Imperial Eclipse Stout.............

OK, I've got to brag a little bit...right? This weekend Imperial Eclipse Stout pours in Boulder, CO at the Boulder Strong Ale Festival and in Boston, MA at the Extreme Beer Festival's Night of the Barrels. Pretty cool stuff for a tiny little brewery in Truckee wouldn't you say? I'm sure we'll 'hold our own' against much bigger names in the business.

The bottles are back... Kyle and I are bottling again...by hand. Our bottler has proven to be a formidable foe and for now it has won.... We'll get after it again once we've whittled down the current work load... We've got about 20 cases of Eclipse to go for this round. Of course the warm aged stuff is a whole other animal...

The bottle numbering fairy needs to drop by the brewhouse and then the bottles can go on sale.

Cheers!

Todd

100 batches of beer, 100 batches of beer...

Sometime in April 2007 the first batch of beer brewed at FiftyFifty made it's way through the 10HL(8.5bbl) brewhouse and now is nothing more than a faint memory. Tomorrow, the 12th of February 2009 Kyle and I will brew the 100th batch of beer. That accounts for roughly 850 beer barrels which are 31 gallons each. I won't go into the math but it's a lot of beer over our bar at the brewpub. Sure some goes out to parties and events but most of it is sold at the pub. It's a pretty neat milestone for me as a brewer as I've only hit this mark at one other brewery.

Which beer you ask? It's Manifesto Pale Ale our 'pride and joy' and it's one of the most popular beers at the brewery.

We'll probably have a small celebration amongst the brewing staff and toast our efforts so far.
Of course we'll be toasting to the next hundred brews and beyond as well...

Cheers!

Brewmaster Todd

SF Beer Week and other stuff

Today well actually yesterday kicked off SF Beer Week. There's lot's of info to be gleaned from www.sfbeerweek.org Lot's of small events and a few big ones. FiftyFifty is participating today in the Bistro's Double IPA festival. The Bistro is a humble beer bar in Hayward, they've been carving a niche for themselves for a while and have a good following. This event sort of kicks off SF Beer Week so they've expecting about 500 people today.

Why SF Beer Week? I want to chime in on this just to serve up my perspective. Though the craft beer Renaissance started in the SF Bay Area and is known for such, there are people 'out there' that believe places such as Portland, OR, Seattle, WA or San Diego, CA deserve the title of might deserve the 'beer mecca' title. I'm not going to argue this point as there isn't much of one in my opinion. All these places have their merits but San Francisco and the adjoining Bay Area just have too much to offer to compare anywhere else...

Brewery Updates!!!

The bottler is challenging us a bit but should be in a more cooperative mood soon. Kyle, Andy and to a lesser extent myself have all given it a go. We're getting there but someone needs to bring us the magic wand and make it better/work... We'll be packaging soon so continue to watch this space.

Beer wise...

Landslide Double IPA has proved to be a hit. The return of Abbey Dubbel is almost here, as well as Rockslide, a new batch of Porter and more.

New Seasonal.. About this time last year or so we released 'Honey Rye' this year we wanted to take this beer in a slightly different direction. We are looking at substituting the Honey with Agave Nectar. The yet to be named beer should be refreshing, easy drinking and a great way to welcome spring!

All for now!

Todd