ShuBrew-a-Pa-Looza Tickets On Sale!

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ShuBrew-a-Pa-Looza Tickets

Ticket Presale

Today we are beginning a limited time presale for tickets to ShuBrew-a-Pa-Looza.  There will be 25 of the 75 tickets up for grabs.. First come first serve. They are $35 per ticket. Limit 4 per person and all sales must be in person. Cash or credit is acceptable. The event venue will be located in the north Pittsburgh area and is to be announced soon.  The cost of the ticket gets you entrance, food, and a ShuBrew tasting glass (which is required to participate in the FREE beer tasting). The glass will be similar to this but may be slightly different...

Willy's Gillies

This past weekend I got to brew, which I am happy to say has become a more common practice at my house as of late.  It is my first shot at brewing a Wee Heavy, which is a Strong Scotch Ale.. this guy is so strong that he should weigh in at about 9.5% ABV if all goes well.  

One requirement for everything to go well enough for me to hit my target alcohol percentage is that the yeast needs to ferment as efficiently as possible before dying becoming dormant.  Perhaps the middle of December is not the best time to be brewing a Scotch Ale.. which I hadn't considered until my wife, dogs, and I are all sitting here shivering in our home.  Scotch Ales need to ferment between 50-60 degrees Fahrenheit to maximize alcohol output and to create the proper flavors of the style.  The bad news for us is that unlike most other ales which take just about a week or so to complete primary fermentation, our house is going to be an ice box for about 2 1/2 more weeks.

Thank God I have a patient wife, and dogs who cannot willingly choose to move out.

After primary fermentation is done the beer is going to sit and condition in my cold garage for the next few months to be bottled just in time for ShuBrew-a-Pa-Looza at the beginning of March.  I promise I'm going to release more details about the event in the next week or so.  So far plans are coming along; we have almost the full beer menu chosen and many of the food pairings decided, too.  

I'm also going to be looking for a select handful of volunteers who would be willing to help serve or cook at the event.  While I cannot pay you in USD, I will have some pretty fair compensation offerings for your time.  Also, it is worth knowing that all profits for this event will be donated to a yet to be announced charity, so your time and efforts will be going to a good cause.  I can only take some of those who volunteer, and it is best for people who are interested in enjoying all the food, beverage, and atmosphere to get a ticket rather than work the tasting.  If you send me an email I will out your name on a list and once I figure out the logistics of everything I will let you know how and if we can use you.  Thank you in advance to those who volunteer.

Email me

Judge a Beer By Its... Title

With more and more details being worked out with ShuBrew-a-Pa-Looza I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to come up with names for my beers that do them justice. The title of a beer serves several purposes. There is the marketing value, which is important for brand familiarity and customer approachability. Also from a beer's title we want to be able to let the consumer know the story that the beer tells. Allow me to expand on the latter notion...

This is a partially borrowed thought, but one that has stuck with me for quite some time. In the movie Sideways which is about a quirky pair of wine-loving friends one character explains that her passion of wine goes much deeper than the taste or ability to get inebriated by drinking it. What kept her coming back for more was the story inside the bottle.. the one about the grape harvester that earned very little money to spend their afternoon plucking the sweet fruit from the vine.. and if the wine is old, wondering whether or not that person is still alive or not. My thoughts about beer are familiar to these. I often think about how the maltster toasted or smoked the grain.. or the reasons behind why a certain hop contains the characteristics that make one beer unique from the next just because it was grown in Washington instead of Germany. What really blows my mind is the history of the yeast in a given bottle. The yeast is the most important worker in every batch, and it is the only ingredient with life. Each strand has been around for many years and has evolved to work perfectly with certain styles of beer. More on the science of yeast in a different post, but it's fascinating to think about where each strand started.

Now that I've gotten way off track I'm going to try and get my thoughts refocused. Ah yes, the importance of a name.. So in coming up with names for my beers I need to make sure that they encompass my brand image while also outlining the story and theme of the beer.  It needs to be memorable and comprehensible. At ShuBrew I've toyed with the idea of naming some of my beers after different styles of shoes that also play at the style of beer.  For example, we recently created a Wee Heavy Scotch Ale named Willy's Gillies .  ..gillies being a Scottish style of shoe, and Willy being a popular Scottish name.  

