The Bruery and Cismontane Brewing Co.

There are few better ways to shed the worries of a long work day than heading to your local brewery’s tasting room to enjoy a pint or two and get a meal from the food truck parked outside. While I am far away from the Pacific Northwest working in Orange County, California, my definition of local brewery has to be a bit malleable, but the point is still valid. After putting in a full day at the office, my friend Robert and I headed over to Placentia to experience The Bruery firsthand.

I have only been able to find Hottenroth and Orchard White in bottles in Spokane, but I was happily impressed with each sample. When the opportunity arose to visit the location from which these great beers emanated whilst putting my lips to a pint (this case, goblet) of some of their rarer, tasting room-only selections, I jumped at the chance.

We arrived to a pretty full house, but a discussion with a local revealed that it was actually a tame night. A phenomenon unfamiliar to me but it is starting to catch on, even in Spokane: individual food trucks have a following. The Bruery never hurts for customers, but I was told that adding a first-rate food truck outside will get the place absolutely hopping. Robert and I shimmed our way through the queue while discussing the different styles on tap that evening and by the time we reached the bar, I had settled on the pilot batch of Iniquitous Belgian Golden Strong.

With nary a place to sit, we found a purchase of floor to stand on and I raised glass to mouth. Upon the heavenly liquid hitting my tongue, I was immediately overcome with euphoria and awe while being forced to admire this fine beverage at arm’s length. Being a few years into appreciating full and unique flavored craft beers, a reaction such as that is becoming exceedingly rare, so I am all the more appreciative when I am struck in such a way.

One aspect of the tasting room I really enjoyed was that it was situated essentially in the middle of the production floor of the brewery. Beer aging in barrels on one side and a full view of the brewing floor on the other made for an enjoyable evening. The Argentinean food truck with tofu tacos was fantastic as well, but in short order, I was in need of a second beer. I decided to compare oranges to oranges and tried the Mischief production run Belgian Golden Strong. Amazingly tasty, but the Iniquitous had stolen my heart. Just before 10pm (it is just a tasting room), the bartenders yelled out last call, so we decided to call it a night.

Saturday afternoon found me with a couple hours to kill, so I decided to head over to Cismontane Brewing just a couple of blocks from my sister’s house in Rancho Santa Margarita. Having just opened in April and being located in one of the countless strip malls in the OC, I had set my expectations slightly lower than The Bruery, but that cynical hedging of bets was not warranted. Although humble in their surroundings, Cismontane makes some solid brews. Highlights for me included Blacks Dawn, its little brother Small Palm Coconut Small Beer (brewed from the second runnings of the Blacks Dawn), the California Common brewed with German yeast and El Modena Mild, which I had to get a pint of after the flight of tasters.

Owner/brewer Ross was manning the taps behind the bar and with just a couple regulars on hand providing interspersed and only momentary distractions, we ended up having a lengthy, nerdy conversation about beer styles, trends, marketing, brewing techniques, etc. Ross was even kind enough to pour me tasters of a couple pilot batches and give me a short tour of the brew floor. Cismontane is utilizing open fermentation, so it was cool to climb the step ladder and lift the lid, even if it was empty.

After I finished the line of tasters, I needed a glass of water but all too soon I was heading back to my sister’s house and my Orange County beer adventures drew to a close. I purchased a shirt from both establishments and I will be excited to don them as I travel cross country to South Dakota over the next week. I have taken the time to write down every brewery between Spokane and South Dakota that we could possibly nip in for a pint, so my nation-wide local brewery exploration will continue soon.

Finally We Are No One

After a couple months of dedicated homebrewing, Carl and I arrived at the point we had been dreading: bottling the last batch before I leave for a month on separate trips to California, South Dakota and then back to California. We plan to resume our efforts in earnest upon my return, but it was a sad sight to see our dry erase board wiped clean at the end of the day.

The gravity readings we took while racking already placed our Granfalloons Belgian Tripel at a whopping 11.6% ABV so we decided to bottle into 12oz bottles instead of bombers. Sharing is nice, but if I wanted to drink a bottle to myself, 22oz of strong beer is quite a commitment.

We busied ourselves with cleaning carboys and bottles and I prepared our priming sugar. Things were running smoothly and we were filling clean bottles with sanitizer in very little time. Once we had cleared the carboy of iodophor and gave it a rinse, we racked over the Granfalloons. The smell emanating from the transfer was very enticing and Carl joked that he was ready to drink a pint warm and without carbonation. We both had to settle for samples from the test tube we filled for a terminal gravity reading.

After dumping the iodophor solution into our big bucket, the bottles were ready to be filled. Carl manned the bottle filler and I capped while pausing to stir in order to keep the dextrose evenly distributed. It what seemed record time, we had a full batch bottled and ready to be put in the cellar. The prospect of retiring to the Flying Goat for a late lunch and some fine ales on draught probably played some part in spurring us on. After some calculations and quite a bit of cleaning, we noticed how much homebrew we had amassed in our short tenure together, so we decided to limit our consumption at the Flying Goat to just one pint (imperial; being a mug club member has its benefits) so that we could head back to Carl’s and get to work on our abundant supply.

