2013 Smuttynose Farmhouse Ale

Shipments begin on May 28!!!

Farmhouse ales are less of a style and more of a loose branch on the beer family tree, originating in the agrarian borderland shared by France and Belgium.  When farm owners needed to provide nourishment and compensation to seasonal farm workers, beer was an obvious part of the package, since they were already growing many of the ingredients.  The humble origins of these beers meant that they were brewed with whatever ingredients were on hand.  This lack of convention has lead to breweries that specialize in or even focus exclusively on saison-style beers, like Oxbow in Maine and Fantome in Belgium.   We don't work on a farm now, but we will be before the year is done.  In this spirit of change, we've tweaked the Farmhouse Ale a little bit this year, adding a small amount of sage.  The result is slightly amplified fruit character, so don't be afraid that we've completely recreated the beer.   As always, Smuttynose Big Beers are released in limited amounts.  The next two releases are Homunculus, in early July and Rhye IPA, a new release featuring copious amounts of rye malt and the Falconer's Flight hop blend, in August. Farmhouse Ale Stat Box 7.0 % abv 15 IBU Starting Extract: 13° Plato Malts: North American 2-Row, Wheat Hops: Saaz Other Ingredients: Sage Yeast: White Labs WLP-565 Belgian Saison Yeast  Food Pairings: Saisons are really excellent at the table; Saison Dupont is often cited as one of, if not the best pairing beers in the world.  Smuttynose Farmhouse Ale doesn't have such a claim to fame, but you can certainly enjoy it with almost anything light from salads or fish to chicken or wild mushrooms.

June 2013 Smuttynose Releases

Just a quick update from production, for those of you who like looking forward to what's next...

2013 Farmhouse Ale (~8.7%), our next Big Beers Series release, begins shipping the week of Memorial Day, so it'll likely hit shelves and taps in early June.  We've tweaked the recipe this year with an addition of sage.

Next up, in early or mid June will be another 30 barrels of Durty (~9%) the hoppy, brown ale from our Short Batch Series.  This time around, all the flavor hop additions will be made with Falconer's Flight, a unique hop blend from HopUnion which includes Citra, Simcoe, Sorachi Ace and a few proprietary and experimental varieties.  Like the rest of our Short Batch releases, bottling will be very limited, with the bulk of bottles being available at Smuttynose.  We don't have an exact release date yet, so stay tuned to Facebook and Twitter for updates.

Vunderbar Pilsner six packs and kegs are shipping now and Summer Weizen should be in all markets.  If you can't find them at your local beer store, ask for them!  

Finally, we're happy to show off our new Big Beer Series glassware.  It holds a full pint and the artwork would be perfect for your bicep, if you want a sweet armband tattoo (let us know if you actually get one).  You can get them at Smuttynose right now, though they'll soon be in the retail store at Portsmouth Brewery.  MSRP, $6.

Cheers!

It's time for warm weather (beers)!

Smuttynose Summer Weizen and Vunderbar Pilsner are both shipping out of our warehouse now and should be on shelves in your neck of the woods very soon!

Summer Weizen (5.3% abv, 15 IBU) is our unique take on a wheat beer.  Starting with a traditional German wheat beer grain bill (2:1 barley malt to wheat malt), our brewers veer from that well-traveled path by fermenting the beer with our Belgian Trappist-style yeast and infusing the soft, floral notes of chamomile just before the wort is cooled for fermentation.  The result is a relaxing brew that's perfect for your fishing trip, barbecue, softball game or back porch.   

Vunderbar Pilsner (5.1% abv, 15 IBU) returns to our "Now and Then" series, taking the place of Noonan Black IPA.  2013's release is the same as last year's; it's made from traditional old world ingredients (German Pilsner malt, Saaz hops, lager yeast, water and nothing else)  and is unfiltered.  While the liquid inside the bottle is unchaged from last year; we've expanded the package and are now offering Vunderbar in  now be available in six packs (rather than a four pack) at the same price you pay for the rest of our year-round and seasonal beers.  Try it and see why we can't keep it on tap in our hospitality nook

In addition to the many fine stores that sell Smuttynose beers (and there are a lot), you an always stop by the brewery to buy beer during our tours or during the week, between 9am and 4pm.  

