Interiors Progress @hawksbillbrew

As a follow-up to yesterday's post, here are a couple of wide-angle/panoramic shots of the interior of the brewery, showing the progress we made last week.  I took this shot on Friday, before the cleanup day we did on Saturday, November 26.  This first one is a view of the bar and customer areas from the front entry.  

It features the board and batten style finish we put up on the walls of the cooler and restrooms, along with the repurposed barn siding we got from Kevin.  

Second shot below is from the loading door in the rear of the brewery - in this shot, the main entry is to the left near the front windows.  Straight ahead is the brew house area, where we will soon be filling up the space with shiny new stainless steel equipment - I hope to have an update on that by Friday.

There is still a lot of work ahead, but we're making steady progress and it is really starting to show!

Cooler Door and Siding @hawksbillbrew

For the next six weeks or so, we'll have a lot of progress to show at the brewery.  Today I want to put a short post up about one of several interesting aspects of the brewery we will have to show off when all is said and done - our reuse of materials.

We are not going for any kind of LEED certification, but if we were, this is something we would get points for.  As it is, we didn't plan the project based on sustainable principles, but we are trying to incorporate some ideas catch as catch can.

The first photo in today's post is of David and me standing in front of the cooler door.  This is a used door recovered from a Virginia Safeway grocery store -  we got it from Storemen's, a vendor down in Harrisonburg that recovers items like this; they're actually a specialist in coolers.

We may pick up another useful item or two like this from them - the price is right, and we definitely need the stuff.

The second repurposed item to highlight is some barn siding we were able to recover and put to use as part of the interior in the brewery.  Here you see it as the front of our bar, and it continues as a detail around towards the new restrooms (that's the new cooler door again in the background).

Kevin is travelling for the holidays just now, so I don't have the full story on how we came across the siding - he found it for us and it is either from a barn on his property or a neighbor's.  In any case, it really adds something to the place.

Stay tuned and buckle up - lots of updates to come!

Checking In @atlasbrewworks

It had been a little more than a year since we visited Atlas Brew Works, March 2015, in fact.  That time (post here) we went for a birthday happy hour, and when we went last weekend it was for the same reason - and it was hosted by the same people, our friends Kathy and Brendan.
That previous post shows the old tasting room layout that they were using back then - a very informal space adjacent to the brewing and fermentation vessels.  Now they've relocated and expanded things, so there is a well-lit formal bar with a menu board that provides substantial details on every beer style currently offered.

During this visit to Atlas, I tried full pours of two of their beers, Ponzi and Saison des Fetes.  On our previous visit I’d had Rowdy, so I’m including the descriptions of all three of these beers below:

Ponzi – “A criminally hoppy American IPA made with five different hop varietals.”  An American IPA hopped with criminal disregards.  Featuring generous additions of Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, Mandarina, and Ahtamun hops, followed by hints of Munich malt, Ponzi’s aroma writes checks that its flavor cashes.  If it seems too good to be true, you’re probably drinking Ponzi.

Saison des Fetes – “A warming winter Belgian ale straight from the farmhouse to your fireside.”  This is a beer to celebrate.  Our winter Saison balances spicy French hops, aromatic European malt, and a unique Belgian yeast.  Welcome to the farmhouse.  Settle in, warm you firkles by the fire, and drink in the festive season.

Rowdy – “Both fun and aggressive, Rowdy is a hop forward rye ale full of flavor.”  Made with three varieties of hops and a generous amount of specialty malts, Rowdy offers a complex flavor and aroma that is both aggressive and fun.  The addition of malted rye to the grain bill lends a peppery and distinct character to the beer which complements the bitterness and floral notes of brewhouse hop additions.  Finally, this copper-hued ale receives a liberal addition of dry hops in the fermenting vessel, imparting citrus aromas and a crisp, clean finish.

Atlas is a great place to get together for an impromtu celebration and our friends Kathy and Brendan really know how to host in that space.  We hope to achieve a similar atmosphere when we open Hawksbill Brewing next spring!

I Went Back to Reading

During November I made two business trips - it's been a long time since I did that.  I can't work on airplanes so I decided I might pick up a paperback to read, and on the trip to Atlanta, I read Reckless by Chrissie Hynde.

