Best feedback yet! and from a professional too!!!

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

ajbram

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 24, 2011
Messages
371
Reaction score
25
Location
Cornwall
SO I was over at my buddy's house for the Stupor Bowl last night, and naturally I brought some homebrew. Most people there are steadfast Corona drinkers and won't touch anything dark or hoppy, so my brews were mine to keep. Partway through the evening, my friend's neighbour came over. I knew beforehand that he has 2 LCBO (Liquor Control Board of Ontario - our gov't liquor store here in Ontario) franchises, but it turns out that he is also a beer snob and the regional beer purchaser for the LCBO. This guy knows his beers. Always looking for feedback on my brews, I offered him a couple samples. He tried my Blackstrap Molasses Porter and my Double IPA. The comments were really positive... Basically he really liked the porter, thought it was well balanced and had just enough molasses tang to make it unique but not overpower the beer. If anything he thought the colour was a little dark to match the style, but that was a minor minor thing. When he tried the DIPA, his face lit up. "This is wonderful" he said, "What's the ABV?" I told him ~7.5 which it is (7.48) and he immediately shook my hand and said it was tremendously balanced for that high an ABV and he liked that although it is very very hoppy, I managed to get a nice thick mouthfeel. He thought the colour for this one was beautiful.

Then it got interesting... He asked how much I brew and what kind of volume I thought I could produce. I explained that it's just a hobby, and I didn't have the setup to brew huge batches... 5gal at a time, but I would love to make lots of it if I could.

Turns out, this guy has got several hundred thousand dollars between himself and some investors to start a craft brewery in Gananoque. (if you saw his house you'd know he has a ton of cash). He basically says he gets pissed off that the LCBO policy is not to buy beer from a brewer unless they can supply the entire chain, so he decided to get set up to brew and sell what he wants and what his customers are always asking for but that he isn't allowed to stock.. He is in the process of buying an 1800s building o nthe waterfront and installing brewing gear. He has approached a former co-worker who left Canada to get his brewmaster's degree in Germany. It's actually looking like this might move forward.

and here's the best bit.... While the day-to-day brewing would be handled by the brewmaster (obvious choice), he would like me to help develop the recipes and create special seasonal beers!!! I would be able to continue comitting the same time to it as I do now as a hobby, but brew batches on their equipment and get paid for the results......

Obviously not holding my breath, but this would be AWESOME!

BEst feedback ever
 
That is truely a wonderful compliment. It sounds like you have stumbled into a fantastic opportunity to do something most of us can only dream about. Best of luck to you and please update this thread as the project moves forward.
 
I don't want to be the one raining on your parade, but before agreeing to anything, have your beers tasted by an unbiased/uninterested party.

I recently tasted a couple of homebrewers' beer and they had gotten a bunch of praise from friends/family. When I tasted the beer, I immediately spotted the extract twang and some oxidation.

In their minds, they thought that starting a microbrewery while using extract is feasible. It just isn't. It's not your case in any event.

Bottom line: Don't get into something without getting it tested + tasted by a pro.

MC
 
Thanks for the comments everyone. Much appreciated

I don't want to be the one raining on your parade, but before agreeing to anything, have your beers tasted by an unbiased/uninterested party.

I recently tasted a couple of homebrewers' beer and they had gotten a bunch of praise from friends/family. When I tasted the beer, I immediately spotted the extract twang and some oxidation.

In their minds, they thought that starting a microbrewery while using extract is feasible. It just isn't. It's not your case in any event.

Bottom line: Don't get into something without getting it tested + tasted by a pro.

MC

Canuck, I couldn't agree with you more and I don't take it as raining on the parade at all. In any case, it's not my money and if the project leader likes my beers enough to throw a few $ my way and let me brew test batches on their setup, who am I to burst their bubble? Obviously if we were going to do this, we would have to convert all the recipes to work on a larger scale, re-learn the process for the new equipment, and then send out testers to some contests etc and do some small-release market research. I will have no more invested in this than some recipe development and time. Not expecting big gains financially from it either... would just be a lot of fun on someone else's dime!

Craft brewery operating on extract??? WTF? That's like a pro photographer who uses a crappy point&shoot .

That is really cool, congrats! Oh, and please do post that DIPA recipe :D


Recipe is on the recipe database... Island 17 Brewing "invincible" Double IPA.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f69/all-grain-island-17-brewing-invincible-double-ipa-298961/
 
It's been claimed on here by some very respected folks that there are micros out there brewed with extract. I can't imagine the cost though.
 
It's been claimed on here by some very respected folks that there are micros out there brewed with extract. I can't imagine the cost though.

I just can't believe anyone who does this professionally would give up the extra degree of control over the final product that you get with all-grain.
 
You can ge a lot of control with extract by which are used & in what amounts,besides all the other additions that make various styles what they are. But I can't see it being as cheap as AG.
 
Pretty certain that Water Street Brewery in Milwaukee is an extract brewer (I know one of the micros in downtown MKE is just can't recall with 100% certainty which one). Have not had their beer but if they have survived for as long as they have in a beer-centric town such as Milwaukee then they can't be too bad...
 
Crazy... especially at the volume of grain that you would buy to brew on that scale. My semi-local craft brewery gets me sacks of 2-row for under $30. I haven't bothered calculating the cost of the extract that would be the equivalent.
 
Crazy... especially at the volume of grain that you would buy to brew on that scale. My semi-local craft brewery gets me sacks of 2-row for under $30. I haven't bothered calculating the cost of the extract that would be the equivalent.

That's what I'm wondering about the extract. You'd need less extract to equal a certain amount of grain. But being concentrated seems like more expense. Unless they by large tanks wholesale. Like at Ford,we got thes big square tanks of Castrol to fill the engines with at that work station. So maybe they get the extract that way? It'd be interesting to see what that costs.
 
That's what I'm wondering about the extract. You'd need less extract to equal a certain amount of grain. But being concentrated seems like more expense. Unless they by large tanks wholesale. Like at Ford,we got thes big square tanks of Castrol to fill the engines with at that work station. So maybe they get the extract that way? It'd be interesting to see what that costs.

Indeed. I think extract would take some of the appeal out of it. I love going into craft breweries and seeing sacks of grain sitting around, or watching someone with a paddle scooping piles of steaming spent grains out of a hatch on the mash tun.
 
Back
Top