jkreuze
Well-Known Member
Me and the SWMBO toured the Summit Brewery this morning, a fine time was had by all.
I have pictures, may post if I get over this chronic laziness thing.
The guy in the beginning of the tour gave a brief history of beer and discussed the four main ingredients that you're all very familiar with. I was (I think) the only homebrewer in the group, so a lot of the question and answer stuff got steered away from me to other people in the group (which was fine with me, I am glad other people are learning about beer, and I don't need to make people listen to me to feel good about myself).
Their typical ale turnaround is 14 days plus probably 2-3 weeks in bottles in cold storage. They do contract brews for Finnegan's, so there were a few stacks of that in the cooler as well as the typical Summit brews. They got their current bottling machine, used, from Sierra Nevada, 5-6 years ago. Everyone was very nice and open about talking about brewing. The gift shop had some nice glassware but I didn't see myself in any of the hats or shirts (although the grilling apron might have made it into my Sunday wardrobe).
The tour guides emphasized often that "beer does not get better with age" -- beer is a food, drink it within 120 days after purchase. I think the reason we homebrewers's beer gets better with age is the lack of filtration -- our beer needs time to clean up and settle. I was going to bounce that theory off the brewmaster, but instead I went home.
They typically use three batches to fill a fermentor (438 gallons, I think?). They did like, 85000 gallons last year, and cover 12ish states in the Midwest.
(Not trying to make this post an infomercial for Summit, but for the benefit of those for whom it is not geographically practical to take the tour I thought I'd summarize the points I can recall.)
The beer at the in-house bar was pretty good. The red actually tasted a little green (red and greeen--Merry Christmas on that!). They had all the Summit flavors--oatmeal stout, EPA, IPA, Horizon Red, Pilsener, a porter, and some other beers.
Pretty shiny copper kettles! Nice clean brewery. It was fun, and you can't beat the price!
If anyone has any questions I'd be glad to answer if I can. Hoping to come back around with pictures, but no promises.
I have pictures, may post if I get over this chronic laziness thing.
The guy in the beginning of the tour gave a brief history of beer and discussed the four main ingredients that you're all very familiar with. I was (I think) the only homebrewer in the group, so a lot of the question and answer stuff got steered away from me to other people in the group (which was fine with me, I am glad other people are learning about beer, and I don't need to make people listen to me to feel good about myself).
Their typical ale turnaround is 14 days plus probably 2-3 weeks in bottles in cold storage. They do contract brews for Finnegan's, so there were a few stacks of that in the cooler as well as the typical Summit brews. They got their current bottling machine, used, from Sierra Nevada, 5-6 years ago. Everyone was very nice and open about talking about brewing. The gift shop had some nice glassware but I didn't see myself in any of the hats or shirts (although the grilling apron might have made it into my Sunday wardrobe).
The tour guides emphasized often that "beer does not get better with age" -- beer is a food, drink it within 120 days after purchase. I think the reason we homebrewers's beer gets better with age is the lack of filtration -- our beer needs time to clean up and settle. I was going to bounce that theory off the brewmaster, but instead I went home.
They typically use three batches to fill a fermentor (438 gallons, I think?). They did like, 85000 gallons last year, and cover 12ish states in the Midwest.
(Not trying to make this post an infomercial for Summit, but for the benefit of those for whom it is not geographically practical to take the tour I thought I'd summarize the points I can recall.)
The beer at the in-house bar was pretty good. The red actually tasted a little green (red and greeen--Merry Christmas on that!). They had all the Summit flavors--oatmeal stout, EPA, IPA, Horizon Red, Pilsener, a porter, and some other beers.
Pretty shiny copper kettles! Nice clean brewery. It was fun, and you can't beat the price!
If anyone has any questions I'd be glad to answer if I can. Hoping to come back around with pictures, but no promises.