I enjoyed it plenty, so I wrote this review on Amazon.  It's in the queue for the book, which is linked above - you can click through to rate it as helpful if you like!

  

I'd grown up reading The Rolling Stone whenever I could afford to buy a copy, and I remember many editions of it dedicated to the emergence of punk, which had happened a few years earlier. Later I enlisted in the Air Force, and "Brass in Pocket" got plenty of airplay during tech school. The music of the Pretenders has stayed with me since then, and I count it one of my life's great tragedies that I couldn't go to a 1984 concert in Berlin because I had tickets for a vacation in Barcelona.

Naturally, when I got wind of this autobiography I put it on my reading list right away. Unlike some other reviewers, I appreciated all the backstory, and I came to realize that it took a lot of work for Chrissie Hynde to get the band together and then become a star.

Particularly interesting was the story about the Kent State tragedy, and the surprise to learn that she was a student there during the demonstrations. Her desire to be part of the music drove her, but the fame was costly. The journey is what has given her the endurance and staying power that she needed to keep up with the industry.

So why was missing that 1984 concert such a tragedy for me? I gave my ticket to my friend Don, who with other friends made his way to the front of the Berlin Metropol stage. At one point during the show, Chrissie leaned down and wrapped her mich chord around Don's neck, and pulled him close. That could have been me!

In any case, at long last, I have the backstory for these great songs - Stop Your Sobbing, Talk of the Town, etc. - I found it a good read, and I'm glad I picked it up!

Atlanta Brewery Visit - 5 Seasons Brewing

In Monday’s post, I mentioned that I travelled to Atlanta for a conference last week.  As it happens, this was the same annual conference that took me to Kansas City a few years ago, and just like that last time I was traveling with the same work colleague, and we were able to fit in a little bit of recreation by visiting a local brewery.  

In Kansas City, it was Boulevard Brewery – which remains one of the best brewery visits I’ve ever had; in Atlanta, we went to 5 Seasons Brewing, more a brewpub set-up but convenient to where we were staying.

The story of 5 Seasons is a good one.  Their founder/brewers have been working in the industry for several years, and one of them traces his track record back to Colorado in the 1990’s.  

Now they have three locations in Atlanta, so there’s a lot to be said about their timing in starting up 5 Seasons – opportunities we need to be on the lookout for as we get Hawksbill Brewing started in Luray!

I tried two beers during our visit:

Hopgasm IPA:  (From their website) This is a West Coast IPA, and traces back to the brewer’s time in Colorado and California.  The rest of this info comes from the menu:  It invites you with a nose far more intriguing than most IPAs.  We use five different hops, including Simcoe and Amarillo, which give an incredibly rich bouquet and a pleasurable mouth feel.  It has a solid malt backbone and sumptuous aftertaste that will make you want multiple Hopgasms.

Two Pence Porter:  (From a BeerAdvocate review) This porter is clear and dark, with ruby highlights.  All of the rich dark malt expected, with a proper dose of hops and none of the objectionable aromas or flavors that plague lesser porters.  Plenty of dark chocolate and coffee in the nose.  Lingering dark malt flavor with a light touch of smoke and spicy English hops.  Creamy smooth with near perfect carbonation.

I was quite happy to fit in a little beer tourism during this trip.  Our stop at 5 Seasons formed a nice diversion after we had finished setting up our trade show booth.  I think I’m going to try and keep this tradition up!

Back to Atlanta

I’m just back from Atlanta, where I was on a business trip for most of last week.  It had been more than 10 years since my last business trip down there – I estimate that I’ve been there 10-12 times as a consultant, and another three or four times as a tourist.  On this trip, I was able to pursue both objectives.

My goal for the business part of the trip was to attend a conference about architecture, engineering, and construction, which is the industry I’ve been consulting in since 1998, when I got my MBA.  After doing this work for so long, I have a lot of professional associates, and it is inevitable that I would run into a few of them at a conference like this one, which previewed what’s likely to happen across the Department of Defense over the next few years.

One of the highlights of the trip was getting a chance to visit with one of my USC MBA classmates, Attila, who landed at Coca-Cola after graduate school and has been here since.  Mary and I went to his wedding to Cindy a few years ago, and I saw him again during one of those previous business trips. 

