So last Wednesday our first trucks rolled out of the courtyard loading dock with Kenzinger, Walt Wit, and Rowhouse Red. Kegs were tapped throughout the city - many immediately. Reports have been very positive so far and I've been told that by Friday we already had a few calls for re-orders!
Phoodie.com has a preliminary list: http://www.phoodie.info/2008/03/05/phoodie-exclusive-philadelphia-brewing-company-debut-taps-revealed/
New Bold IPA will debut at The Brewer's Plate on Sunday and will roll out for deliveries to local bars just in time for Beer Week.
I'm anxious to continue to get feedback (and orders) for all of these beers. In the meantime we'd better make some more.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
The name says it all
MyFox Philadelphia has done a good job putting together a feature on PBC for Philadelphia Beer Week:
Monday, March 3, 2008
Just in time for Philly Beer Week
... Some good reading about the upcoming Philadelphia Beer Week and an argument for our city as the best 'beer city' ~ I'd say pretty convincing.
" A Toast to a city of brews" by Craig LaBan
Also, here at PBC we have respectively filtered and un-filtered the Kenzinger and the Walt Wit! They're in the bright tanks, carbonated, and probably being pushed into shiny clean kegs by one of our hard-working PBC keg racking team members as you read this.
Detailed tasting notes to come but for now all you need to know is that they taste great. Upon first sip my initial thought was, ' I could drink a lot of these.' Simple - but the most important trait of a well made beer. Always a very good sign - echoed by all the staff/taste testers here at the brewery.
Very soon to follow will be the New Bold IPA and the Rowhouse Red - exciting stuff!
" A Toast to a city of brews" by Craig LaBan
Also, here at PBC we have respectively filtered and un-filtered the Kenzinger and the Walt Wit! They're in the bright tanks, carbonated, and probably being pushed into shiny clean kegs by one of our hard-working PBC keg racking team members as you read this.
Detailed tasting notes to come but for now all you need to know is that they taste great. Upon first sip my initial thought was, ' I could drink a lot of these.' Simple - but the most important trait of a well made beer. Always a very good sign - echoed by all the staff/taste testers here at the brewery.
Very soon to follow will be the New Bold IPA and the Rowhouse Red - exciting stuff!
Monday, February 25, 2008
The next great beers
Don Russell's (Joe Sixpack) latest column recently got the gears in my head turning. It's about the wave of innovation going on in Italian craft brewing. (Italy - the next great brewmaster?)
The future of craft beer is in complex flavors. Its very important to recognize that complexity need not necessarily be at the cost of drinkability. The future is in the sophistication of people's palates and new and intriguing flavors. Whether this will come from advances in the art of brewing microbiology and yeast or finding new flavors in spices and herbs - I'm not sure. But thats where we're going. Hops will never go out of style but brewers who cannot think outside of hopping extremes are doomed to repeat Imperial one-dimensionality. Those who can respect the past but have the vision and the guts to think beyond its stylistic limitations will do well. Many forward-thinking folks across many different industries are already doing it. With beer a very niche group is getting it but its really going to take changing the way people think about beer - a beverage pigeonholed to the masses by many years of effective marketing. We are starting to undo this. There is still a long way to go. We have to continue to cross lines and blur boundaries. Beer versus wine? ~ that is just the beginning. There is no room for competition or argument - as far as I'm concerned it's all art.
... Unconventional yeast strains, bacterial cultures, spices, herbs, nuts and berries, wooden aging, different aging techniques, different sources of fermentable sugars ... there is more .. we just have to dream it up.
The future of craft beer is in complex flavors. Its very important to recognize that complexity need not necessarily be at the cost of drinkability. The future is in the sophistication of people's palates and new and intriguing flavors. Whether this will come from advances in the art of brewing microbiology and yeast or finding new flavors in spices and herbs - I'm not sure. But thats where we're going. Hops will never go out of style but brewers who cannot think outside of hopping extremes are doomed to repeat Imperial one-dimensionality. Those who can respect the past but have the vision and the guts to think beyond its stylistic limitations will do well. Many forward-thinking folks across many different industries are already doing it. With beer a very niche group is getting it but its really going to take changing the way people think about beer - a beverage pigeonholed to the masses by many years of effective marketing. We are starting to undo this. There is still a long way to go. We have to continue to cross lines and blur boundaries. Beer versus wine? ~ that is just the beginning. There is no room for competition or argument - as far as I'm concerned it's all art.
... Unconventional yeast strains, bacterial cultures, spices, herbs, nuts and berries, wooden aging, different aging techniques, different sources of fermentable sugars ... there is more .. we just have to dream it up.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Putting the Boots back on
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| PBC First brews |
Well now we've done it. The clock is ticking and your taste buds may never be the same. Sunday Feb. 9th and Mon. Feb 10th were the inaugural brews here at PBC! We mixed it all together in a giant steel pot and today our fermenters are bubbling away. It's actually a little more difficult than that but I'll spare you all the nerdy details for now.
Brew #1 was Kenzinger. I can't even begin to properly elaborate on the excitement. After a month and a half of reconstruction and anticipation it was as if the whole brewery finally exhaled a deep sigh of relief. And with that came the beautifully sweet aroma of barley mash and floral hops. We fired up the burners, dusted off the mill, and roused the yeast from its cold sleep. I've never had so many people up on the brewhouse platform on a brewday. What traditionally would have made me nervous was what made the first Kensinger brew fun. I counted six different people helping to mash-out ( physically pull the grain from the mash tun). As for the brew itself ... I'll keep my analysis to myself for now - its to early in fermentation to tell - but this brew is off to a good start.
