What 2009 has in store for us...

First of all Happy New Year... Yes, we've been busy, distracted, and just all around getting things in order for what's looking like a great year for the brewery. Where to start... The owners at FiftyFifty have enlisted a renowned Sushi Chef and have started the soon to open 'Drunken Monkey' Sushi, tapas and sake. I've seen the menu and it looks great, and the space is looking really good too. We'll be serving some FiftyFifty brews there as well as Japanese beers and course several sakes. The Drunken Monkey is located in the Rock just a few steps from the brewery.

Brewery wise there are many things in the works. The 2008 Imperial Eclispe Stout has already sold out of it's first bottling. There's more of course and we will be announcing the release date of the remainder of the bottles soon. We'll have the 2007 and 2008 version on tap as well...keep an eye on this space.

So far this year we've brewed a new Abbey Dubbel which promises to be a welcome return to the tap line up. The Abbey should be on tap by the end of January. We also made our first foray into brewing 'Double' IPA. We've been kicking around names for this beer and nothing is set yet but it will be 'uber' hoppy. Kyle and I had a heck of a time brewing this one as the amount of hop material in the kettle was making for some anxious moments when we were transferring from kettle to fermenter. Long story short the beer is happily fermenting and we're looking for this to be ready in the first week of February. Our new beer storage cooler is here and that means we're getting closer to distributing. Our draft Manifesto Pale Ale will soon be in select better beer locations. I'll be sure to keep that information updated here. Lastly, our 'bottling machine' is in transit and that means before long we'll have a few of our brands available in 22oz bottles. They will be for sale at the brewery and in the future at select retail outlets.

To close I just wanted to thank all of our friends and guests of the brewery. 2008 was a great year for the brewery and we couldn't do it without you guys! Our beer outlook is good for 2009 and I have a feeling the Imperial Eclipse Stout is going to bring us a lot of attention as the 2008 vintage is stellar and we are getting asked for it from folks across the country. Pretty amazing stuff!

Cheers!

Todd Ashman

Those new tanks....

Here are the promised fermenter installation pictures....





New tanks installed...



Trying to get another big tank into the brewery...



The 20bbl fermenter is finally home...




It's a group effort...




PUSH!!!

Collaborative Evil in the Press

http://chicagoist.com/2008/12/17/chicagoists_beer_of_the_week_collab.php

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Yes, it's snowing here in Truckee. The skiiers will be here soon.

Monday 12/15/2008. If Kyle and I can get out of the driveway today we plan on bottling up some of the Imperial Eclipse Stout. How nice would it be to have a bottle under the Christmas tree? Enjoying in front of a warm fire, watching it snow?

Keep an eye out at the brewery they'll be there soon...

Todd

The busy season nears...and other stuff

I'm back from Germany. It was a great trip and yes I'll probably go back but most likely in the summer when the days are longer and drinking is done outside versus inside. Probably most significant is beer is still very reasonable in the Bamberg vicinity. Around $2.25 a half liter for world class beer... Thanks for the well wishes and "I missed you's". Nice to get those for sure...

All of the fermenters have been filled, Imperial Eclipse Stout is getting closer to a tap and a quick glance at a calendar all lead up to the fact we're getting close to Christmas and New Years.

Our first double batch of Manifesto will be appearing soon. It will be the same Manifesto you've always known but we're making about 600 gallons at a time now. Gotta keep up with the demand... Yes, Eclipse is on the move. Kyle and I transferred about 50 gallons from one of the barrels. First taste was pretty darn yummy too. We're carbonating the beer slowly and plan on bottling up about 10-12 cases for Christmas week. There is a lot more to be bottled but we're waiting for our bottling machine to do the lions share. These first cases will be done one at a time by hand.

We have Foggy Goggle and Trifecta Tripel waiting for tap lines so we haven't forgotten you Belgian fans. These beers will be up soon. Once we start seeing the Christmas time visitors I feel these beers will be up soon.

Kyle and Alicia did some brewing while I was enjoying Germany. A batch of Rockslide and Base Camp. Thanks guys!

We had some Concentrated Evil and BART down in San Diego for the Pizza Port- Carlsbad Strong Ale Festival. Heard kind words about our beers down there so maybe SD isn't such a bad place after all... All kidding aside it's nice to have our beer down there for events like that.

Cheers!

Todd

Germany, a beer tourists dreamland

I had to think quite a bit about the title, but one thing is certain if you are trying to save money things are cheap here. Well, except for gasoline life is reasonably cheap here. Maybe it is this small part of Germany(Oberfranken) but hotels, food, and beer are all inexpensive.

I'm having a good time though the days are very short and I'm usually calling it early than to brave the very narrow roads at night. My GPS took me on some one car width roads yesterday while it was snowing heavily. Talk about not knowing where to go! Everything is flat and white...not something you want to do after a few beers!

For your enjoyment a few pixs so far...

What's been happening here??

Well, we've been pretty busy here at the brewery as of late. We had a fair amount of down time and that was because we had the new tanks installed. I'll post some pictures of that here so you can see what we had to do to get that taken care of. In a few words though it meant removing four of our five fermenters. We shoe horned in the two new tanks and brought back three of existing tanks. One was sold to English Ales in Marina, CA and I hope that fermenter serves it's new owners as well as it did us. I'd like to give a shoutout to the guys at Silver State Stainless who did a great job on the tanks and helping us get everything in order...

The glycol cooling is getting hooked back up to the tanks and we have been brewing to get everything full and ready for the skiing season. We've got Foggy Goggle, Donner Party Porter, Trifecta Tripel and a double batch of Manifesto all in the tanks. With Base Camp and Rockslide on deck. Our barrel aged Imperial Stout also known as Imperial Eclipse Stout will be moved into kegs and our new Bright tank soon. Each barrel has to be tasted to determine if it's kegged or sent to the bright tank for bottling. The process should take a few days as this liquid gold needs to be handled gently. Bottles should be available around Christmas but watch this space as that date is still a moving target.

When we brewed Trifecta Tripel we had a guest brewer, Brandon Wright from Silver Peak Brewing in Reno came by to witness the magic Kyle and I perform. I'm not really sure Brandon got the full effect but as brewers we all do things differently basically as we all learned a certain way to do things... Brandon helped out quite a bit and he also took lot's of notes so I imagine he's either telling lot's of FiftyFifty jokes now or he learned a few new tricks...maybe both!!

On November 20th we acquired 40 kegs to help us further our expansion plans. These are 50 liter kegs and they are in good shape. We've got to clean them up and mark them as ours with our neon orange keg tape. The 20th was also Kyle's 40 something birthday...apparently he's not saying exactly so you may have to pry it out of him...

To close this posting I just wanted to say "did you know I was going to Germany?"...more of a bad running joke than anything. I head out for my annual trip to Bavaria. I go for the Christmas markets, beer research and r&r. I'll try to post from afar and let you all know how tough life is from over there.

Cheers!

Todd Ashman
Brewmaster