This time, they invited me to their house for dinner.  I got to meet their 3 children, and learned about how they’ve travelled around the country in an RV (they’re not the only friends who have adopted this form of recreation – see post here).  Plus, Cindy made a great dinner that just happened to serve one of my favorites for the main course, and their youngest celebrated her birthday with me, so we had an excellent cake for dessert!

In the photo of us, Attila is showing off his license plate from the car he bought in LA.  He bought the car from Takuo, one of our Japanese classmates, and then drove it to Atlanta.  When he finally sold it he saved the license plates and sent one to Takuo in Japan!

In the years since I had been there, Atlanta has really grown.  Unfortunately, it’s a sprawl situation, and the neighborhood where the conference was held is squarely in the middle of all this uncontrolled growth.  My hotel was situated on the same street where they are building the new Braves baseball stadium, so it is only going to get worse in those part. 

From my hotel window, the view included a freeway and then just across it the conference center.  It was less than a half mile away, but the walk was a mile because of the traffic and construction.  I tried that once, but afterwards took the hotel shuttle over for the rest of the week. 

It was a small world thing, but after looking at this view for the first time, I realized that one of the events for Attila’s and Cindy’s wedding had been held at the really nice hotel adjoining the conference center.  That was a pretty nice coincidence and I was really happy to have been able to meet up with them during the stay.  

November Construction Update @hawksbillbrew

Work goes on at Hawksbill Brewing Company - the interior updates are underway, electrical work is in progress, and all the plumbing, cooling, and mechanical work is happening.

While I was away in Vegas a couple of weeks ago, the team finished up with the demolition of the glass block window on the northeast wall - the October 24 post showed that.  We're waiting for that new window, but the team went to work on the southeast wall window afterwards.

This window is in the area where our brew kitchen will eventually be located, and the natural light from our new window will certainly help the environment and atmosphere back in that area.  There is no worry from natural light - the beer will be in our shiny new tanks, protected from it.  

The other major progress item was the delivery and installation of our cooler door.  This item is recycled from a Safeway grocery store, although I'm not sure where it was located.  We're working with an architectural/equipment recovery contractor in Harrisonburg for some of the specialty items like this one.

In any case, the installation of the door was a major step forward for us.  The walls will be finished up soon, with solid insulation and a drywall finish on the side you see in the photo.  We've got a board and batten pattern figured out for the wall behind the bar.

Not many days go by without some sort of progress in the building.  I'll keep you posted as I get updates!

After Action #hopsinthepark @hawksbillhops

On Saturday I spent the day at Henricus Historical Park in Chester, Virginia - I was there as a volunteer for the second annual Hops in the Park festival, and I really had a good time.

Although I had volunteered to work two shifts, I only ended up being needed for the first one.  My assignment was to sell beer tickets, and it was truly an eye-opening experience.

The gates opened at noon, and there was a steady stream of visitors coming into the park until I finished up at 3pm.  My team was one of three sales teams, and we sold a total of nearly 8,000 tickets!

Several other hops growers were there to work.  A share of the funds raised go to our Old Dominion Hops Co-op organization - in fact this is our major source of funds.  I  had some time to meet and network with some of my colleagues, including David at Piedmont Hops, which I mentioned in my post last week.

A second objective for me was to learn a little bit about fests work for breweries.  I have a to-do list as a result, and I hope that we can work up a budget to participate in a few next year, once Hawksbill Brewing Company opens.

Now, I do want to take a few minutes to write about the park facilities at Henricus.  This location was established to be the second major English settlement in Virginia and dates to 1611.  Of course, as with other locations in the Commonwealth, archeological evidence indicates that Native Americans had settled in the area for at least 10,000 years, and that there were approximately 250 people living in the vicinity of where the park now stands.

There are several examples of colonial buildings from that time, and there are live interpreters throughout who demonstrate how the colonists lived.  There is also a Native American village with interpreters.  Finally, a fort was established here for defense, and the James River flows nearby, so commerce was ensured.

