at   

Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo, while attending a Slow Food event in Torino in late 2006, befriended Agostino Arioli, who opened one of Italy’s earliest craft breweries. His brewery, Birrificio Italiano, makes a unique beer, La Fleurette, whose varied ingredients include flowers, black pepper and orange blossom honey. Agostino is in California this week for the world Beer Cup and the Craft Brewers Conference which begins next week in San Diego. But yesterday, he was in Santa Rosa visiting his friends at their brewery, Russian River Brewing. The plan was to brew his La Fleurette beer at Russian River, trying to approximate it as best they could using a different brew system. I spent the day documenting the brewing process. There are three galleries and approximately 54 photos of brewing the La Fleurette and the story of the beer, too. Start with gallery one and follow along as I present Brewing La Fleurette at Russian River. At the end of each gallery, there’s a link to the next part of the story, through three separate pages. Enjoy.

Agostino Arioli, from Birrificio Italiano in northern Italy, with Vinnie Cilurzo and Travis Smith, at Russian River Brewing.

The beer included two kinds of dried flowers, violets and roses (shown here).

At the point during the boil where dry-hopping normally occurs, the flowers are added along with orange blossom honey and black pepper.

For many more photos of the La Fleurette brew day at Russian River, start with Part 1.
 

On Tuesday, my friend Pete Slosberg and I headed up to Russian River Brewing to take a look at how the construction of the new brewery was coming. He had just returned from four months living in Buenos Aries, Argentina, but now that he was back he wanted to enjoy some good beer. So he picked me up and we drove to Santa Rosa to visit Vinnie and Natalie Cilurzo.

Natalie took us over to the new facility, which is about three weeks away from completion. I took a bunch of photos at the construction site, as I’ve done in a few other breweries lately. I thought it was just me who likes to see pictures of brewing equipment, but based on the comments and links I’ve gotten whenever I post brewery photos I think I’m not the only one after all. I’m starting to think it’s a perverse kind of brewery porn that we ooh and ahh over brewing equipment in all it’s magnificent glory. I’m just glad to know I’m not the only deviant.

Pete Slosberg and Vinnie Cilurzo in the old brewery.

At the new brewery, used wine casks stacked in the barrel room.
 

For more photos from our visit to the new Russian River Brewery still under construction, visit the photo gallery.
 

A little over a month ago, I stopped by Lagunitas Brewing in Petaluma, California to see how the installation of the new brewhouse was going and took some photographs of the new equipment. I had an opportunity earlier today to stop by again on my way back from an impromptu trip to Russian River Brewing with my good friend Pete Slosberg (but more on that tomorrow). Pete had never been to Lagunitas, whereas I have been there many, many times, so I figured a quick detour to see the brewery was in order. They’re about a week away from the first water test and it looks far closer to completion than my last visit.

The new kettle door adorned with an etching of one of the brewery logos.

All of the pipes are now attached, which includes seven miles of wiring.

Owner Tony Magee shows off the new hop dosers to Pete.

According to Vermont local television station WCAX Channel 3, Magic Hat Brewing will be installing both a new bottling line and brewhouse, effectively doubling their size. The project should be finished by autumn, and will allow Magic Hat to expand their distribution farther into the south and midwest.

Boscos, the small brewpub chain with locations in Tennessee and Arkansas, has completed work on their new production brewery in Memphis. The first batch of beer was brewed December 31 of last year by my friend Chuck Skypeck, who also sent along a few photos of the new facility. If you’re like me, you can’t get enough pictures of brewing equipment.

The outside of Boscos new production brewery, where the headquarters were moved about a year ago. The building itself is curved to follow the distinctive path of the road in a part of Memphis south of downtown currently going through a resurgence. It used to be a meat packaging plant with some elements they needed already in place and the rest they remodeled, keeping a number of the retro industrial architectural elements intact, like green tiled walls and chrome swinging doors.

Head brewer Mike Campbell, formerly with Tractor Brewing in Albuquerque, New Mexico, who’s been on hand to help build the brewery since the beginning.

The production brewery will be used primarily for off-premise sales of growlers and kegs, which is not permitted from their brewpubs under Tennessee law, and also to provide beer for additional Boscos that will not have their own breweries. The first of these, in Cool Springs, Tennessee (south of Nashville), is slated to open this spring. They’ll also begin distributing their beer to a select number of area restaurants.

I stopped by Lagunitas Brewing Friday afternoon to see the new brewhouse that I’d heard they’re in the process of installing. They’re in week three of a nine-week installation of a new 80-barrel system from a German company, ROLEC Prozess-und Brautechnik GmbH, along with many new pieces of equipment. Peter Moroskow and his team, who also recently installed new breweries at both Stone Brewing and Victory Brewing, had taken over the place and there were miles of pipes and other equipment everywhere, with blueprints dotting the walls and a Bavarian flag hanging overhead.

