More Brewing/Kegged Pilot

I have spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks at Schooner Exact brewing, learning and drinking. Mostly just brewing, but with brewing comes drinking when the end of a long day is near. We brewed a triple batch of their IPA between Monday and Tuesday. They have a few 30 barrel fermenters and a 10 barrel brewing system. The two batches on Monday took forever, tons of little shit went wrong, people came in to visit and we started putting back some beers a little earlier than we probably should have. 13 hours later we had 20 barrels in the tank.

Tuesday in comparison was really chill, the single batch went smoothly then I tagged along on some deliveries. We stopped at a Georgetown Brewery and Two Beer Brewery on on way out, awesome places. Georgetown has been brewing on a 60 barrel system for a year now that is awesome. Amazing to see what can be done in only 7 years as a company, if I got to that point in 15 I would be stoked. Two Beers, who I wrote about a long time ago here, has a new location. It is a 7 barrel system with a cool tasting room. Like most places, it gives me ideas, but isn't quite what I am trying to do. It amazes me how cool the whole industry, most everyone is friends and help each other out if they can. Boise doesn't have the brewing culture that Seattle has, but who knows what can happen in the next few years. The rest of the deliveries were not the norm of a delivery afternoon as we chilled at some of the stops and had pizza and a pint, then some coffee, then another pint. If all delivery days were like that I would never have time to make beer, but it was a nice treat after cranking out 3 batches in a day and a half.

I was finally able to carbonate and keg the Pale Ale pilot batch that I made a while back, also meaning I drank some. First off, this is the farthest off target I have been when making a batch of beer, not in terms of taste, but gravity etc. I attribute this to not knowing the system when I designed the beer. The beer I thought would come in at around 5.5% clocked in at 6.8%, a bit boozy for a Pale. The beer has grown on me as I had some more last night, but it is not going to be an immediate PBC offering. It is very sweet, even though it fermented to a very low terminal gravity. Combine the sweetness with the pungent aroma of the Columbus hops and you have a beer that is interesting, but probably not one for the masses. Since I have a lot of this beer, I will get as many people as possible to try it and give me feedback. Getting someones real opinion is always tough because people usually try to be nice, but I want to know if people don't like it.

Took an IPA sample, it tasted alright and I like its potential once I get some dry-hops on their for a few days.

I am making another pilot batch tomorrow I think, I just need to sort out what I am going to make. Right now I am thinking about doing another Pale Ale iteration. More to come on that front.