All in all a good experience.  I had a great time meeting with the other hops folks, and enjoyed four or five samples from the 22 breweries that were in attendance.  I hope I am able to make some time for the event last year, but we'll have to see how that fits in with brewery activities!

Hops in the Park - w/ @hawksbillhops

While the brewery comes along, there is also some news from Hawksbill Hop Yards to share.  We'll put up some construction updates for the brewery next week.

The first hop yard related news is the Hops in the Park festival this weekend in Chesterfield County.  Just click on the link for information, but there will be almost 20 Virginia breweries, great food, artisan exhibits - all in a live history park setting.

The Old Dominion Hops Co-op, the Virginia-based hops group that we are part of, provides volunteer labor at this event and it is our only fundraiser for the year.  I'm headed down for a shift on Saturday morning.


The second bit of news to share is that 15 pounds of our 2016 Cascade were part of a larger sale to Stone Brewery in Richmond.  A couple of months ago, on the day that I visited Seven Arrows Brewing down in Waynesboro, I also made a stop by my friend David Goode's Piedmont Hops farm to deliver hops that would eventually be part of this 165 pound deal.

David went on to have the hops pelletized and packaged for use in large-scale brewing for Stone, and then shared the photos above as an update on his adventure.

I am tracking news carefully so that we'll know when this Virginia-grown beer is on tap, and hope to be able to make my way down there when they announce it is ready!

Road Trip 2016 to Las Vegas - part 2

One of the interesting things I learned about Las Vegas during this trip was that everybody has had a different experience there - so last Monday when I arrived and texted my coworkers, I found out that they were changing from the Wynn to the Mirage.  They'd come out a few days early and stayed in the other hotel before moving over to where the conference would be held.

We actually ran into each other at the check-in counter.  They planned to head out to the pool, while I was going up to the room to get settled in and then find some lunch.

Later we caught back up and I walked with them over to the Venetian.  They've gone to great expense at that hotel to make it reminiscent of Venice - there are canals that run inside and out of the building, and gondola rides are available.  Meanwhile there is a massive shopping mall inside, and on the first day of the conference that is where we went to grab lunch before I gave my talk.

On the first night of the conference we headed to Caesars, which is right next to the Mirage.  We got dinner at the Gordon Ramsey pub in there, a good time.  All of the interior photos with this post were taken in Caesars.

The last night I was in town was also the final night of the World Series, which Chicago won.  We watched a little bit of the game at the sports book in Caesars, and then found some seats in the lobby bar there to watch the last few innings.  Just like everywhere else, there was a big celebration in Las Vegas after the final out.

Closing out on a note about beer - I made a point of trying a different beer every time I ordered one at all the venues we visited.  The choices ranged from IPAs to Porters to Pilsners, and I can't think of a single one that disappointed.  We found some nice watering holes tucked in here and there in those huge malls at the Venetian and Caesars - looking forward to future visits!

Road Trip 2016 to Las Vegas - part 1

After a great few days in Las Vegas I got back home last Thursday.  This year I stayed in the Mirage, the location of the conference I was there for - that was a first for me, as I have stayed at Hilton properties in the past.  Halloween week made everything else too expensive, so I stayed at the conference rate.

My topic this time was Essential FM Technologies, the same as it was in March in Baltimore, although I had significantly revamped the talk since then.

There were between 140 and 170 people in the room, so a good crowd, and I feel that it went well.






















My colleague Ray also presented this year, an even better topic about innovative workplaces and the new "WELL" certification.  This is an alternative approach to sustainability that assesses the impacts of the built environment on the work force.

It is a very new certification, and there are only 180 or so people practicing in this area - our company happens to have three of them.

I didn't add on the extra vacation days this time, so I won't have a good trip to report - but I did manage to have a good time sight seeing with the team in Vegas, so my next post will be about that experience.

Trips to Las Vegas - Part 3

This is the last of three posts I’m putting up during my current business trip to Las Vegas this week.  My goal is to reprise my past trips, from 2009, when I took a helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon, 2011, when I drove up to Death Valley, and today’s post, about my 2013 trip when Mary joined me for a day trip to the Grand Canyon.  Next week we’ll return to the day-to-day posts about the brewery and hop yard! 

