Blog Archives:
5th Annual Burlywine Day!
Monday, November 29, 2010
For those of you in the dark about our Annual Open House, I'll give you a bit of a run-down as to why you might actually want to brave the snow and cold on December 4th, 2010 to join us for some or more of your day:Since the first year (pictured here on the left), we've brewed one of our most recognized beers for release on the first Saturday in December. Our fans have treated this day as a bit of a reward for their fiercely loyal stance, where they get to come and sample some brews, munch on some food pairings and generally talk beer with the staff and other like minded beer lovers.
Part of our mission as brewers since day one has been to introduce Winnipeg's beer lovers to a higher consciousness regarding their favourite tipple. It's our opinion that an educated beer drinker is dangerous to the large multi-national swill factories that now produce the bulk of our nation's beer. It's not like there's a conspiracy theory involved, it's just plainly obvious what good beer tastes like and we think that if you're reading this (even if you've never tried our beer) you probably already agree.
This being our 5th year, we've gotten a little misty eyed remembering how hard it was to start up where others had failed. There have definitely been times when we thought a 5th Burlywine Day would never come, then suddenly, like a startled waking from a dream, it was upon us once again. We've come a long way since the days when Nicole could deliver beer in her old mini van.
The dream was and always has been to produce great beer right here in Winnipeg, knowing full well that it would catch on, and with the help of our customers we could educate even more people as to what goes into making that happen. I think we've achieved even more tha
n we could've dreamed and it's time for the next step.
n we could've dreamed and it's time for the next step. When we first started selling beer, Nicole and her brother had designed the original labels and boxes for the brewery in our basement at home. While they worked great for our formative years, as some of you well know, we've recently refreshed the look of our beer with help from the good folks at Guppy Graphic Design here in Winnipeg.
They look sharp, and while we go through the last of the old labels and boxes, there will be a bit of an odd switchover cause hey(!) we're from Winnipeg where waste not, want not is more than just lip service.
We'd really love to have you join us for this 5th Annual Burlywine Day. We've brewed up a special limited release of our Bourbon Burlywine using oak spirals soaked in bourbon that were added to our 2009 vintage of the Burlywine and aged for a year in our coldroom.
In the past we've raffled off leg lamps a-la "A Christmas Story". This year Nicole has ordered a Festivus Pole to raffle off in support of Winnipeg Harvest. Bring a tin for the bin and we'll give you an entry for free! Who ever wins must accept the responsibility that comes with the pole, such as the "airing of grievances" and the "feats of strength".
All this longwindedness comes down to this:
Nicole and I have decided that next year, we'll have our open house again, but it will be much longer until we brew the Burlywine again. When, we cannot say but for us, it's time we moved on and pushed some new boundaries with next year's beer. There's just so much that we haven't done and this way, we can make room for something new.
So grab your long undies, minus 40 rated boots and toques, and join us for an honest to goodness Burlywine Day one more time. We'd love to see you there so we can say thanks in person for being the wicked fans that you all are.
Cheers!
Brewmaster David Rudge
New Labeler For Movember
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Movember is here and while the staff are rocking their cheezey stache's, Kevin has the new labelling machine up and running. Over the next few weeks as we weed out the supply of the "vintage" labels, we'll be switching each beer over to the new designs.
Our fans have probably already noticed the new designs in at the Liquor Marts and here at the brewery. In the words of Trevor Wideman they're "fucking gorgeous" - his words, not mine, though I can't disagree with the choice thereof - especially since my wife's face in on the front of the first set to go out.
So here's the part where we ask for donations towards the cause. Click Here to make a donation to the Half Pints Movember Team and help save someone's ass, literally.
On November 27th, 2010 we'll be having a Movember Cask Night at The Lo Pub to help raise some more cash for the cause. Drink beer, save the world. Could it really get any easier?
The British Are Coming!!!!
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
We wanted to give you some info about the upcoming British Bulldog Amber Ale so that you had all the know-how and why we gave it a shot so here goes.
We wanted to brew a 100% British ingredients version of our Bulldog. To do this we needed to get out mitts on a few different things than the tasty original brew.
We special ordered some floor malted Marris Otter 2 Row to build the base malt flavour. Why is that so special you ask? Well, malting can be a very un-romantic, heavily industrialized process. Especially when your talking large scale like our usual maltster from right here in Winnipeg does. The malt needs to be consistent so it can be relied upon to perform a certain way in the brew house. BUT, floor malting is about little inconsistencies that make for huge flavour impacts in the final brew.
Normally malt is grown in a large box of sorts and turned with giant screws, to keep it from growing together into a tightly woven mat. In floor malting, the grain is spread out on a huge floor and turned with rakes by hand. Some maltsters have automated this process slightly by introducing motorized rakes pulled along on a clothesline type device, but the principle is the same. The grain grows in a shallow heap on a floor, and needs to be turned to oxygenate it and keep it from matting.
Obviously, the process is quite expensive to do, given the space, and the manpower needed to pull off the job. However, the resulting malt is usually toasted a little deeper and the Marris Otter variety already has quite a bit of flavour given that it's generally reserved for fuller flavoured British Ales.
So we replaced the normal pale malt we use with this floor malted grain and then mashed our Bulldog as per normal.
