. If you have enough wood, it could be dug out into a canoe so that you can paddle downstream, get lost and therefore have to use your phone that is well protected by its wooden case. Hell, you could probably make trees from the stuff ... maybe I have that one backwards.

Rye Barrel Aged Bois -- Part 2 of 5 of Our Anniversary Beers

Rye has the sometimes unfortunate reputation of being a kind of whiskey equivalent of Old Spice or Stetson Cologne; something cheap and rough around the edges that is best left to your grandfather - but that comparison has some value: rye is an American classic and like the aforementioned colognes it's simultaneously comforting and difficult to ignore when you're experiencing it. -- Rory Snipes

As you have seen on our Bruery Facebook page and Tasting Room Facebook page, May is our anniversary month and we are celebrating turning five years old with tons of fun stuff. We've been selling one archived beer everyday, offering up specialty flights, putting some rare kegs on draft, getting some one-time-only deliveries out into the market, and if that wasn't enough, we're releasing five variations of our anniversary ale, Bois.

Our variations of Bois that are available only to our Reserve Society members include Bois aged in rye, brandy and new American oak barrels. A special Hoarders-only variation aged in French oak barrels will be released later this year. Last week we profiled the beauty of bourbon, since our nationally distributed edition of Bois is 100% bourbon barrel aged and out in the market now. This week, we're looking at bourbon's relative, RYE!

Bourbon Barrel Aged Bois -- Part 1 of 5 of Our Anniversary Beers

Five years ago, I couldn't have fathomed what The Bruery is today. We've reached this point due to a lot of hard work, allowing creativity to steer our direction, being constructively critical of ourselves, and taking on significant risks along the way. The next five years should be just as exciting. I'm so thankful for the wonderful people I get to work with who put their heart and soul into their work, and our customers who support our brewing habit! -- Patrick Rue

May is our anniversary month and we are excited to release Bois (pronounced "Bwah!"), our fifth anniversary ale this week! This beer is brewed in the English-style Old Ale tradition using our house Belgian yeast strain and then blended using the solera method, where a portion of each of our anniversary ales is saved in our barrels and blended in with the next year's production, providing more complexity and depth of character that comes with age.

In our fifth year, we've decided that using just one kind of barrel is not enough for this beer. Five separate small batches of Bois have been quietly resting in five different kinds of barrels: bourbon, rye, brandy, new American oak, and French oak.

So what kind of differences will you see between these batches? We're studying each type of spirit and barrel for the month of May to discuss just that. For week one, we're going to look a little closer at the beautiful world of bourbon.

Four Years... Goes By Quick!

I apologize to all of you in blogland.  First off, I apologize for not contributing to the blog.  I've avoided writing here for a very long time, and while I'd like to commit to more blog posts, I feel that doing so won't actually help in me posting more frequently.  Secondly, I apologize for not being more timely with this post!  I was supposed to write about our four years of being in business during our anniversary month, but with the ten anniversary events our 31 days of May archive promotion, new fermenters, Tasting Room and related construction, and all of the other changes going on at The Bruery, I couldn't find the time!

My life four years ago versus now is completely different.  On June 13th, 2008, Tyler was The Bruery's only employee.  The two of us did everything.  Brewing, bottling, labeling, cleaning, bookkeeping, sales, compliance, the list goes on.  Actually, we did have some great volunteers who helped bottle.  Some of their wives still haven't forgiven them for the 12+ hour days of bottling (and as a result, coming home smelling like a brewery).  One of the early volunteers, Ben Weiss, became a legitimate part time employee on June 23rd.  In all of 2008, we brewed the equivalent of what we now brew in less than a week.  While each task was fairly minimal given our size at the time, it was a ton of work because it was the first time I was doing any of these tasks, other than cleaning toilets!

We sold our beer in Southern California exclusively with about six accounts, and on June 9th, we sent our first shipment to Stone Brewing Co.  It consisted of 12 kegs of Black Orchard, 55 cases of Batch No. 1, 55 cases of Saison Rue, 55 cases of Orchard White, 12 kegs of Orchard White, 5 cases of glassware, and 18 tap handles (which we made ourselves).  

Pallets of Batch No. 1 - Levud's in the brewery.

This first order was the biggest order we'd ship to them until November of 2008.  I had no idea what to expect as far as sales volume in the first year, and I was very afraid about brewing too much and having a bunch of beer I couldn't sell.  Plus, I was running out of cash and literally couldn't afford to purchase kegs or more bottles until we sold what we already packaged.  It was part of the plan to put beer into bourbon and wine barrels to kick off our barrel aging program, and this made up a significant amount of production in the first year.  I believe we filled around 50 barrels between June and December of 2008.  We had four fermenters, and at this point we likely only had Trade Winds Tripel in the fermenter.  Three fermenters were empty, something today that would drive me nuts!  This batch of Trade Winds only used thai basil from my backyard.  This basil bush went from amazingly full with flowers and leaves to being a bundle of sticks after this first 30 BBL batch.  We bottled that batch on June 23rd, and weren't able to sell it until mid-August.  Nowadays we start selling Trade Winds in April.  When October came around and we started selling Autumn Maple, we still had quite a bit of Trade Winds in inventory that we had to sell by the case from the tasting room at a steep discount.  By the end of the year, my wife Rachel came on board to manage the books and Jonas came on board to help in the tasting room.  The first year for The Bruery was very difficult.  My Dad (my business partner and The Bruery president) and I met every few weeks, and I'd bring the current financial reports and we'd compare them to projections.  Those were disappointing times to say the least.  There is nothing worse than trying to raise more money than when you're in the process of losing it.  We lost a ton of cash, it was a lot of work, but somehow I have mostly fond moments of that time.  The beer must have kept me happy!