My infatuation with the Grand Canyon started in 2003, when I was on a business trip to Phoenix and ended up with an extra day for sightseeing.  Back then, I had planned to catch a Southwest from Phoenix to Albuquerque for an interview with a colleague looking to start a consulting business on the East Coast.  The trip fell through at the last minute, so I drove up to the Grand Canyon for the day instead.


Then in 2009, I took a helicopter tour of the canyon from Las Vegas.  After that trip, I knew I had to come back and bring Mary along, too.  I hoped she was as inspired by this incredible American landscape as I was - and that's how things turned out.

Our trip included a couple of nights in Flagstaff and also the fantastic tour of the Hoover Dam.  But the absolute highlight was the Grand Canyon – pictures can only begin to capture the experience of seeing it in person.  There's the scale of the thing, the wonder of the geology, and the full pallet of colors - all elements that a simple photograph cannot transcribe.  

The Grand Canyon is one of our most popular national parks, and as we left the hotel in Flagstaff that morning I prepared myself for traffic and a parking challenge.  I was right about that, but for most of the drive, as we went through the pass over the San Francisco peaks north of town, there wasn't much traffic to speak of.  We passed through pine forests and aspen groves, and then a desolate high desert that is carved up ranch land - proof that in our country, we're never far from exurban sprawl.

Mary and I took the walk along the Rim Trail over to the village, had some lunch, and then walked back.  There were plenty of park facilities to check out along this 5-mile round trip, including a geology museum, art galleries, and souvenir shops.  For the first half mile or so, you're wading through bus tourists, but after that, the touring crowd thins out into smaller groups enjoying the incredible views in a fairly remote and undisturbed atmosphere.

Since we had arrived just before mid-day, we made our trek along the trail immediately, arriving at El Tovar lodge just before 2pm.  We had a great lunch over there, with a window seat that allowed us to enjoy the scenery and incredible Grand Canyon weather - warm but not hot, and wonderfully sunny.

After lunch we began our walk back, and already the sun's changing position began highlighting new formations in the Canyon and emphasizing a new range of colors – hues of blue and violet, where they had been all yellows and reds earlier in the day.

We wrapped up the day with the drive back to Flagstaff.  We grabbed some dinner in a local pizza parlor where big family groups all sat around picnic tables digging into extra-large pies and drinking Budweiser.  It was tasty and refreshing after our day in the sun.

Trips to Las Vegas - part 2

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m on business travel to Las Vegas this week, so instead of putting up new posts, I’m reprising my past trips there.  As I posted yesterday, in 2009 I took a helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon.  Today’s post is about the 2011 drive up to Death Valley, and tomorrow I’ll post on the 2013 trip when Mary and I took a day trip to the Grand Canyon. 

During my first trip to Vegas I learned that if you carve out a little time, you’ll find that there is easy access to several national parks for a day trip, and so it was in 2011 that I decided to rent a car and drive two hours to Death Valley to have a look around.  I’d prepared for this trip by purchasing the Easy Day Hikes guide (Amazon link).  

Thumbing through it, I saw some dire warnings about risks in this park:

• Dehydration
• Weather
• Hypothermia/Hyperthermia
• Vegetation
• Flash Floods
• Rattlesnakes, Scorpions, and Tarantulas
• Mine Hazards
• Unstable Rocky Slopes

I thumbed through this section in the parking lot at Zebriskie Point. Even though I’d stopped at Target back in Las Vegas to prepare and had two liters of water handy, these warnings were enough to convince me to go to the camp store at the visitor center and pick up another gallon of water (which I gave, unopened, to the attendant when I returned the car – two liters was enough). 

The warnings in the little book were a good reminder about how harsh this environment is. At a couple of points on the trip as I took short “hikes” in the park, I was left contemplating how up to 10,000 frontiers people could survive in the towns in this area, between the heat, and no ready access to potable water or food. Yet even before them, essentially since the Ice Age, there has been a population of Native Americans living in this area, although climate evolution may have facilitated that.

Among the highlights in Death Valley were four or five stops I made to check out the scenery and stretch my legs.  I saw a bunch of German tourists exit their bus and walk out into the desert, taking their shirts and shoes off within a couple of hundred feet before walking a half mile out into the salt and sun.  I also set a new low-altitude record on my Casio Pathfinder watch, at -500 feet or so, which became the bookend for my high-altitude record at 8,800 feet on Glacier Point in Yosemite.