Brew #2 the next day was Walt Wit. It's been too long since Josh or I have brewed a white beer. This one is especially exciting because we get a little more room to run and play. Thats the fun in Belgian-style beers. We got to test out our secret blend of herbs and spices along with a completely different yeast strain. Our spices for this beer are untraditional and I'm confident you'll find them in few other beers ( or none). I'm not going to list the spices just yet. I just can't decide whether to tell, but stick around - they're too exciting for me not to leak them eventually. Mostly, I just don't want anyone passing judgment before having a good couple of pints. As for yeast, if you're familiar with la Chouffe's fine beers then you'll have an idea.
So far so good. Wednesday and Thursday we'll be brewing The New Bold IPA and the Philadelphia-style Rowhouse Red respectively.
It's so nice to be back.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Philadelphia Weekly PBC Story
In todays Philadelphia Weekly G.W. Miller III wrote an excellent story about us. It's a nice pat on the back to all the fine folks who have done so much good for their Kensington neighborhood while running Yards BC and will continue to do even more as PBC. Also a nice summary of our progress!
Definitly worth a read. http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/articles/16371
~ and for the record thats Josh on the left (I'm on the right!) in the wrongly-captioned picture.
Definitly worth a read. http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/articles/16371
~ and for the record thats Josh on the left (I'm on the right!) in the wrongly-captioned picture.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Philadelphia Brewing Co. picking up the pace
This was a big week for us.
I hadn't posted for some time since starting this blog - there wasn't a whole lot to talk about - we were just waiting to move back in. We hit the ground running.
We put the final coat of shiny new epoxy on the brewhouse floor today. Earlier in the week we prepped the floor with a diamond grinder removing the old floor completely. Two weeks ago we knocked the cinder block out of six of the big old original windows. The walls have also been coated with a brilliant white industrial epoxy/urethane. With the fresh paint and plenty of natural light the brewery has taken on a whole new ambiance. That's right, I said a brewery with ambiance. Some of us have likened the new brewhouse to an operating room. We've retained all that familiar pre-prohibition flavor and added a progressively modern brewery taste. For everyone familiar with the old look, I think you'll really be impressed.
If the smell of fresh paint doesn't get you going like it does for me, how about the smell of fresh hops? This week we received our first shipment of hops! In the new world of hop and malt shortages where prices have gone up 2 and 4 times respectively, when demand is growing, and supply is shrinking, even when you have established contacts it is easy to loose sleep. But we worked very hard and here they are! Northern Brewer, Glacier, Sterling, Perle, Willamette ... just to name a few. Very good hops. I'll save a few names just to keep the suspense.
Yesterday we filled our silo with a high quality 2 row Canadian malt. This should be an excellent base malt for the easy drinkin' full flavored beers we intend to make. Its a very light golden color, promises good extract, and has an acceptable protein content. At first taste I get a pleasant grainy sweetness - subtle but solid as a Kensington deadbolt. Is there anything those Canadians can't do? All our specialty malts came earlier in the week - the best quality German barley,wheat, oats, & rye one can buy. Things are really getting exciting.
Things like this have been routine in the past but with a new name and new brands the same people are working harder than ever. I'm continually impressed. For the sake of brevity I haven't mentioned the many other projects and upgrades we are working on here (more on those later). Everybody is working - it doesn't matter if you brew the beer, deliver it, bottle it, package it, or sell it. And we're doing it all ourselves. I feel lucky to be a part of it.
With that said, as much as I love to epoxy floors and move big tanks around I am itching to get back on that brewhouse platform and turn some grain and hops into delicious Philadelphia beer.
Its almost time ...
Here is a web album of the reconstruction so far ... breaking down and building up.
I hadn't posted for some time since starting this blog - there wasn't a whole lot to talk about - we were just waiting to move back in. We hit the ground running.
We put the final coat of shiny new epoxy on the brewhouse floor today. Earlier in the week we prepped the floor with a diamond grinder removing the old floor completely. Two weeks ago we knocked the cinder block out of six of the big old original windows. The walls have also been coated with a brilliant white industrial epoxy/urethane. With the fresh paint and plenty of natural light the brewery has taken on a whole new ambiance. That's right, I said a brewery with ambiance. Some of us have likened the new brewhouse to an operating room. We've retained all that familiar pre-prohibition flavor and added a progressively modern brewery taste. For everyone familiar with the old look, I think you'll really be impressed.
If the smell of fresh paint doesn't get you going like it does for me, how about the smell of fresh hops? This week we received our first shipment of hops! In the new world of hop and malt shortages where prices have gone up 2 and 4 times respectively, when demand is growing, and supply is shrinking, even when you have established contacts it is easy to loose sleep. But we worked very hard and here they are! Northern Brewer, Glacier, Sterling, Perle, Willamette ... just to name a few. Very good hops. I'll save a few names just to keep the suspense.
Yesterday we filled our silo with a high quality 2 row Canadian malt. This should be an excellent base malt for the easy drinkin' full flavored beers we intend to make. Its a very light golden color, promises good extract, and has an acceptable protein content. At first taste I get a pleasant grainy sweetness - subtle but solid as a Kensington deadbolt. Is there anything those Canadians can't do? All our specialty malts came earlier in the week - the best quality German barley,wheat, oats, & rye one can buy. Things are really getting exciting.
Things like this have been routine in the past but with a new name and new brands the same people are working harder than ever. I'm continually impressed. For the sake of brevity I haven't mentioned the many other projects and upgrades we are working on here (more on those later). Everybody is working - it doesn't matter if you brew the beer, deliver it, bottle it, package it, or sell it. And we're doing it all ourselves. I feel lucky to be a part of it.
With that said, as much as I love to epoxy floors and move big tanks around I am itching to get back on that brewhouse platform and turn some grain and hops into delicious Philadelphia beer.
Its almost time ...
Here is a web album of the reconstruction so far ... breaking down and building up.
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| Phila BC reconstruc |
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