Comparing our first year to our fourth year is tough-- we might as well be talking about two different breweries.  We now have 45 employees, and will likely hit over 50 employees within the next few months.  We are distributed in 20 states (plus DC), a few countries, and we're able to sell everything we produce.  What a great situation to be in, right?!  On an ongoing basis, 40% of our production goes into oak barrels, where on average it will age for 14 months.  Our barrel aged beers include everything from rich stouts to sour ales and other experimentations.

The new Tasting Room in progress.

We are also building a new cellar with 130% more stainless fermentation capacity than we currently have, a new tasting room, a pilot brewhouse, more warehousing space, and a dedicated QC lab!  Thankfully, The Bruery isn't losing money anymore. However, we are spending everything we have to build this new part of our brewery, and invest in our barrel aged beers where we won't see a return for some time.  My tasks have gone from doing everything at the brewery to just doing what I want to work on, or at least that's the goal.  It's a spectacular thing, but to be honest, I'm still stressed!  It's just part of my personality that probably won't go away, no matter how good things are going.

I look forward to the next four years, and wonder how I'll perceive myself and The Bruery of 2012 in 2016.  Will I consider The Bruery of 2012 to be as small as I now consider The Bruery of 2008?  Or will I have overestimated our demand, and find myself selling cases in the tasting room at a steep discount?  I'm also curious where the craft brewing industry will be in 2016-- will we reach 10%+ marketshare, or will there be less breweries than today?  All I know is it'll be an interesting ride.

Thank you to all of our supporters, including our fans, loyal accounts, distributors, suppliers, writers, current and past employees, for making The Bruery's success possible!  This isn't just The Bruery's anniversary, it's all of our anniversary.  I look forward to the continued opportunity to celebrate life and great beer with you.

Cheers,

Patrick

The Bruery

Third Anniversary

Hard to believe that three years have gone by so quickly. Seems like only yesterday that we were brewing our first batch of beer or even sitting in an empty warehouse, imagining where the mash tun would be placed. We've had so much love and support from the craft beer community this past year and we're really excited for all the things yet to come.

For our party this year, we're stepping things up a notch and rather than the typical day where people come down to our facility and try a few of our beers, we'll be renting out a beer garden space at the nearby Phoenix Club and throwing our very own beer festival! We've invited a whole bunch of local breweries plus a few of those that we have collaborated with recently and we'll of course be pouring a ton of our own beers. We've also divided the party up into two sessions and each session has a special VIP area where some of our more rare beers will be poured. Music is going to be provided by Jack FM, food will be sold through The Phoenix Club and we'll also be serving complimentary cheeses and snacks from The Bruery Provisions.

Most importantly, all of the proceeds from the event will be benefitting a local medical clinic that helps the poorest of the poor in Orange County obtain all sorts of medical care. The clinic is called Lestonnac and we highly suggest you check them out.

Visit our website for some more info and to buy your tickets!

Thank You!

As many of you know, this past Saturday we held our First Anniversary Party at The Bruery.  Over seven hours, kegs were drained, BBQ consumed, and chocolate-covered bacon demolished; all in some really great company.  Throughout the course of the day, we had about 400 of our friends come and celebrate with us!  We had an amazing time, and we hope you did too.  

We want to thank all of you who were able to make it out and everyone who has supported us over the past year.  We're looking forward to our 2nd Anniversary!

Here are a few pictures of the event.  You can also check out some great pictures that our friend Paul has posted.

Getting the taps ready, circa 7 am.

Setting up the Sour Bar.

The beginnings of the line that morning.

Party-goers enjoying some delicious BBQ (Thanks Beachwood!!!!)

Some guests checking out the offerings at the Sour Bar.

Bird's eye view of the crowd in the Tasting Room.

Happy Birthday to Us!

That’s right, The Bruery is turning 1 year old!  So you know what that means; a celebration is in order.  On Saturday, May 16^th, we’d like to invite you to come help us commemorate our first year in the craft beer making business with - well beer of course!

In addition to our year-round offerings, we’ll be releasing Papier, our anniversary ale.  Papier is a Belgian-style Old Ale layered with complex flavors of dark fruit, vanilla, oak, and burnt sugar.  This robust ale weighs in at 14.5% ABV and we think it's the perfect beer to mark our first big milestone. 

We’ll also be pouring Levud’s, which was our very first batch, as well as Melange #1, Humulus Ambre, Cuvee Juene, White Zin, and yes, for all you Melange lovers, #3 will be making an appearance!  

Excited yet?

How about some barbeque to wash down your beer?  Beachwood BBQ will be on hand to satisfy any beer-fueled cravings for the smoky stuff.  And if you need a little something else in between brews, we’ll have some additional treats available for snacking (haven’t had the Bruery Belgian Waffles yet?  Here’s your chance!)

The party will run from 11 AM through 6 PM, and we’ll be accommodating 150 people at a time.  The ticket price is $25 and includes beer tasting tickets, food tickets, and your Bruery glassware.  We’ll also have some commemorative Papier t-shirts available! 

So come help us raise a toast to our first year, and have a great time doing it!  We look forward to seeing you there!