It took some dedication and fortitude, but we were able to empty what was left of the keg of Mother Night American-style India Black Ale. Honestly, that meant we each got only about a pint and a half before it blew. Our discussion included some things that probably shouldn’t be repeated in certain company, but we did decide on what to brew when I return from my journeys. We are going to attempt a double brew day in preparation for our Oktoberfest party, one batch being a replacement for the Mother Night we had polished off and the other being an Oktoberfest (go figure) that we are going to cask. In the weeks that follow, we also plan to brew a coconut porter and a saison. Our brewing window will be small, because I will be moving to Davis sometime in November in order to get settled before the holidays and school starting in January.

Enjoying the feeling of a job well done and the effects of the alcohol, I jumped on my bike and pedaled home. I tried not to lament how many weeks it would be before I return and am able to enjoy my homebrews once again. To assuage my future longing, I decided to open a bottle of our Bagombo IPA. Needless to say, my night ended well.

Down to One

As my nearly three weeks absence from Spokane draws near, I am already saddened by the downturn in homebrew work to be done. Carl and I have not brewed for two weeks and although it is nice to see our drinkable supply grow as our kegged and bottled batches condition, I find myself feeling much more complete when there are two or three carboys filled with beer in some state of fermentation sitting in the basement.

Last Tuesday, Carl and I set to work kegging the second batch of Pool-Pah Pale Ale. First, we had to undertake a sad task; dumping what was left of the first batch. While it was just passably drinkable, I did not foresee us reaching for it anytime soon with such a large supply of much more tasty homebrews on hand. The keg emptied, I plunged my tiny arms inside to give it a thorough cleaning. Meanwhile, Carl began cleaning the six bottles we were going to use in addition to the keg so that we had more easily portable options for sharing with family and friends.

As we both moved forward with our cleaning duties, we also shared in getting ready for the transfer; moving the carboy upstairs and outside, cleaning equipment and so forth. When I finished with cleaning the keg, Carl had cleaned another carboy so we began the final racking for clarity. As the liquid gold slowly transferred, I went to the kitchen to prepare the dextrose solution we needed to carbonate the bottles. Once it had been mixed and cooled, I measured out the dosage amount for each bottle using a turkey baster (cleaned, sanitized and never used for anything other than homebrewing, of course) conveniently marked at quarter ounce intervals.

Our bottles and keg ready for beer, we began filling them from the clarified carboy. As we filled the first bottle, we realized we had forgot one minor detail; caps! Carl retrieved them and they went into some sanitization solution before we applied them to the now filled bottles. I switched the tube over to the keg and began cleaning the first carboy. Carl watched the transfer to the keg and tended to his baby while I hurried about cleaning. We finished in what seemed record time and discussed when to convene to bottle the Granfalloons.

As a side note, a large contingent of my family descended on Spokane last week to celebrate my grandmother’s 75^th birthday. This gave me opportunity to share our recent homebrew creations with numerous new mouths and the feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Uncle Tom was recovering from an eye surgery and he said the Bagombo IPA really helped. My step-dad Alan is an “anti-hop head” but he really liked the malty goodness of our Thieving Bastard. Nothing is quite as rewarding as sharing your homebrew with people who truly enjoy it!

Finally, do not despair that with my absence will come silence on my blog. For two weeks, I will be working in California and will be making trips to local breweries and beer bars. Following that, I will be heading on a road trip to South Dakota, hitting breweries and beer destinations along the way. A slight deviation from where my blog has been heading, but a break from my descriptions of homebrewing procedures may be welcomed by some!

No Sulfur, No Cry

First off, thanks to everyone who took the time to vote for my new logo. My graphic designer friend and I are ironing out the last details and the blog will have a new face very shortly.

In the mean time, a homebrew update is in order. Having sufficiently recovered from our tasting session, Carl and I reconvened to rack our second batches of both Pool-Pah Pale and Granfalloons Tripel. Work calls me again to California at the end of this month, which will be followed by a road trip to South Dakota the next day, forcing us to slowly ratchet down our production schedule in preparation for the nearly three week break. If only we had a room cool enough for some lager yeast to work its magic!

We began by carefully moving the Granfalloons upstairs and then set about cleaning our equipment while the beer settled. Full contact time with our iodophor was the only obstruction, so we were racking to the clean secondary carboy with very little wait. A quick gravity reading showed that the yeast had been working quite well and had nearly fermented our wort to beer. It also revealed an ABV percentage over 10%, which will be a first in my homebrewing career. After pausing to taste the beer in process and comment on its deliciousness, Carl went back to cleaning, which I helped with after transferring the Pool-Pah upstairs.

We had minimal downtime once again and the transfer went quite smoothly. The gravity reading confirmed that the yeast had been working, but the beer we transferred over smelled terribly of sulfur. I knew there to be numerous reasons for that and I told Carl not to worry and that it will dissipate. We finished cleaning up and I headed back to my house to get back to work. But not before doing a little research to confirm what I believed about that sulfur smell. At that stage of fermentation, it is actually a sign that all is going well for some strains of yeast. One comment on a probrewer.com forum I was perusing put it simply: “all of that sulfur smell leaving your beer is a good thing. You wouldn’t want it to remain in your beer, would you?!”

Returning to Carl’s to fill a growler of the Mother Night for my trip up to Newport the next day, we removed the fermentation lock and took a whiff… no sulfur. Amazing stuff, this yeast. Even better is when you understand what that amazing yeast is doing.