When it came time to add the hops in, we went with 100% East Kent Goldings hops at 25% more than we usually use during the boil. We also added a larger addition of aroma hops to give the beer more punch in the glass.
The real kicker came with our yeast choice.
We chose to use a particularly finicky British Ale yeast strain that is well known to produce heavy malty flavours in beers, but also very well known for dropping out of the beer before it's finished completely fermenting. So essentially, it's like babysitting your fermenting vessel for 2 weeks, opening it up, rousing the yeast back into suspension (usually a strict no-no) just to get it to finish the job. The brewery that this yeast originally comes from has developed an elaborate system for rousing the yeast and pumping it to spray the yeast back on top of the brew for the whole day.
Finally, we chose to carbonate this beer naturally in the bottle, thereby lending a softer carbonation, but leaving a heavier skiff of yeast than normal across the bottom of the bottle. Due to the yeast's nature, it forms a thick, sticky sediment on the bottom of the bottle, that should stay put while you're decanting it into a glass.
The bottle conditioning process can be a little tricky in a large scale brewery environment. Homebrewers do it all the time, and it's relatively easy to stir some sugar into a 23 liter batch and bottle it up, but when your talking about 1000 liters of beer, it can be a nightmare to get every bottle to carbonate evenly.
This beer is REAL ALE in it's truest sense of the term, and something that enthusiasts seek out regularly because the flavours really are quite different than your average everyday beer. Hopefully you get a chance to come here on November 6th, 2010 to pick up a case of the beer for yourself.
We'll release the beer at 9am that day, and we're not limiting how much people pick up for themselves.
In Other News:
There's still lots of Punk N' Fest beer in case you missed out. Thanks to all who came out and enjoyed the bands!
The Sweet Nikki Brown will be ready to go this weekend, check out our snazzy new boxes that it'll be packaged in. We've labeled the new run with some older labels simply to help use up the stock. The new labels will be in and on the beer shortly.
Burlywine Day is coming December 4th.
We wanted to brew a 100% British ingredients version of our Bulldog. To do this we needed to get out mitts on a few different things than the tasty original brew.
We special ordered some floor malted Marris Otter 2 Row to build the base malt flavour. Why is that so special you ask? Well, malting can be a very un-romantic, heavily industrialized process. Especially when your talking large scale like our usual maltster from right here in Winnipeg does. The malt needs to be consistent so it can be relied upon to perform a certain way in the brew house. BUT, floor malting is about little inconsistencies that make for huge flavour impacts in the final brew.
Normally malt is grown in a large box of sorts and turned with giant screws, to keep it from growing together into a tightly woven mat. In floor malting, the grain is spread out on a huge floor and turned with rakes by hand. Some maltsters have automated this process slightly by introducing motorized rakes pulled along on a clothesline type device, but the principle is the same. The grain grows in a shallow heap on a floor, and needs to be turned to oxygenate it and keep it from matting.
Obviously, the process is quite expensive to do, given the space, and the manpower needed to pull off the job. However, the resulting malt is usually toasted a little deeper and the Marris Otter variety already has quite a bit of flavour given that it's generally reserved for fuller flavoured British Ales.
So we replaced the normal pale malt we use with this floor malted grain and then mashed our Bulldog as per normal.
When it came time to add the hops in, we went with 100% East Kent Goldings hops at 25% more than we usually use during the boil. We also added a larger addition of aroma hops to give the beer more punch in the glass.
The real kicker came with our yeast choice.
We chose to use a particularly finicky British Ale yeast strain that is well known to produce heavy malty flavours in beers, but also very well known for dropping out of the beer before it's finished completely fermenting. So essentially, it's like babysitting your fermenting vessel for 2 weeks, opening it up, rousing the yeast back into suspension (usually a strict no-no) just to get it to finish the job. The brewery that this yeast originally comes from has developed an elaborate system for rousing the yeast and pumping it to spray the yeast back on top of the brew for the whole day.
Finally, we chose to carbonate this beer naturally in the bottle, thereby lending a softer carbonation, but leaving a heavier skiff of yeast than normal across the bottom of the bottle. Due to the yeast's nature, it forms a thick, sticky sediment on the bottom of the bottle, that should stay put while you're decanting it into a glass.
The bottle conditioning process can be a little tricky in a large scale brewery environment. Homebrewers do it all the time, and it's relatively easy to stir some sugar into a 23 liter batch and bottle it up, but when your talking about 1000 liters of beer, it can be a nightmare to get every bottle to carbonate evenly.
This beer is REAL ALE in it's truest sense of the term, and something that enthusiasts seek out regularly because the flavours really are quite different than your average everyday beer. Hopefully you get a chance to come here on November 6th, 2010 to pick up a case of the beer for yourself.
We'll release the beer at 9am that day, and we're not limiting how much people pick up for themselves.
In Other News:
There's still lots of Punk N' Fest beer in case you missed out. Thanks to all who came out and enjoyed the bands!
The Sweet Nikki Brown will be ready to go this weekend, check out our snazzy new boxes that it'll be packaged in. We've labeled the new run with some older labels simply to help use up the stock. The new labels will be in and on the beer shortly.
Burlywine Day is coming December 4th.
Labels: bottle conditioned, British Bulldog, Burly Wine, Punk N' Fest, Ramblings, real ale, Sweet Nikki Brown