We'd like to end this blog post by reminding you of the Vunderbar Pilsner theme song, which you can enjoy here or a spiffy video, produced by our friends at Good Beer NYC.  

Enjoy your summer and thanks for making yours a Smutty!

Smuttynose Short Batch: Bloom

Planetary forces are hard to tweak.  If we had more control of the weather, we wouldn't have gotten nearly a foot of wet, heavy snow the day before spring begins.  Well, snow be damned!  It's not stopping us from releasing Bloom, our spring-themed Short Batch, on Friday, March 22 during brewery tours.  Shipments to our wholesalers start on March 25.

This Belgian golden ale was brewed in collaboration with Chef Evan Mallet and his staff from the Black Trumpet Bistro and features flavor and aroma contributions from eight edible flowers not commonly found in beer: yarrow, lavender, chamomile, rose buds, elder flowers, calendula, nasturtium and dianthus, that were grown specifically for this beer by Chef Mallet's staff at Meadow's Mirth Farm.

Flavor-wise, our wood-aging funktifier and frequent-pilot-batch-brewer, Charlie Ireland offered these tasting notes: "flavors of spice and bubble gum from the Belgian yeast, an extremely floral aroma (big shock, I know), while the flowers add their own difficult-to-describe flavor contributions."  You really should just stop by and try it for yourself.

There isn't a lot of Bloom to go around, only 25.5 barrels, and most of that will be put into 86 1/6 barrel kegs.  The remainder of the batch is in a bottled-conditioned, 750ml, cork-finished package.  Bloom bottles will be available at Smuttynose for $15 and we've got a list of most of the other bottle accounts to help you out, should wish to forage your own bottle.

For more information about our tours, please visit: http://smuttynose.com/how_to_find_smuttynose.html

Bloom bottle accounts

New Hampshire:
Route 13 Stateline, Brookline
Barb's Beer Emporium, Concord
Barb's Beer Emporium, Londonderry
The Beer Store, Nashua
Bert's Better Beers, Hooksett
Top Shelf Brews, Hampton
Hampton Falls Village Market, Hampton Falls
Portsmouth Provisions, Portsmouth
Brewtopia, Keene
The Co-op Food Store, Lebanon
Smuttynose Brewing Company, Portsmouth

Massachusetts:
Julio's, Westborough
Table and Vine,West Springfield
Provisions, Northampton
Yankee Spirits, Sturbridge
Spirited, Lenox
Domaney's, Great Barrington
Kelly's Package Store, Dalton
Ball Square Fine Wines, Somerville
Liquor World, Somerville
Craft Beer Cellar, Belmont
Gordon's, Watertown and both Waltham stores
Blanchard's, Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury and Allston

February 2013 Towle Farm Update

Portsmouth Beer Week seems like a perfect time to share an update on the construction of our new brewery at Towle Farm in Hampton.  Here it is!

Despite three weekends of snow storms, work continues at an impressive rate.  I can't say I envy the work crews out there, but I certainly appreciate the work they've been doing under such cruddy conditions.  The building is far enough along that our brewing and packaging staff recently went out to the site for the first time to see the progress and walk through their new work space.  They were pretty amazed and excited.

One things they're excited about is our new brewhouse, which is being built right now.  It's a four vessel, 100 hectoliter (~85 barrels) system from top German firm, Krones.  This powerful piece of machinery is from the same Combi Cube line as the system Founders Brewing recently installed, though theirs is a bit smaller.  The new technology will greatly increase our consistency and quality, which is vitally important when brewing and packaging beer.  There's so much to say about the system, that it'll get its own post once it arrives on our shores.

Otherwise, here are a few updates and photos from our builder's representative and project manager, Clark James.

-The warehouse is almost fully enclosed, save for the overhead doors and interior partition separating it from the bottling area.

-The panel crew has been working to affix insulated panels to the exterior of the building.  The building won't actually be yellow.

-The roofers are progressing with insulating the sloped roof, and have installed membrane ("TPO") on much of the flat roof.

-Masonry has been completed on several of the interior block walls, and the masons have begun installing the stone veneer on the exterior on the front of the building.