After my four-hour visit in the park, I made my way back to Las Vegas and dropped the car off at the airport.  I caught a cab back to my hotel, took a refreshing shower, and headed back out to the Strip for dinner.  All in all a great trip in 2011, one that made me look forward to the next time, when hopefully Mary could join me.

Trips to Las Vegas - part 1

Since I’m on business travel to Las Vegas this week, I’m reprising some of my past trips there.  This time I won’t be able to fit a side trip in as I have in the past – in 2009, I took a helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon; in 2011, I rented a car and drove up to Death Valley; and in 2013, Mary and I went to Flagstaff and then took a day trip up to the Grand Canyon.  Starting today with a recap of the 2009 trip, I’ll post the highlights of those past trips.

In 2009, I took my first trip to the NFMT conference in Las Vegas.  I gave two talks while I was there, and since it was back in the early days of on-line media, I had several opportunities to be interviewed, either as a panelist or as an expert on facilities management. 

As it turned out, I also had enough time to fit in an afternoon excursion to the Grand Canyon.  I went on-line and found a helicopter flight, and was lucky enough with the booking that I found a trip that included landing in part of the canyon that is not within the National Park boundary.  The tour company even provided a picnic lunch while we were on the ground!

Here’s a link to the original post about the trip, which took place from a small airport outside of town that had been built to house the workers that were building the Hoover Dam – which was a waypoint on our flight to the canyon, by the way. 

The trip was timely for me, as it turned out.  Only a few weeks before I had read and reviewed the book The Man Who Walked Through Time (Amazonlink).  My post about the book can be found here.

During the picnic, I sat near a couple of the pilots from the tour company, and I talked about the book.  I filled them in on some details – they seemed to be enjoying the conversation, and I’m sure that they’d put any tidbits they could to work on their tour spiels.  Still, I was caught by surprise when my pilot referred one of my cabin mates to me when he asked about the sandstone and limestone layers that were visible on the canyon walls.

Even though the helicopter trip was expensive, I’d rate it as a once-in-a-lifetime experience, especially for anyone who hasn’t seen the canyon.  It’s a national treasure that everyone should visit, just like Yosemite. 

Tomorrow’s post will be about my 2011 trip, when I took a side trip up to Death Valley.   Catch you later!

The Shiny Stuff @hawksbillbrew

We picked Alpha Brewing Operations for our five barrel brewhouse.  They worked closely with us to review our business plan and expectations for the brewery before specifying a system and sending along a proposal.

Almost as much fun are the frequent emails we get about the status of our order.  The big shiny stuff had to be fabricated, but last Friday we got a status report on it, with photos, showing that the tanks were completed and were being loaded into a shipping container.  It's estimated that they will arrive in Baltimore by mid-November.

From there, they will be transported to the brewery in Luray, where they'll be united with the brewhouse, which will arrive separately by early December.

The three tanks shown here each have different functions:

1) The top photo is a five-barrel fermentation vessel.  It is made of stainless steel, as are all of the vessels I'm writing about today.  This is where the sugars in the wort produced by the brewhouse will be converted by yeast into alcohol.  The conical section at the bottom of the tank allows spent yeast and other suspended materials to settle out of the beer before it moves on to the carbonation process.

2)  The second photo is our five-barrel brite tank.  This is the next stop for the beer after fermentation - it is used to carbonate the beer before serving it.  Although breweries can serve directly from the brite tank, that won't typically be the process at Hawksbill Brewing - we'll move the beer to kegs for this purpose.

3) The final photo is our 10-barrel hot liquor tank.  We'll use a lot of hot water during brewing - specifically for the "strike," the water that will be used to soak the grain in order to extract the sugars, and for the "sparge," essentially a rinsing process that allows us to capture the sugars that will eventually be fermented in the beer.

While our system is designed to produce five barrels at a time, we doubled the size of the hot liquor tank to give us some flexibility.  By heating double the requirement of hot water, we can do two brews in quick succession.  This is part of how we will accommodate seasonal fluctuations in demand, and hopefully any growth we experience in our first year or so of operation.

