The Alchemist Pub And Brewery

Attention loyal Alchemist customers! It is time once again to place your votes in our local “Best of” competition.  It’s sponsored by our local Seven Days newspaper of record for all things Vermont.  There are over 100 categories in the survey, and you must fill out at least 50 to have it count.  As you are filling out the form, you can always refer back and search the database for local businesses you love.

We are especially interested in the following categories…

Category 16:  Best Brewpub

Category 18:  Best Bar

Category 19:  Best Apres-Ski

Category 55:  Meteorologist (Dave Bush of course!)

Category 85:  Web Developer (Moosedog Studios, our very own Robin
Hoover)

Category 100:  Place to get Body Art (Good Ink, our much deserving
tattoo artists upstairs)

Thank you all for your loyalty and support over the years.

That is it for my groveling.

On to the beers.

First of all, disregard my cask Holy Cow announcement on my last blog. It will not be on until August-ish.  Good things come to those who wait…..

I have a double batch of Focal Banger sitting on the dry hops as you read this.  This IPA will be poured at the pub, and at this years Vermont Brewers Festival.  It will be known as Ball n Chain IPA at the fest in honor of my niece’s wedding the same weekend.  I will be at that wedding, and my head chef, Jeff Lang, will be running our tent for the event.  We will also be pouring our annual lager, Your Mother, a German-inspired Pilsner.  This little beauty was fermented with a classic strain of lager yeast,  heavily hopped with Hersbrucker and Opal, and cold conditioned for 14 weeks.  Since half of it will be given away at the festival, it will only be making a BRIEF appearance at the pub.  3.5 barrels of Pilsner does not last long in the summer…..

With an additional fermenter coming online soon, I may be able to sneak a batch of Fluxcapacitor through the system in the late summer.  I will be carbonating and kegging the Wee Wittle Wabbit on Wednesday.  This not so Wee Heavy is stunning, and will sit patiently until 10/10/10, its release date.

I also have a batch of Farmers Daughter aging in the cellar.  I’ve been very pleased with this spring’s string of Belgian-style ales.  This one is no exception.  A little more bitter than past versions, but everything else stayed the same.

Honky , our house white ale, is absolutely at its best these days.  I had one the other night, and the phenolics have settled so nicely into place.  Well balanced and very drinkable.

Menage a Trois  will be on for the next 3 weeks or so.

If you haven’t been in during the last two weeks, I suggest you do.  El Jefe is making an off-season appearance, and it won’t be around long. I give it 2-3 more weeks.

As with all of my beers, the benefits of unpasteurized and unfiltered beer is that you get to taste them evolve over the course of their existence.

Before you know it, I will be brewing Rapture and Ouroboros.  Stay tuned, and stay thirsty.

John

My oh my, it has been a while.  Sorry it has taken so long to get out a new blog.  All kinds of things have been going on here at The Alchemist.  Aside from brewing beer like a madman, I’ve been slowly, but surely, making headway on some brewery improvements.  As I write this, I’ve got a guy in my brewery putting spray foam on two of my fermenters.  On Tuesday, we brought in two additional tanks.  One is a new fermenter, which will give me 33% more capacity. The other is a 7bbl Grundy which will enable us to provide hand-pulled Holy Cow, 7 days a week!  That will come on line around June 1st, just in time for the summer madness.  We will still be offering a rotating cask on Fridays, so, for Fridays and Saturdays, we will have two hand-pulled beers on tap.  I am also in the process of installing a glycol system for chilling my beers.  This will help my beers to be even better, and will take a load of pressure off me for the summer.
All good things, but not something you really care about.  So, on to beer news.

Petit Mutant, and Heady Topper fans should probably come in sooner, than later.  Both will be gone in about a week.  You won’t see Heady for a while, and the next batch of Petit won’t be released until winter.

There is a little bit of Celia Saison left, so if you want to taste the best gluten-free beer in the world, come and get it.  We recently won a Gold Medal at the World Beer Cup for the Celia.  The next gluten-free offering is getting brewed in two weeks, Celia Pale Ale.