The Bavarian flag hanging from above, with just a fraction of the pipe remaining on the floor below.

For more photos of brewing equipment being installed at Lagunitas, visit the photo gallery.
 

I’m not entirely convinced of their claim of combating global warming, but Anderson Valley Brewing announced that they have begun brewing real ales and have added a beer engine to their tasting room, and that’s certainly good enough news for me.

From the press release:

Anderson Valley Brewing Company (AVBC) proudly added to their award-winning line of handcrafted beers, “Real ale”—a natural ale created in a traditional and environmentally-friendly style. Real ale is a beer that highlights Anderson Valley Brewing Company’s continuing efforts to make high quality beers in an environmentally responsible manner. Real ale is:

• * A truly “organic” ale with only four natural ingredients: malted barely, hops, water and yeast and absolutely no additives.
• * Served at 10-13 C degrees via a human-powered “hand pull” it’s naturally cool, resulting in far less energy being used for cooling.
• * Naturally carbonated through the yeast’s effervescence — no additional carbon dioxide is added.
• * Reducing packaging by using casks which can be reused for up to 20 years.
• * Created using solar power which provides 40% of Anderson Valley Brewing Company’s annual energy needs.

Though Real ale is environmentally responsible, the traditional method of brewcrafting also results in a more robust, stimulating, and fresh taste that can’t be found in traditional brands. Real ale’s unique flavors and aromas are partly due to the process of fermentation.

While a great many breweries remove yeast before the beer reaches the glass, Real ale differentiates itself by retaining the yeast in the container from which the beer is served. Though the yeast settles at the bottom of the cask and isn’t poured into the glass, the yeast is still active in the cask where the process of fermentation continues until ready to serve. Real ale is currently available in Anderson Valley Brewing Company’s visitor’s center.

 
In other Anderson Valley news, they will be having a special event on February 2 to celebrate their 20th Anniversary. And the 12th annual Boonville Beer Festival will take place in 2008 on May 10.

Here’s an interesting looking gadget. Heineken teamed up with Krups, the people who make those high end coffee machines, to create the BeerTender. Essentially, the BeerTender is a mini kegerator that holds 5-liter kegs. As fr as I can tell it’s already available in eight European nations and beginning March 1 will be sold in the U.S. at Williams-Sonoma stores. At least that was the announcement made at this year’s CES in Las Vegas, which began on Monday.

It’s a beautiful looking piece of equipment and would be great if it could be used with those 5-liter kegs of German beer you see everywhere. I sort of doubt they will, though, they’ll probably only work with Heineken mini-kegs and the other brands they deign to package them in the minis. Here’s some info about the BeerTender from the Unofficial Heineken USA BeerTender Fan Site, BeerTenderUSA: Imagine…fresh Heineken and other European beers on tap whenever you want it. The Heineken BeerTender … is a personal draft beer (or draught beer, if you prefer) system for home use. The system consists of a draft beer dispenser and the exchangeable BeerTender kegs each holding and chilling four liters of premium European beer. While at-home beer taps are nothing new, the BeerTender system is unique in its size, style and function.

The recyclable BeerTender four liter keg is inserted from above into the BeerTender, which keeps the beer cold and fresh for up to 30 days from the first glass. Then run the keg’s plastic tube to the BeerTender’s tap and you’re done. It’s that simple. Inserting a keg takes less than 15-seconds.

Heineken has also made the Krups BeerTender sold in France and the ones coming to the US compatible with its standard five liter DraughtKeg kegs (which are available in most US supermarkets) by using a special tube (a five-pack comes with the BeerTenders sold in France and to be sold in the US). Replacement five-packs will be available after March 1 at www.BeerTender.com.

In the US, Heineken is preparing for the launch of the BeerTender on March 1, 2008 after performing a market test in Rhode Island. The current US DraughtKegs, while compatible with all BeerTenders (with the special tube) will not dispense all the beer. To answer this, Heineken is introducing a BeerTender compatible US DraughtKeg (five liters) that comes with the special tube and has a bigger carbonator inside. That keg is will be available nationwide in both Heineken and Heineken Light. Other European beers are available in Europe.

Operating the BeerTender is a snap. While some models have computer operation and temperature controls with an LCD display, pulling a beer is as simple as pulling the BeerTender’s handle. And if you’ve got kids, you can easily remove the BeerTender’s handle. Best of all, the beer only touches the easily removable spout under the handle, making clean-up between kegs a breeze.

BeerTenders are not cheap. List price in the US will be $400, with street prices down to $299. European versions are just as expensive.

It would certainly look great sitting on the bar, if only it didn’t have that Heineken label on it. Damn.

