Mountain Man and City Slicker

The word on the street is that Payette Brewing could have building permits early next week, could be rumors, could be fact, only time will tell.

In the mean time, I'm getting some good brewing in this week, today being my second double of the week.  On Tuesday I made the Amber, which is not included on the opening list, but could find it's way onto it.  Today I am brewing a batch of the Mountain Man and what I am dubbing, City Slicker.  The Mountain Man is my Barleywine that should clock in around 10%, not huge for a Barleywine, but plenty big enough.  The City Slicker is a new one for me.  It will be made from the second runnings of the Mountain Man mash, which is often called parti-gyle brewing.  The link explains it well, but basically efficiencies on a high gravity beer aren't that good, so there are a lot of residual sugars left in the mash, why not make a beer out of it?

Since the City Slicker is essentially a "free" beer to make because I already used the grains, why not have some fun with it.  True to the name, the beer is going to try to look the part, but in the end you find out it is way out of place.  My best description of the vision for this beer is a Double Mild IPA.  The beer is made from second runnings, which inherently means the beer is going to be low in alcohol, hence Mild.  The beer is also going to be overly hopped, hence Double IPA. Not the worst idea that I have come up with, but not a sure-fire hit either.

Pilsner

In hindsight, I probably should have brewed a pilsner in the spring so it would be ready now, but at least I'll have this for football season.  As I have mentioned before, it has always been my intention to make some lagers as I feel that they are very underrepresented styles in the craft beer industry.

Pilsner
Malts: Pilsner, Vienna
Hops: Saphir
ABV: 4.5%
IBU: 25

Short post today because I can't think of anything else to write...

Gotta Hop

TTB, Construction and More

What is new in the land of Payette Brewing Company...lots of stuff, mostly unexciting for you though.  I had my phone interview with the TTB earlier today, meaning I am one step closer to getting my federal license.  The way things are going, there is a distinct possibility that I will be the first brewery in history where it takes longer to get a building permit than the brewers notice.  Although I would like to, I can't totally blame the city for not having a building permit yet, I am sure that if I had certain pieces of information in my plan everything would be further in the process.  Yes, there were construction pictures in a previous post as I did get started on some things, but that is all on hold.  Why? Well that depends on who you talk to.  So here is what happened, the city found out that I started some construction without a permit and told me I had to stop or my fees would be doubled, hence work stopped.  Lesson #58, social media is not a good thing if you are doing something wrong, even if you don't know it is wrong.  That is the my bet on how the city found out I was demolishing stuff, but is no excuse.  Why did I start doing work without a permit you ask?  People with more experience in construction than me, told me that it was okay.  Which leads to lesson #59 of starting a business, listen to the people with actual authority not those who say they know what they are doing.  Maybe the advice I got is okay in some circumstances, but I will be dealing with the city for years to come and whether or not I like it, they have the power and I need to listen to them.

Most of my posts have been about pilot beers, which sucks for you because you read my vague information and don't get to try any.  There isn't much I can do about that right now unfortunately.  What I can tell you, I would say the recipes are 75% ready to go.  The Star Garnett is ready, as one would expect, it isn't perfect after one batch.  Two things I am working on for that are improving the hop profile and trying to figure out how to adapt some of the brewing techniques to a commercial scale.  Didn't help that I had a Hop in the Dark (best CDA on the market) right after trying mine.  While I am going to be double batching the beers I plan to release, it is also time to brew small batches of the Mountain Man, Jackalope and a Pilsner.

If you are wondering about lessons 1-57, you'll have to buy the book I'll never write to get those.

Gotta Hop

Outlaw

Outlaw IPA it is, names have been thrown around, but this is it.  The names of the initial beers are located in the right hand column of the blog.  I don't know that I will have all five available when I open, but those are the ones I will be making first.  The Ales of No Return listed below are the first four of the big beer/one-off series that I plan to release periodically.  More to come on the Ales of No Return in a future post.

The big change to this batch of the IPA compared to recent ones is water adjustments.  Now that I am in the brewery space and using the brewery water, I am starting to alter the water composition to match the ideal makeups for the different beer styles.  Beer styles like an IPA, where you want the bitterness of the beer to come through as a dominant characteristic, require a lot more additions to get an ideal water composition.  It has been a while since I have brewed with water adjustments, so I am looking forward to seeing how it comes out with the water here.

Outlaw IPA
Malts: American 2-Row, Crystal, Honey Malt, Munich
Hops: Centennial, Chinook, Columbus
IBU: 70
ABV: ~6.3%

Mutton Bustin'

About to finish up a rotation of the five beers I plan to have ready when the brewery opens.

Mutton Bustin' Brown
Style: American Brown Ale
Malt: American 2-Row, Brown, Chocolate, Crystal, Victory
Hops: Magnum, Amarillo
ABV: ~5.4%

It is a great feeling coming into the brewery to make beer and not do construction or fill out more forms for the city, that stuff is work, brewing is fun.  Slight name change to this, from Buster to Bustin.  With my mastery of the English language (or lack thereof) I figured someone who participated in Mutton Busting, would be a Mutton Buster.  I will say the research was inconclusive.  Nothing said I was wrong, but nothing said I was right either, so went with what I knew was correct.

Gotta Hop

Demolition and Starting Construction

My progress seems like a bunch of baby steps so far, but put enough of those together and you actually get pretty far.  This week I started doing some demolition work at the brewery and got a start on some of the build-out.  I am waiting for a few things before some of the bigger work, like cutting in a trench drain, will take place.  I feel bad because I haven't been putting up many pictures and I am yet to put up a video this year, so here is some stuff for the eyes:

Recent day of brewing, kegging and carbonating, otherwise know as controlled chaos

Framed up mill room, looks kind of small in the picture, but it is spacious

Took out a wall in the tasting room, opens it up a lot, even if it doesn't seem like it in the picture.  Now making me re-think some plans though.

Making a new opening for moving stuff between the bays since the opening to the left will be blocked, thats the mill room in the background

The guys next door brought over their forklift to help put in the header for the new opening

Enough working though, time to get back to brewing, Mutton Bustin' Brown tomorrow

Gotta Hop

About the Name

I get a lot of comments about the name of the brewery, Payette Brewing Company, some people love it, some hate it, some think the town, some the river.  I have a lot of thoughts about the name and I obviously like it because I chose it.  Like the town, county, river, mountain, lake, national forest, the brewery is named for Francois Payette, the fur trader that was stationed at Fort Boise and explored much of the Payette River basin. While the origin of the Payette name in Idaho comes from Francois, I didn't actually realize that until about a year ago, my inspiration for the name is the river and lake where I have had some of the best times of my life.  Part of the reason that I like the name is that it means different things to different people, but in the end, most people will relate it to some place in Idaho.  That is what I think is great about the name, it encompasses so much of the state.  So, whether you immediately think of the town, the river, the lake or the early pioneer when you hear "Payette," you're right.