HomebRued from Batch 1 to 1000, and Beyond!

For milestone batches like our first, 50th, 300th, and now our 1000TH BREW!!!, we've asked you guys to enter beers in our homebrew competitions. After the best recipe was selected, we brewed a limited quantity at our place with the winning homebrewers.

We're pretty excited about brewing our 1000th batch of beer this year. The recipe for our upcoming Batch 1000 comes from Brian Pramov & Bryan Keas of Denver, CO. Their hoppy dark rye, Night Ryder, won this round's competition beating out 199 other entries. In the spirit of Batch 1000, we'll be profiling some of our very own hombrewers homebruers on our staff in the coming weeks here on our Bruery Blog.

Blank & Branded Growlers at The Bruery Tasting Room

There has been a lot of discussion (and certainly a good amount of confusion) about CA growler laws lately. Though the law has not actually changed recently, there has been much more attention on it. You can read the whollllllle PDF about enforcing these rules & regulations here, but we've been through the research and come up with a solution that we think is a MUCH more interesting read. We're ready to change our growler policy, and this blogpost explains how we will be doing that, based on frequently asked questions we've received so far.



We will fill 2-liter blank, Palla-style swing top growlers (the same style as the ones we currently fill), but that have no markings that can be associated with any other brewery. We’ll sell empty, blank growlers for $10, the same price as our own The Bruery™ branded growlers.

Mash, Grind, Blend, Taste, Repeat

We've made a coffee beer with Portola Coffee Lab before. Those of you in our Hoarders Society may recall our most recent beer using Porotla's beans: Mélange 8 is our blend of our bourbon barrel aged wheatwine (White Oak Sap), our bourbon barrel aged anniversary ale and Don Pachi Estate Geisha coffee beans, literally the most expensive beans in the world. This time, Jeff and Patrick came together to try some blends using a couple different kinds of roasts that don't have a $111 per pound price tag but we still think are downright delicious.



Finding the right level of coffee to blend with our beer pretty much replicated the process of making a cup or coffee or tea, except there was a 12.5% beverage involved.

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.

Brandy Barrel Aged Bois -- Part 3 of 5 of Our Anniversary Beers

By now you may have read about (and tasted?) our 2013 anniversary beer, Bois (pronounced "bwah"). This ale was brewed in the English-style Old Ale tradition using our house Belgian yeast strain and to celebrate our fifth year of creating exciting craft beers, we're aging Bois in five different kinds of barrels: bourbon, rye, brandy, new American oak, and French oak barrels. 100% bourbon barrel aged Bois is available nationwide, while rye, brandy, and new American oak are for Reserve Society members only. French oak barrel aged Bois is a Hoarders Society exclusive only which will be available later in the year.

Last week we discussed rye barrels, and before that, bourbon barrels. Today we look into the world of brandy and brandy barrels. And no, not that kind.

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!

Six Questions on Becoming a Certified Cicerone

The word Cicerone (pronounced sis-uh-rohn) has been chosen to designate those with proven expertise in selecting, acquiring and serving today’s wide range of beers ... Only those who have passed the requisite test of knowledge and tasting skill can call themselves a Cicerone. -- Cicerone.org

Tomorrow is another round of the Certified Cicerone® exam in Southern California and we look forward to supporting this organization by offering up our conference room to host the testing. Our very own Patrick Rue and Director of Marketing Benjamin Weiss are both Certified Cicerones® so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to ask Ben a couple questions about becoming a Cicy!

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.

Provisions is Closing - A Letter from Patrick

Dear Bruery Supporters,

I regret to inform you that the decision has been made to close The Bruery Provisions in Old Towne Orange, CA.  This decision comes with a great deal of heartache.  Provisions has become an important part of the Orange County craft beer scene.  Family, friends, co-workers and I have enjoyed many pints and cheese plates, and I’ve have had the distinct pleasure to work with a number of passionate and talented people at Provisions.  As fantastic as Provisions is, it has taken a disproportionate amount of The Bruery’s resources to operate and I decided it would be best for the long term success of the company to focus on making beer rather than operating a bottle shop and beer bar.

Opening Provisions was the realization of a dream for me.  After travelling to many wonderful beer establishments around the country, the places I’ve enjoyed the most are a unique combination of a beer bar and a bottle shop.  Other than being a one-stop shop for all beer needs, I noticed a common trait in that they have a great sense of community.  This format is a great opportunity to educate about the diversity of beer, and a place to express a common interest in craft beer.  When the opportunity arose to open such a concept in Old Towne Orange, steps away from my alma mater, Chapman Law School, I had to do it.

Having Provisions as part of our efforts over the last three years has been a great education for many of us within The Bruery on the retail side of the beer business.  The Provisions Team has done a superb job in operating a first class operation, and their commitment to Provisions has made this decision all the more difficult.  However, after examining Provisions within the context of what The Bruery should be, I realized it has taken a significant amount of our efforts away from our core purpose.  To put it simply, we are a small company, we can’t do everything.

Our core purpose is to make beer, really fantastic beer, and to continually improve the quality of our beer.  We’ve made some huge commitments to this core purpose by investing in fermentation capacity, which has increased our production capacity by 130% in the last few months.  About 40% of our beer is aged in barrels for a year or longer, and we’ve amassed a collection of over 3,000 barrels to achieve this.  In evaluating how The Bruery should operate in order to achieve its goals, it became apparent Provisions is not the best use of our limited resources.  At this point, the best use of our efforts is focusing on innovation and quality in brewing, working with our many distributors and the thousands of establishments that carry our beer, and serving our customers directly through our Tasting Room, our website and our Society membership bases.

If Provisions was a tool to educate people about craft beer and help move the industry and culture forward, then it was a rousing success.  Since its inception, we’ve introduced thousands of people to our passion for craft beer.  We leave the customers of Provisions in good hands with numerous other locations that have been established within Old Towne Orange, and beyond, that serve and specialize in craft beer.

We will continue to serve Orange County’s craft beer needs through our Tasting Room, adjacent to our production facility in Placentia, which has recently undergone renovations as well.  It now comfortably seats nearly 100 people and offers up to 40 different beers on draft at any given time along with our full selection of bottled beer available to-go, all hand crafted by The Bruery.  We’ve also completed our 3 BBL (93 gallon) pilot system that will allow us to hone our recipes and offer unique, experimental batches on draft.  All of us at The Bruery hope to see many of you picking up where you left off - with a flight of beer at our Tasting Room, watching us brew.

As Winston Churchill once said, "This is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. It is, instead, the end of the beginning.”  And so it is for The Bruery.  Our first 5 years are coming to a close and we are now putting ourselves on track for the next 5 years of craft beer and beyond.  We are thankful to our customers and employees who have joined us on this journey.

Sincerely,
Patrick Rue
The Bruery