-We hope to start framing in the brew pub within two weeks.

That's not all:

We're working with the folks at Applecrest Farm, a local orchard, to revitalize the Towle Farm Orchard.  Many people have asked if we'll make cider.  While it might be fun, I believe we'd need a winery license and that isn't remotely on our radar right now.  On the other hand, we will have a pub at Towle Farm, so I can certainly imagine many more culinary uses for the fruit, than fermentory ones.

Smuttynose is lucky to have two beekeepers on staff and we'll be able to use their skills on our new beerhives!  The bees will arrive at their new home at Towle Farm in April.  Clark, who is one of the beekeepers, says we've got Italians with Carnolian queens.  If you're asking about mead, the same answer to the cider question applies here.  

Construction began with the warehouse.

If you were in our pub, this would be your view of the brewery.

Snow can't stop the Harvey Construction crew!

The main entrance is in the lower left-hand corner of this shot.  
The offices are just above on the second floor.

Here's a cool night time shot, looking straight down the fermentation cellar.  

The backside of the warehouse is closing up.  Note the barn on the right.

If you'd like up to the minute views of the new brewery, check out our webcam at http://www.towlefarm.com.

Smuttynose and 2013 Portsmouth Beer Week

According to the Brookston Beer Bulletin, there are nearly 100 beer weeks in America, but ours runs from February 24-March 4.  We've seen beer awareness in the Seacoast grow a great deal since we tapped our first keg of Shoals Pale Ale at the Stockpot in June, 1994.  Back then, we had to try and explain why our beer was different than cold, yellow and fizzy.  Now, we've got a region full of craft beer drinkers and we're very excited to celebrate the beer culture that's finally taking root here.
  
Bill Harris has worked very hard to put together this slate of events.  Thanks to him, we'll be tapping some rare barrel-aged beers, showing some love to some of our favorite accounts and debuting Noonan, our new Black IPA.  We're pretty excited and our brewers, bottlers and sales folk will be out during the week, drinking and making merry with you all.  We hope to see you at one of these awesome events.

 

Saturday 2/23: Seacoast Winter Beer Festival at The Gas Light, Two sessions plus VIP, please visit http://seacoastwinterbrewfest.com/ for more information.  
            The 2BeerGuys and Seacoast Beverage Lab have reunited with the Gas Light to host the Seacoast’s only winter beer fest.  This year’s edition has brewers set up on heated space on their famous deck, as well as the third floor, where last year’s fest was.  The VIP session begins at 11am while the first session starts at noon and runs to 3pm.  The second session runs from 4pm-7pm.  We'll be featuring 2011 Scotch Ale and 2011 S'Muttonator, so make sure you have a hearty lunch!

Sunday 2/24: Rolling Out The Barrels with Smuttynose, Sam Adams and WHEB at RiRa from 3pm-5pm.

            RiRa will be pouring, Big A IPA and three year old, a barrel-aged variant of one of our most prized Big Beers, Baltic Porter, while bearded Smuttynose staffers will be there to schmooze.

Monday 2/25: Smuttynose Wine Bar Takeover at the Black Trumpet, starting at 6pm. 

            Chef Evan, Denise, Marion and RJ open their doors and draft lines to debut our newest collaboration beer: Bloom!  Bloom is a Belgian golden ale brewed with edible flowers grown by the Trumpet’s staff at Meadow’s Mirth Farm.  If that’s not cool enough, you can also try recent Short Batches Durty and ParadoX as well as a 2010 Baltic Porter aged in bourbon barrels.  Each beer will also have a food pairing curated by a Smuttynose staff member.  Foodies won’t want to miss this chance to take over one of Portsmouth’s most beautiful dining rooms.

Tuesday 2/26: Smuttynose Rare Beer Tapping and Pairing at The Thirsty Moose, from 6pm-8pm

            2012 Really Old Brown Dog, bourbon barrel-aged Robust Porter and bourbon barrel-aged 2010 Wheat Wine will join Finestkind IPA, Old Brown Dog, Robust Porter, Shoals Pale Ale, and Big A in the largest draft account in Portsmouth.