There's plenty of action to come at the brewery, so be sure and follow our Twitter feeds for updates - the brewery is @hawksbillbrew and these blog posts (among other info) is @cabin_jim.

Equipment Updates @hawksbillbrew

I wasn't lucky enough to be out in Luray last week when David and a few others drove some of our new arrivals down Main Street to the brewery: the fan coil and chiller for our brewing system.  These items had shipped from Oregon and arrived in town late last week.

After a few days' storage it was time to pick them up on the skid steer and move them to the brewery.  They got lucky with the weather, certainly - look at that bluebirdy sky!

So what does all this chilling do for us at Hawksbill Brewing Company?  There's a good reference article on glycol systems here, but to summarize, that coolant is safe for use in food and brewing operations.

This equipment, combined with others in the brewhouse system, will help us get temperatures down as low as 25 degrees in our fermentation systems.
Even more important than the temperature is the ability to automate and precisely control temperatures in the process, since some beer styles require fermentation at lower temperatures and some at higher temperatures.

In any case, now that this equipment is here we can get started on installation, so that it will be ready to connect to our brewhouse and fermentation equipment when those items arrive.

More Construction @hawksbillbrew

Over the last two weeks, much of the project planning has come together, so we are beginning to see an uptick in construction progress.  I thought I'd feature one aspect of that in this first post of the week - I'll have a couple more posts that talk about other progress.

One of the features of the building is this glass block window near the front entry.  I'm not sure if it is original, although it certainly could be: this article suggests the material has been in use since the early 1900's, contemporary with the building's original construction in 1911.    

In any case, this one has seen better days.  Several blocks are broken, maybe just wear and tear, but possibly due to vandalism.  We've decided to simply replace it with a plate glass window, so the team showed up last week to begin demo.

I've asked that some of the materials be saved and put aside for us.  As we continue to find out more history of the building, it may end up being important that we have some of these for reference.  In any case, they do form an important reminder of some of the legacy uses of the place as an ice storage facility and creamery.

Hawksbill Brewing Co. Construction Update

Construction work at Hawksbill Brewing Company is progressing in tandem with everything else that is going on:

• Equipment fabrication
• Financing developments
• Recipe formation
• Social media outreach
• Sponsorships planning
• Interior design

Each one of these could be a blog topic on its own, but since I received the very interesting photo to the right as a message, I'll start from there.

We have three main contracts in place - general construction, electrical, and HVAC/Mechanical/Plumbing.  All three are proceeding in parallel, with David working as general contractor to help keep them from stepping on each other in the building.

Last week, the plumbing really got underway - the core drilling in the photo was one of the essential steps in that part of the project.  The results told us just a little more about the building, basically confirming what we already knew.

The structural report we had let us know that we were dealing with substantial concrete slab construction.  We had six of these core drill holes done last week - and we found depths of 15 to 18 inches.  In one case, the drilling wasn't finished at the end of the day because they needed a longer bit!

Just a repeat of something I've written before about the building.  From what I've been able to discover, it was built in 1911 to house the Luray Ice Company, which supported the Norfolk and Western (now Norfolk Southern) rail line that runs behind the building.  In fact there is still and earthen ramp down into the basement, which may have been part of the logistical arrangements for this operation.

Once there were refrigerated train cars, the ice business closed.  It was soon replaced by the Blue Ridge Creamery, which operated for a few decades.  I've found auction listings for milk bottles from the creamery since I learned about this bit of building history and have included a detail photo from one of the auction sites in the post today.

There's still a ways to go with everything, and I'm sure I'll have more posts to follow.  Stay tuned!

Thoughts on Beer Styles - Hawksbill Brewing Co.

Our team has been working on recipe development while the other aspects of Hawksbill Brewing Company come together.  Kevin and David have come up with a list of four standards, and I thought I might add to my brewing traditions series with a short post on them. 

The four styles are listed below.  True to the current craft brewing tradition, we’re making our own adjustments, both in terms of process and ingredients.  It’s my sense that we are following more of an English brewing tradition on most of our standards, so the definitions below (all are linked to the source page) show those tendencies.

