We hope you’re all safe and warm and riding out this Nor’ Easter in the comfort of your home, maybe in front of the fire, hopefully enjoying a tasty craft beer, watching football and decorating for the upcoming holiday season.
On Thursday we successfully executed a double brew day 💪! The first batch was Dr.’s Island IPA which is our take on a New England IPA featuring a heavy dose of Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy hops. The second batch we brewed was a Belgian Golden ale, which we are calling Hoffy’s Hoppy Golden, starring a grain bill of Belgian 2 Row, Vienna and biscuit malt and featuring Amarillo and Saaz hops.
From start to finish, it took us about 7.5 hours. We started around 7 am and had the kitchen cleaned and back to normal around 3:30 pm. Overall, we were pretty happy with the execution. We hit and held most of the recommended temperatures for the mash and the anticipated original and final gravity readings were in the strike zone. We were a little disappointed in the final volume of the Hoffy's Hoppy which racked to the carboy just under 4 gallons (we were shooting for 5 gal). We realized that the reason for the shortfall was due to the fact that we used a different boil kettle for the second brew which had a larger circumference than the 7 gallon kettle we typically use. The wider opening creates a bigger surface area for the wort which increases the amount of liquid vaporizing during the boil. To compensate for this, the next time we use this boil kettle we will sparge a little longer and make sure to get a gallon more wort into the kettle before we start the boil. Lesson learned.
With two beers in kegs carbonating and two more in fermentation, our goal is to put together some holiday sample 4 pks by December 20th with one can each of Red Shutters Amber Ale, Seal Rock Stout, Dr.’s Island IPA and Hoffy’s Hoppy Golden.
Earlier in the week we were trying to login into our online bank account at Rockland Trust and got a message that our account had been temporarily shut down. This came as a surprise because a week earlier we had been sent a debit/ATM card and everything seemed to be on track. We tried to resolve the issue over the phone but no avail and were told that we needed to visit our local branch to complete some paperwork having to do with Black Rock Brewing LLC beneficial ownership documentation. So, we made a trip to our local Rockland Trust branch. The visit was productive and a young bank associate named Tyler was very helpful and got our account back up and running after a few signatures and a couple calls to the operations center. Tyler was very interested in the Black Rock Brewing story/concept and he knew a thing or two about local craft beer as, ironically, he had actually worked in the industry for a few years at Cape Cod Beer and Trillium before turning his focus to banking.
Final update to share with everyone this week is that the Black Rock Brewing Co. online merch store ticked over $1,000 in gross sales! Thanks to all of you for your continued support. If anyone is interested in a T-shirt or sweatshirt you can visit the BRBC merch store here 👇
Be kind. Drink local and do more of what makes you happy 😊
Enjoy the rest of your weekend.
Cheers! 🍻
Michelle and Greg