I have just heard that at the start of November I am destined for the states. To save on beer miles and hence reduce its impact on the environment we are brewing Doom Bar in the US for the US market rather than exporting. This will also ensure that beer is as fresh as possible when it hits the market. I am travelling over to the Lion Brewery in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to oversee the first brew on 5th November then supervising subsequent brews remotely, very remotely!
Getting to this stage has been a long, involved but interesting process. Extrapolating the recipe and process to the brew kit they have at Lion has been tough and made a lot tougher by the fact that US brewers work in an entirely different set of units which all need to be converted before they make sense. Combine the conversion from American pounds, gallons, Lovibonds, Farenheit, PSI and Plato to tonnes, hectolitres, EBC, centigrade bar and SG with different utilsations and vessel types and you have a thobbing brain.
I am due to taste some prototype batches produced at Lion and then pace up and down anxiously as the first US Doom Bar is born. Lion was selected because they are a proper contract brewer with a quite a few gongs in their cabinet.
7 comments:
nice one, that sounds like fun! Hope it all goes well!
Thanks Andy, It would be fun if I had more time to spend there. I'll be travelling, brewing then travelling again! I'm sure it will be a great experience.
What could possibly go wrong?....
My sentiments exactly Zak!
Excellent, Now maybe I will get a chance to try something you have brewed, instead of just imagining it on the internet. I would like to hear more about the recipe of this beer, has the recipe been changed for local ingredients as well as local brewhouses?
I would like you to tell me, in furlongs, how far is Lion Brewery. And in chains.
Just to make sure your conversions are correct of course...
Kelly
Mr Beard Blogger, We have managed to get the majority of the ingredients we use in the US so they have not been so much of an issue. I have tried as much as possible to take account of the brewhouse and fermentation equipment at Lion but there is a limit to what you can do. With the US Doom Bar I have tried to keep the essence of beer while attempting to make it fit in the US market so it’s not going to be identical. Doom is not a “craft” beer in the UK and won’t be in the US. It is designed to appeal to a broad spectrum of the drinking public with balance, drinkability and clean flavours. If you’re used to drinking US craft beer taste monsters then it may be a little subtle to ring your bell!
Kelly hi, I am sitting about 1139.2 furlongs from the Lion Brewhouse which is of course about 11,392 chains. This is the aerial distance from my brewery and does not include my travel from the middle of nowhere to the London for the flight. Interestingly if I laid a chain of barley grains end to end along the line between the breweries I would be a cock and would drown in the Atlantic about 10 yards from Rock beach.
Post a Comment