American Cream Ale:  This is a mild, pale, light-bodied ale, made using a warm fermentation (top or bottom fermenting yeast), and cold lagering.  Despite being called an ale, when being judged in competitions it is acceptable for brewers to use lager yeast.

Brown Ale (English Style):  These brown ales range from dryer (Northern English) to sweeter (Southern English) maltiness.  Roast malt tone (chocolate, nutty) may sometimes contribute to the flavor and aroma profile.  Hop bitterness is very low to low, with very little hop flavor and aroma.  Known for rich and advanced flavor without centering too much on hops, this style is extremely sessionable and food-friendly.

American India Pale Ale:  Characterized by floral, fruity, citrus-like, piney or resinous American-variety hop character, this style is all about hop flavor, aroma and bitterness.  This has been the most-entered category at the Great American Beer Festival for more than a decade, and is the top-selling craft beer style in supermarkets and liquor stores across the U.S.

Brown Porter:  No roasted barley or strong burnt/black malt character.  Low to medium malt sweetness, caramel and chocolate is acceptable.  Hop bitterness is medium.  Softer, sweeter, and more caramel-like than a robust porter, with less alcohol and body.  Porters are the precursor style to stouts.

In addition to these four we’ll have rotating selections and seasonals, and sometimes we’ll feature pilot brews of recipes in development.  It’s all part of the craft – and we’re working on it!

A Holiday Weekend Visit to @pendruidbrewing

After writing that post about Farmhouse Ales earlier this week, I got to thinking that it had been a while since I went over to Pen Druid Brewing in Sperryville.  I was at the soft opening in August 2015, post here, and earlier that summer they visited the hop yard, in this post.

So after a few holiday weekend errands I headed over the mountain to check in.  I didn't want to go empty handed and brought along a pound of Cascade hops from Lot 1 of this year's harvest.

I sat at the bar and chose a couple tastes - specifically Space Mothers and Cyclops - while casually talking with Jennings and later Lain (Van was travelling just then) about how things are going.  The clientele was steady, with several pairs and groups at the bar and seated inside and out, so we had some time to chat about their style of craft brewing.

In some of the articles featuring the brewery, and from my own experience working with them on hop yards matters, you can't miss the influence their travels in Europe have had on their approach to craft brewing.  The linkage to Belgian styles is strong, and they've committed a lot of time and effort to developing local ingredients that can be combined in uniquely artisanal brews.  They've even isolated their own yeast strain which categorizes many of the offerings as wild ales.

While I was there I enjoyed three beers:

Space Mothers: this is a biere de miel, or beer with honey, that was created as a joint project with Aslin Brewing.  The ABV comes in at 10.1% for this one, which they called a "hoppy wild."  Nice citrus notes abound.  

Wild Darkstrong:  The malts in this complex dark beer reminded me at first of a brown ale.  The IBUs were much lower, but even though I tried it as my second taste, I could still pick out flavors of chestnut, fig, and raisins.  I could envision sharing a growler of this at a holiday gathering, even though the ABV was still pretty steep at 8.5%.

Venus:  After the first two, I decided to enjoy a third sample and picked this one, a blonde sour at 7.3% ABV.  One of the things Pen Druid is known for so far is their prolific use of wine barrels for aging their beers, and Venus spent 10 months in red wine casks before it was kegged.  There was a slight lambic statement in this beer, which totally rounded out an enjoyable craft beer experience for me.

We talked about the prospects for Hawksbill Hop Yards, and I reported on our results this year: how the Columbus, Chinook, and Fuggles were essentially no shows.  So much so that I've talked with David about plowing them under and expanding to all Cascade (although I really want to see the versatile Fuggles through!).  Jennings insight was that this is how local styles develop - you produce what grows here - and combining that with Virginia grain and Virginia yeast would ultimately result in a good thing.

Reflecting on those thoughts on my drive back to the Valley, I realized that I was pretty lucky to have the opportunity to contribute to our emerging craft beer scene with these hops.  It's worth the investment we're putting in to the hop yard, and the focus we had on processes this year.

The consistency is going to pay off in terms of the character of the beers that will be produced.  The steady hand of craft brewers like Pen Druid will get us there.