Week in Review and Looking Ahead

Brewing has always been driven by the seasons, from beer styles to brewing schedules. With the Holidays having come and gone we're now coming into what most breweries consider to be a "slow" time. This is the time of year where long neglected cleaning and maintenance can no longer be put off, and space opens up in the brew schedule for new beers.

First up let me remind everyone that today marks the long awaited release of Sounder Slayer Lager at New Old Lompoc. We anticipate the Timbers Army to be in full force.

In my previous post I talked about our Imperial IPA test batches; Hop Secret Imperial IPA #1 is on tap now at New Old and Sidebar, while I brewed Hop Secret #2 last week using Meridian hops, a variety I've never used before. Initial impressions seem to suggest that the Meridians are much milder than the Chinook/CTZ/Cascade combo used in #1 and Hop Secret #3, which I'll be brewing in the next few weeks, will fall somewhere in between #1 and #2.

I also recently talked about Black Dawn III Coffee Stout, the latest incarnation of our annual release. Yesterday Dave and I added the cold pressed coffee to the finished stout. Ristretto Roasters cold pressed a total of 20 lbs of coffee for us, 10 lbs of their Beaumont Blend, 5 lbs of Peruvian, and 5 lbs of El Salvadoran. We added a gallon of cold press single origin coffee to each keg and pumped the rest into the brite tank with the remaining stout. As a result we'll have 3 different variations of Black Dawn III at the release party Friday January 13th along with Black Dawn II, which featured solely Beaumont Blend, and the base beer for the original Black Dawn, 2009 Pre-Dawn Imperial Stout. I've also enlisted my dad to make a poster for the release party, which in his typical style is pretty over the top (you can see the image on our Facebook page, I can't get blogger to load it).

In addition to the Hop Secret and Black Dawn projects I've also been forging ahead with the cask conditioning program. This Friday I'll tap Hop Secret #1 dry hopped with Simcoe in the keg. I'll tap cask conditioned Arctic Blast next week at the Black Dawn III release.

Tomorrow I'll be transferring Illegally Blonde to a brite tank where it will sit on vanilla beans for the next week.

Well that should do it for now, the batch of Centennial IPA I'm brewing just came to a boil. Until next time, Cheers!

-Zach