Hopworks Urban Brewery, the new brewery owned by Christian Ettinger — the award-winning former brewmaster at Laurelwood Public House — it not yet open and looks to be several weeks away, especially the public area upstairs in their location at SE 30th and Powell. The brewery, which is located downstairs under the bar and restaurant area, is a little closer to completion and apparently the bottling line has already been delivered and is just waiting to be installed. Christian and his assistant brewer, Ben Love (who recently left Pelican Brewery), held an open house for OBF attendees to show off their progress in getting the brewery up and running. They were pouring their IPA (which was, of course, brewed elsewhere) and grilling brats outside the brewery in the back. It was great fun seeing their enthusiasm for getting it up and running. They’re feeling like it’s so close they can taste it. It will certainly be fun to see it next year when it’s fully operational.

HUB brewers Ben Love and Christian Ettinger.

For more photos of the Hopworks Urban Brewery under construction, visit the photo gallery.
 

A colleague of mine, Greg Kitsock, has been published a few times in the Washington Post lately, and that’s great news since so few beer writers break through through the wine glass ceiling of most major newspapers. Kitsock is now doing a biweekly column in the Post. And if that wasn’t terrific enough for him and the beer community at large, his column is also being syndicated, presumably by Post-affiliated papers. For example, I just stumbled on an article he did about canned beers and Oskar Blues in the Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky. The original piece ran in the Washington Post a little over a week ago. That’s great news as far as I’m concerned.

Got the following press release today from Oskar Blues and thought I’d pass it along unadulterated.

Oskar Blues Brewery — the nation’s first microcanning craft brewery and makers of Dale’s Pale Ale — is expanding its brewhouse for the fourth time in four years.

This week the brewery is finishing the process of replacing four 60-barrel tanks with four 120-barrel tanks. The new tanks will allow Oskar Blues to double its brewing capacity. (A barrel equals 31 US gallons.)

“More and more are retailers and beer lovers are asking for our beer,” says Oskar Blues founder Dale Katechis. “So we’re doing all we can to give them what they want.”

Last year the microcanning craft brewery (and creator of the Canned Beer Apocalypse) enjoyed its fourth straight year of significant growth, increasing its revenues 121% and its beer production by 64%.

In 2006 Oskar Blues produced 8219 barrels of Dale’s Pale Ale, Old Chub Scottish-Style Ale, Gordon and its other canned and draft beers. In 2005 the company produced 5000 barrels. (A barrel of beer equals 31 gallons.)

Since it began hand-canning its beer (two cans at a time on a table-top machine) in November of 2002, Oskar Blues’ production has grown by about 1200%.

Now that’s a tight fit. New tanks being installed at Oskar Blues in Lyons, Colorado.

More from the press release:

The company’s flagship, Dale’s Pale Ale, is the nation’s first hand-canned craft beer. A robust American pale ale (with 6.5% abv and 65 International Bittering Units) its honors include Top American Pale Ale from the New York Times, Top Colorado-Brewed Beer from the Rocky Mountain News, World’s Best Canned Beer from Details magazine, three “Top-Five American Pale/Amber Ale from Ratebeer.com, and gold and silver medals in the Stockholm Beer & Whiskey Festival.

About two dozen US microbreweries now brew and can their own beer. Oskar Blues’ beers are now canned five cans at a time on equipment from Cask Brewing Systems in Alberta, Canada.

Oskar Blues Brewery is located in Lyons, Colorado (pop.1500), a small mountain town 18 miles northwest of Boulder, Colorado. The brewpub and music venue was opened in 1997 by Katechis and his wife, Christi Katechis. Dave Chichura is the head brewer for Oskar Blues Brewery.

One of the new tanks upright in the brewery.

I made a trip up to Chico, California last week to interview Ken Grossman for an article I’m working on and fortuitously happened upon a new innovation that Sierra Nevada Brewing just launched. They’ve discarded the twist-off crown in favor of a new one they’re calling a “pry-off cap.” They’re using up their old stock now and then replacing it with the new crowns so over the next few weeks or months you’ll begin seeing the new crowns on store shelves. Some, like Pale Ale, have already made the switch.

What’s innovative about this is the material they’re using inside the cap that sits against the top of the glass bottle providing the seal. Oxidation is, of course, probably the most common reason beer goes bad. Twist-off crowns and regular crowns do a pretty good job of creating an oxygen barrier and keeping out the oxygen, but they’re not perfect and some oxidation will occur over time. So Grossman spent the last 6-7 years researching how to make a better seal. What he came up with was a super high-density non-PVC substance that’s used in Germany but is uncommon here. It’s harder than the usual rubbery crown insides and requires a bit more pressure to seal, which is why they can’t use the twist-off cap any longer. But the new substance keeps out oxygen ten times better than anything else Sierra Nevada tested, so having to use a bottle opener is a small price to pay for a fresher beer that stays fresher longer. Now that’s a good use of new technology.