Ithaca Beer Brewers Blog

Tomorrow night, Korova!

Friday, April 27th 6pm-??? We will be celebrating the release of IPAbbey on the Ithaca Commons with our friends at Korova. The bash at Pixel was a big success, and we’ve got more great prizes to give away tomorrow (yes, they include Tees, spiffy new cervoise glasses, trucker hats and actual bottles of this fabulous beer).

Come out and meet the crew! You’ll like us! I’m going to remember the camera this time… YOU may wind up here in the blogosphere!

Next time: what a bucket of espresso shots looks like.

Loyal Readers,

Here in Ithaca we are blessed with a bevy of great beer bars, and we are celebrating that fact along with the release of our new Excelsior! series beers by having several events at different locations in the coming weeks and months.

The first will be held this Saturday April 21st, at Pixel Lounge (www.pixelithaca.com) in collegetown from 7-9 PM. We will be unveiling White Gold on draft for the very first time! There will be door prizes and very reasonably priced pours of this premium, artisanal beer. Come and meet some of the great and proud people who work very hard to make Ithaca Beer the best it can be.

On Friday April 27th, IPAbbey will be poured for the very first time at Korova on the Commons from 6pm on.

Don’t miss either of these once-in-a-lifetime events, come out and show us how much you care about the local craft-beer scene. I promise that these beers are REALLY good.

See you there!

The Chief

When I left the brewery Friday we were all really excited about the long-awaited release of “White Gold” – the first in the Excelsior! series of beers from IBC. We set them up on one of the shelves alongside of the fancy glasses that we got for the lineup and started selling them right away. But something was bugging me all of the evening and into the next day ….

The bottles seemed lonely. We had just plain run out of time on Friday, and the IPAbbey would have to wait ’til next week. Or would it? With the help of some of our dedicated staff (thanks CJ and Scott) we were able to get 500 bottles of each ready to go by Sunday, and having them both on display together lends some continuity to the totally different look of these bottles.

So what the heck is an IPAbbey anyway? Well, I’ll quote myself here (from an earlier entry)- “…it’s our wink back at the European brewers who are nodding at us over here.” There have been a couple of quasi-similar beers released by well-known Belgian brewers in the last year, and ours is a twist on the idea that style guidelines are getting blurrier and less relevant all of the time. The only real thing that matters to me when I drink beer is whether or not it’s GOOD(more on this in the future). Basically, IPAbbey is one hoppy-ass beer fermented with a Trappist yeast rather than the more traditional American or English strains. Does it work? In a word, YES.

It’s about the color of a Dubbel-style beer with the heft of a Trippel, a gorgeous medium amber that gets most of it’s hue from Honey Malt. The bottle conditioning is revealed by a few clumps of yeast in the pour(don’t be afraid, B vitamins are good for you!). It’s evident with one sniff that this is easily the hoppiest beer we’ve ever brewed. That’s not to say the most bitter, but the hop oils are just bursting out of the liquid at every turn. It begins with a super fruity aroma that I can only really describe with the word “thick”. The clove-like spiciness of the yeast also makes an appearance in your nose. In the mouth, you can detect a vinuous viscosity (again, “thick”) that I’ve only ever been able to acheive by using whole cone dry hops- which this brew got plenty of (Amarillo and Simcoe). Anyway, the oiliness coats your mouth, and then the modest carbonation cuts through and sets off a riot of dried fruit(apples, craisins) and honey flavor in the finish. Relatively high (9%) alcohol content leaves a lingering warmth, and it’s reasonably bitter- but in a VERY clean way. Like with the WG, the carbonation is on the lowish side (something to be tweaked for next time) but I think that enhances drinkability. It will pair wonderfully well with earthy-spicy food like curry, BBQ or mole sauces.

-The Chief

next time(like in 5 minutes): RELEASE PARTIES!

Finally! I drove out to “wine country” to borrow some packaging equipment from our good friends at Bellwether Cidery (thanks, Bill) and we got 15 or so cases of WG labeled and the capsules shrunk onto the necks late this afternoon. They look great, and there are a very limited quantity (hopefully enough for the weekend) available in our retail store. The wait WAS well worth it, thank you all for your patience.

To get into the mood, we had a bit of a tasting(nice work if you can get it) and everybody seemed pretty thrilled about the product. Some of my perceptions…

Big citrus peel notes, a lot of lime (think gin and tonic)in the mouth and some banana peeks through in the aroma.

It’s BONE dry. Not in a harsh, astringent way- just very well-fermented out. Finish is clean and leaves you wanting more immediately.
Carbonation is lively, effervescent in the mouth. But I think it could use more, and the next batch will be more zingy for sure.

It’s really drinkable for an 8% ABV beer and it will make a great companion to all sorts of meals, especially rich chicken and seafood dishes. The dryness and sparkle will cut right through those thick textures and flavors and keep your palate sharp and clean.

Come and get it,

The Chief

On Monday: the same sort of a rundown for IPAbbey, and big release party NEWS!

Let me begin by saying that I sort of knew how difficult brewing with Malted Rye could be. I took every precaution I could think of, bought it pre-milled, used a lot of rice hulls to help the lauter, mixed it like crazy (not easy on our system)…..

It turned into a long day. Next time we will definitely do two separate mashes in order to fill the kettle. The runoff was painfully slow, at the end we were filling the grant (1/2 bbl) about every 5 minutes (normally it takes 2). Luckily, I had Mike helping to cut the mash bed up and monitor gravity at the very end and the yield turned out well. The wort and kettle foam were an absolutely gorgeous color, a deep russet mahogany magenta(trying to recall some other colors from the crayola big box) hue, and the large proportion of rye malts (4 different ones, nearly 40% of the grist) lend a wonderful nutty spiciness. I feel like this beer will be truly unique.

Fermentation jumped right off and I’m puttering around in the barn this weekend trying to create some “custom” fittings for our first ever implementation of oak barrels. We’ve acquired some “wet” Tenessee Rye Whiskey barrels, which I am going to use for secondary fermentation and, ultimately, aging of a portion of this beer. Get ready, because this one is going to be really special.

The facts:

36% domestic 2-row barley base malt

26.5% domestic Pale Ale Malt

20% British Rye Malt

10% British Crystal Rye Malt

5% domestic Rye Malt

2.5% German Chocolate Rye Malt

20 Plato, about 75 IBUs of Centennial, Crystal and Whole leaf Cascade.

A portion will be fermented out in rye whiskey barrels, and then blended back into the bottling tank where a large quantity of whole Cascade hop cones will be waiting.

Nothing really quite smells like oak wet with whiskey,

The Chief

next time: the previously promised tasting notes and long awaited labeling of WG and IPAbb!