Tuesday 2/26: The Return of the IPAs at TJ’s, from 8pm-10pm

            Portsmouth’s own hop-stravaganza returns for a second year to TJ’s.  We’ll be featuring our double IPA, Big A, and Paradox, our very limited session IPA brewed with experimental hop 01210. 

Wednesday 2/27: The Blue Mermaid, The Third Annual Smuttynose Vs. J. Lohr Beer vs. Wine Dinner, reception beer at 6pm

            This annual event includes passed appetizers and four delicious courses, each paired with a Smuttynose beer and a J. Lohr wine.  At the end of the night, diners will choose the winner, so please help us stack the deck!  Our beers for the night are: Star Island Single, Old Brown Dog, 2012 Homunculus, 2012 Scotch Ale and a cask of 2013 Baltic Porter aged on cocoa nibs.  For more information, please call the Mermaid at (603) 427-2583.

Thursday 2/28: Fun With Firkins at the Coat of Arms, featuring Smuttynose, Throwback and Moat Mountain, from 6pm-8pm

            We’ll be pouring Finestkind IPA dry-hopped with experimental hop 01210.  Fellow Granite State brewers, Moat Mountain and Throwback will also be on the beer engines for your drinking pleasure.

Thursday, 2/28: Belgium Comes To Portsmouth!  The Gas Light, from 8pm-10pm

            Beer Week returns to the scene of the Seacoast Winter Beer Fest!  2012 Zinneke and 2013 Gravitation will be pouring as part of the Gas Light’s collection of Belgian treats.  Alpo, their beer buyer, can really assemble a beer collection, so you won’t want to miss this!

Friday 3/1: WXGR Gourmet Lounge, a live broadcast cooking show, featuring Rudi’s and Smuttynose, Rudi’s in the Square, from 6pm-8pm

            Rudi’s chef will demonstrate how to cook two dishes, incorporating a Smuttynose beer into each.  The Gourmet Lounge is open to the first 70 people who show up.  These lucky folks will be able to enjoy Durty and bourbon barrel-aged 2010 Baltic Porter on tap. 

Saturday 3/2: Art²: Artisanal Beer and Locally-Themed Art, Opening Reception, at 6pm

            We’re teaming up with the fine folks at Sam Adams and the Press Room to open a crowd-sourced art event.  The call has gone out to the Seacoast to create locally-themed or -influenced art, which will be on display (and for sale) at the Press Room for the entire month of March.  A bourbon-oaked Finestkind cask will be on the bar for your drinking enjoyment along with bourbon barrel-aged 2010 Baltic Porter, bourbon barrel-aged 2010 Wheat Wine, and 2011 Farmhouse Ale.  $1.00 from each pint goes to (H)EAT, a local organization that helps local families bridge heating and food deficits.  if you want to submit art work, please email the Press Room's Tristan Law at tristanklaw (at) gmail (dot) com.

Sunday 3/3: A Day of Rest and Liver Recovery

Monday 3/4:  We’ll probably go to lunch at Portsmouth Brewery

Short Batch: ParadoX, a session IPA

We brewed another IPA in the Short Batch Series; this one is called ParadoX.

ParadoX is a beer of the moment.  It's a session IPA, brewed with an experimental hop variety (01210, it's really lemony) and a portion of New England grown malt.  Our brewing staff has wanted to brew one of these for a long time and just about everyone in the company has been waiting to drink one. So, why'd we do it now?

Way back in late 2012, David Yarrington, our intrepid Director of Brewing Operations, was approached to brew an anniversary beer for Mohegan Sun's Sun Wine Fest's 10th anniversary (we've got the whole craft beer crossover thing covered here too), he called up one of our hop brokers to inquire about an experimental variety he'd smelled at hop harvest last fall.  Despite there being only 5 acres of this variety growing in the whole world, we were able to get enough pellets to brew ParadoX.

The Sun Wine Fest, which took place January 25-27 at the Connecticut casino, only needed about two barrels of the batch, so we've got the rest to ship out to beer lovers.  We've saved you the ticket price, but you also missed on the chance to eat some incredible food and meet some really talented chefs.