I have had MANY requests to bring back the IPA, but it was just too bitter in my opinion.  So I will compromise with making a 25-30 ibu hop bomb to be released some time in May.  We will most likely have a two week gap in our gluten-free offering around the early part of May.

Brecky is back on tap.  This is the second batch, and I changed things up a little.  Instead of 5.5%abv, it is at 7.5%.  This makes a big difference in the final taste, the most obvious is that the new batch is a little drier.  All in all, it is still an incredibly satisfying beer.  Don’t look for it to come back any time soon, it was a bitch to brew, and I always get a terrible yield.  That is the double whammy death knell for any beer.  Should be on through May.

Sterk Wit will be around for a few more weeks. This is one of my favorite batches so far.

Coming down the line are a couple of old favorites.  When the Heady Topper is gone, we will be releasing this years batch of Shut The Hell Up!.  An American mild ale coming in at 3.8% abv.  LOADED with Simcoe hops, and absolutely oozing with the flavor and aroma of pink grapefruit.  As always it will be served in a larger glass so that our employees will have the option of offering their indecisive customers a “nice tall glass of Shut The Hell Up”.  Good stuff….

Menage a  Trois will come on tap when the Petit is gone.  This Belgian-inspired strong golden ale has been aging in my cooler for the last ten weeks. Smooth, delightful, and nicely phenolic.

The new batch of Honky is just about done fermenting, and will replace the Sterk Wit.  Honky is our house white ale brewed in the traditional manner, using coriander and Curacao orange peel in the kettle.  Light and Summery, just in time.

So that is it.  Hope this helps.

Drink good beer…..

My oh my , it has been a long time….

It’s 2010, and the beers are flowing like crazy here at The Alchemist.  I’m sure some have come and gone since my last update and I apologize for that.  If you missed any of them , I guess you should have come in!!!

Right now, we still have a little bit of our Blackout and Beelzebub left on tap. These are a few of the stouts I spoke about brewing this winter.  The next one, Knuckle Dragger , is waiting patiently in the cooler.  It should be released some time in the next two weeks.  It is a Belgian-inspired milk stout, and it is going to be really nice, best batch yet, I believe.  Sterk Wit is also done fermenting, aging, and awaiting release in the next few weeks.  When I get to work tomorrow, I will be racking and carbonating this years batch of Petit Mutant.  This American wild ale was brewed back in June, spent a lot of time on a lot of cherries, a little time on french oak, and then a lot of time in stainless steel.  Tart, sour , and full of deep cherry character, yum……

I’ll be brewing two batches this week.  First comes a batch of Broken Spoke, an all Amarillo brew.  It’s been a pale ale, an IPA, and a few variations in between.  This one will be about 60 IBU and 6-7% abv.  Usually it is exclusively Amarillo , but I have 7 pounds of Vermont grown Cascades in my cooler that I may just dump in at the end of the boil….. should be nice.

The other this week is Menage a Trois, a Belgian-style strong golden ale.  It will be fermented with the Bastogne yeast, but I may up the hops a little and add some Brettanomyces Bruxellensis, again, we’ll see…..I WAS just drinking Orval last night….

Heady Topper is on tap right now, it is just delicious, come and get it while it’s fresh, because it won’t last long.  I also released Celia Saison, our latest gluten free offering. The flavor of the sorghum is really suited  to the style, and you’ll probably see it back again in summer.  The next gluten free beer will be a very hoppy pale ale some time toward spring.

Other than that , I think I’ve got you up to date.  Hopefully, by summer, I will have my new tanks in, and you’ll have cask Holy Cow on 7 days a week!!!!

Stay tuned.