We are looking for more ideas for our soon to be unveiled lineup of beers. I am planning on releasing a Cascadian Dark Ale... Otherwise known as a Black IPA.  I had thought about using the name 'iPA D' (d for dark) but I don't think I'd get away with it. Besides that, it doesn't fit our brand.. lend me your thoughts for a killer Black IPA name that pairs as nicely with ShuBrew as these two pair with each other...

 

Jibber-Jabber

An anonymous reader of this blog posted a comment this week and reminded me of something I have been hoping to avoid for a long time.  What he or she reminded me of is that there is a lot of legal jibber jabber associated with owning and operating a brewery.  The email I received kindly informed me that to their knowledge it is against the law for me to host a beer tasting like ShuBrew-a-Pa-Looza due to the fact that homebrewers are not legally allowed to sell their beer.  

Before we get any further into this dictation I want to clarify with everyone that I have taken the appropriate steps necessary to ensure that our beerfest is done in a completely legal way according to counsel.. so there is no need to fret over that.  Why I'm bringing this up is because too many breweries are facing legal issues that make it hard for them to do business or even start up with doing business.  If it isn't licensing laws that are prohibiting, it's distributing laws.. and if it isn't that it's facing lawsuits from some of industry bullies.  

There was a scene in the movie Beer Wars that described a scenario where Dogfish Head was being sued by Anheuser Busch because they claimed that the terms 'Punkin' and 'Chickory' were too vague to use in their beer names.  It is never said what came of this suit, but DFH's initial reaction was "The name Natural Light isn't too generic?"  This is an example of the legal pressure small breweries face, as the major pee-water breweries full intentions are to bully the smaller breweries into adhering to their rules.

As craft brewers we are not about adhering to anyone's rules.. we make our own rules.  If there isn't a way around the law, we must get the law changed. There is much more to being a brewery than just brewing.  As part of this adventure, I am anticipating the hard fights as well as the rewarding moments a small business owner works for. I won't be pushed away by the trials and tribulations of someone's legal jibber jabber. 

I Am a Craft Brewer

Yesterday was a brew day which was really rewarding because the last several weekend of my life have been somewhat booked in advance so to speak. I did a clone of the Stone/Nøgne Ø/Jolly Pumpkin Holiday Ale from a few years back. The recipe was located in the new Stone Brewery book in which I recently purchased and thought it would be fun to recreate a beer that I have never gotten to try.

Soon I will begin brewing for the upcoming beer festival we are having in March. Plans are coming along for the event.. Beers have been named, styles picked (for the most part) and we have begun deciding our pairing dishes.  With your help we'd like to start getting word out for the event to ensure we have a good turnout and a lot of fun. 

Anyone who has seen our old site is familiar with this video I've embedded onto the page. It means a lot to me due to what the message is.. So much so that we went as far as using the music from this video during our wedding ceremony.  It's really more just coincidence that Sigur Ros happens to be a favorite band of mine and the music was used in this video.. But I wanted to have the shock effect.  Stay tuned for more updates, enjoy the video, and have a good week.

Cheers,

ShuBrew

ShuBrew-a-Pa-Looza

For a long time I have been quietly planning a ShuBrew beer festival but have consistently had excuses for why I couldn't do it or that the timing was not right.  Today I was updating a post on our FaceBook page and recognized that of ShuBrew's 130 followers only a handful of them were people who have ever tasted our beer.  Despite getting frequent requests to have an opportunity to taste our beer we just have not had enough on hand for a public tasting event... Until now.

We are announcing today that on Saturday March 3rd, 2012 we will be hosting ShuBrew-a-Pa-Looza, our very first public beer tasting. Some details have yet to be hashed out but I'm excited to tell everyone what we know they can expect. We will doing a tasting of five or six beers, all of which are our original recipes. Tickets will be required to get into the event and a price will be set in the coming weeks. Everyone who attends will get a custom ShuBrew tasting glass with the cost of their ticket. We also plan on serving a food dish with each beer that has been specifically prepared to pair well with the style of beer.

This event also serves as somewhat of a groundbreaking attempt for ShuBrew as two major business pieces will be unveiled during the tasting. Previously unreleased to the public, details about our business plan (including short and long term projects) will be presented to those in attendance. Furthermore the premiere of ShuBrew's Kickstarter video and pledge fund will be showcased.

The event is bound to be a lot of fun and have lots of surprises, too. Please keep checking in here or on our FaceBook or Twitter pages to stay up to date with more info about the event. In the next few weeks there will be information regarding the location, pricing, beers and more. Please spread the word and we look forward to seeing you all in March.

Cheers,

ShuBrew