ParadoX is light bodied, loaded with lemony-citrus hop flavor and very drinkable, but you don't have to take my word for it, here are a few reviews:

Man Drinks Beer
The Boston Globe's 99 Bottles

We'll tap the beer and have 22 ounce bottles for sale ($9 each) at Smuttynose during tours the weekend of February 8. You can reserve spots for our tours on the "Visit Us" section of our website. Shipments to our wholesalers begin the following Monday, February 11.    For our home market, ParadoX will be featured on tap at three February events:

February 14 7pm-9pm Strange Brew, Manchester, NH 
February 25 6pm Black Trumpet Early Bloom event, also pouring Durty, Bloom and barrel-aged    2010 Baltic Porter, Portsmouth Beer Week
February 25 8pm-10pm IPA Night at TJ's, Portsmouth Beer Week

Vital Stats:

5.3% abv   40 IBU
Malts: North American 2-Row, English Pale Ale, Aromatic, Valley Malt C-60
Hops: Bittering- Bravo, Flavor-01210, Dry Hop- 01210
Yeast: American Ale

Production:  30 barrels (100 1/6 bbl kegs, 28 cases)

Food Pairings:  Paradox would be good with certain types of seafood and maybe some salads, but you're going to want to just drink this one on its own.

Here is a list of most of the accounts where you can find ParadoX.  Please remember that we don't know when the accounts will get their beer, or when they'll make it available, only when it leaves our warehouse.  For more information, please contact the account of your choice.

New Hampshire Draft
    Strange Brew, Manchester
    Biederman's Deli, Plymouth
    Popper's at the Mill, Newmarket
    Rudi's, Portsmouth
    The Press Room, Portsmouth
    TJ's, Portsmouth
    The Black Trumpet, Portsmouth
       
New Hampshire Bottles
    Bert's Better Beers, Hookset
    The Beer Store, Nashua
    Barb's Beer Emporium, Concord
    Ayotte's, Hudson
    Brewtopia, Keene
    Route 13 State Line, Hudson
    Portsmouth Provisions, Portsmouth
    Cigarette City, Seabrook
    Johnson's Market, New Durham

 Maine Draft
    The Black Birch, Kittery
    Pi Men Miyake, Portland
    Nocturnem Draft House, Bangor
    Novare Res, Portland

Vermont Draft: 2 logs, destination unknown

Massachusetts Draft
    Armsby Abbey, Worcester
    Plan B, Springfield
    Deep Ellum, Allston
    Meadhall, Cambridge
    Atwood's, Cambridge
    Bukowski's, Cambridge
    Christopher's, Cambridge
    Independent, Somerville
    Sunset Grill, Allston

Massachusetts Bottles
    Julio's, Westboro
    Table and Vine, Springfield
    Spirited, Lenox
    Liquor World, Somerville
    Craft Beer Cellar, Belmont
    Gordon's, Watertown and both Waltham locations
    Blanchard's, Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury, and Allston

New York Draft
    Cole's, Buffalo
    The Tap and Mallet, Rochester
    The Ruck, Troy
    The Bier Abbey, Schenectady

Connecticut Draft
    Gingerman, Greenwich
    Mikro, New Haven

Rhode Island Draft
    Julian's, Providence
              

Calling All Artists!

It's just under a month until 2013's Portsmouth Beer Week begins.

This year, we're teaming up with Sam Adams and Portsmouth's hallowed Press Room, to put on a crowd-sourced art show, Art ²: Unique Beer and Unique Art, but we need you to create the art.

One part gallery show and one part beer event, Art ² kicks off on March 2, with vintage, rare and unreleased beers, live music and most importantly, your Portsmouth-themed or inspired art.

Submitted works will remain on the fabled brick walls of the Press Room, for sale, for the entire month of March and a portion of the proceeds will be going to (H)EAT, a local non-profit.

What type of art? Photography, painting, prints, ceramics, sculpture and any other medium. If it has to do with Portsmouth and the surrounding area, we want it in the show. For more details, please email Tristan Law (TristanKLaw (at) gmail.com). All entries must be submitted by February 28th.
 
On behalf of all three parties, we hope you can channel your inspiration into something artistic, preferably by the 28th and participate in the show.