John

Well, it certainly is about time I get a new blog out to you folks.  For the last three days my house has been full of flu ridden people with 102` fevers, good stuff…

The first of several stouts is now on tap.  Brecky, our first oatmeal stout is flying out of the taps.  Last week I brewed a batch of Beelzebub, a very hoppy and very roasty American stout.  It really is a labor of love to brew that beer. All of the roasted malts make for a VERY difficult mash.  It will come in at about 8% A.B.V. and has 80 I.B.U.’s of hoppy goodness.  I will be brewing a batch of Blackout tomorrow whether my fever is gone or not.  Our friend Stacy has been busy making the coffee for this coffee stout and it will be on tap the same time Beelzebub is on tap.

This year’s batch of El Jefe will be racked and carbonated on Wednesday for a release on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  For those of you unfortunate enough to have never tried El Jefe, it is an American dark IPA, or as we like to call it, an India Dark Ale, IDA.  I brew this beer with only Simcoe hops which give it a distinct aroma of spruce. It certainly lives up to its motto, “ Bold, Black, and bitter as hell”.  At 6.5% A.B.V., it is a very sessionable and drinkable.  It goes VERY quickly, so don’t bet on it lasting into January.

On December 10th, I will be brewing the beer for release on 10/10/10.  I had been back and forth as to what this beer should be, but with the death of my dear friend, Greg Noonan, I decided it would be a Wee Heavy.  My head chef, Jeff Lang, will be helping me during a very long brew day.  It will be brewed by using the first runnings of two mashes, and will also produce a “small” beer from the second runnings. The working title for the Wee Heavy will be Wee Wittle Wabbit.  I know it’s silly, but I think it will be incredibly funny to hear people order it and sound like they are talking baby talk.  If anyone would have laughed at the idea, it would have been Greg.  The small beer has no name yet, but it will be along the lines of Shut The Hell Up, hoppy and low alcohol content.

The next stout to be brewed this winter will be a batch of Knuckle Dragger, a Belgian-inspired milk stout.  When I bring in the Belgian yeast, I will do a string of beers with it.  Definitely a batch of Sterk Wit, maybe some Menage a Trois, maybe a batch of Honky as well.  If you have any requests, let me know. I will be sure to ignore every one of them… (j/k)

Until my next update, have a safe and happy holiday season.  Don’t drink and drive.

John

And all of a sudden , it’s October…..

Aside from an employee bash and a wedding of a dear friend in Jackson Hole (see photos below), it’s been quite a busy month; but I guess the biggest news is our two new medals from the Great American Beer Festival!

Both were in the Gluten-Free category, a Bronze for Celia IPA and a Gold for Celia Framboise.

When Jen found out six months ago that she would no longer be able to drink my beer, I set out on a mission to brew her something better than what she was bringing home from the stores.  Last year, Anheuser-Busch took the gold medal , this year all they got was the silver….

I’ve gone ahead and brewed a second batch of the Celia Framboise which will be ready in about 3-4 weeks.  The IPA may have to be shelved for a while because I just can’t add two more full-time offerings.  So for the near future, the framboise will be your gluten-free choice at The Alchemist.

The Heady Topper is flowing freely as you read this.  It is certainly a good time to come in for a visit if you are a fan of the hops.  Heretic turned out just wonderfully, and the next batch of Holy Cow is a choice one.

I’ve got a second batch of Harvest Ale fermenting right now.  I’ll take it a bit drier than the batch currently pouring, and I think I’ll jack up the dry-hopping.  It should be on through the month and into November maybe.

Uncle Daddy 2009 has finished fermenting and will be put onto the spices late this week.  I bumped up the pumpkins from 75# to 100# and moved them all into the kettle.  Wow.  The pumpkin flavor is very pronounced, and the color is a beautiful shade of orange.  That should be released somewhere around the middle of October.  For those of you that don’t remember, it is a 7% abv Pumpkin Hefeweizen.  And for you Boston area folks, Uncle Daddy will once again be poured at Cambridge Brewing Company’s charity event on Halloween.

I will be racking the Petit Mutant off of the cherries sometime soon.  Look for this beauty late October/ early November……

Other than that, I’ll be making a big oatmeal stout for my next seasonal.  I’ll keep you informed about it as I figure it out.  Before you know it, I’ll be making El Jefe…

Until then, drink up…

John