The Glutenator
Chris put his beer down long enough to write this on February 2nd, 2012 | No Comments
On tap 2-2-12. Our new strong, hoppy pale is gluten free!
This is a small batch out of our “mini-me” R and D tank, please come in directly to try some!
If you’re a gluten hater you’ll love the Glutenator!
Apparently…
Chris put his beer down long enough to write this on January 17th, 2012 | No Comments
… I have a great face for radio!
Last week, my buddy Ginger Johnson interviewed me for her weekly (weekly!) Beer Radio Program on KSKQ, Ashland, Oregon’s community radio station. Only in Oregon, the hippest, beeriest state in the union can you find a weekly radio show on beer. (Portland has one too, of course!)
Ginger is well immersed in the beer world through her “Women Enjoying Beer” website. In fact, she passed through Jackson Hole in the fall of ’09 and put on a seminar for our own gang of women beer drinkers. And she’s married to a brewer, Larry Chase of Standing Stone Brewing. (Around here she’d be known as a “brewer-doer” – not sure if they roll with that out in OR…?)
My episode is archived here.
And if you are so inclined, take a look back at her other archived programs. Ginger has put many of the true beer industry Illuminati before the mic. Even if you’re not near Ashland, you can live stream the programs on Wednesday evenings!
Thanks Ginger!
Brewers in the Stillhouse, Part 1
Chris put his beer down long enough to write this on January 4th, 2012 | No Comments
Recently, our neighbors over at Wyoming Whiskey were kind enough to extend an invitation to “brew” up our own custom Snake River Malt Whiskey. They are the first ever “legal” distillery in Wyoming. We considered their proposal for about one nanosecond before accepting! Now, as a restaurant, we had already signed up for their private barreling program. We are still awaiting the release of our very own barrel “#22″ Wyoming Whiskey Bourbon. (22 is the county code on the Wyo license plate for Teton County)
Barrel 22 of Wyoming Whiskey Bourbon reserved for Snake River Brewing. Release date: ???
This project however was different: we brought our own brewer’s malt (Weyermann’s finest) and our brewer’s yeast to make the distiller’s beer that will become our very own all-malt whiskey. As you may know, bourbon making requires a corn mash. At Wyoming Whiskey, Master Distiller Steve Nally uses Wyoming-grown corn, wheat and barley for a true “loca-hol” concoction. While ours might struggle for a designation, we thought it would be interesting to make an unhopped version of a beer we’d probably like to drink and see what the resulting distillate might taste like. Not exactly a scotch, not a bourbon, but a beer brewer’s all-malt whiskey.
Weyermann of Germany has a distinctive "W M" logo.
Cosmic Coincidence: Wyoming Whiskey has a distinctive "WW" logo!
This endeavor took place over two road trips: first to brew up our distiller’s beer and then after a five day fermentation back again for the distillation. Cory, Auggie, Tim and I headed over in two vehicles with Cory and I getting caught in a nasty blizzard over Togwotee pass followed by a reprise of sideways blowing snow through the Wind River Canyon. People like to refer to sparsely populated Wyoming as one big town with a really long Main Street, which is kinda true except when the crosswinds are 60 mph and the vis is barely out to the hood of your car, then it’s a REALLY long Main Street! Our arrival pushed the Kirby, Wyoming population from 57 to 61 for two days.
Tallest building in Kirby
Speaking of the small world factor, it’s remarkable how many tie-ins this collaboration has. First of all, our brewery spent grain in Jackson goes to the Mead Ranch of Brad and Kate Mead, co-founders of Wyoming Whiskey. Brad’s family is not “originally” from Wyoming, but you’d have to go back 4 generations before you find someone who isn’t from here! He is a rancher, attorney and brother of our current Governor. Kate is a lawyer herself and a School Board member here in Jackson.Their natural beef herd dines on our delicious leftovers. Co-founder David Defazio is COO of Wyoming Whiskey and consistently voted Jackson Hole’s best lawyer in the Jackson Hole Weekly’s annual “best of” poll. This “cabal” (insert lawyer jokes here) has been conspicuous in their patronage of our Brewpub. I’ve pretty much decided for myself that their ambition to open a distillery was fueled by several to many pints of Snake River Beer. (I could be wrong…)
Jake from WW runs the show under Big Steve and he guided us through the process
Cory from SRB prepping for the mash in
Their steam heated Mash mixer gave us options to protein rest and step infuse that we don't get in our brewery. We had to quickly devise a program and then we let'r rip!
"Little" Steve runs the cooker.
Steve preps the fermenter that will hold our "beer". He hasn't fallen in...yet!
As the "wort"(?) pumps over to the fermenter, Cory pitches the brewer's yeast the old fashioned way! Yep, open fermenters in the distillery. Don't ask me how I know this, but flavor compounds from the yeast do seem to have a carry over affect in the distilled product. We expect our beer yeast to have different flavors from the distiller's yeast that WW uses.
To be Continued…
P.U.B. Bike Expo II
Chris put his beer down long enough to write this on December 8th, 2011 | No Comments
Pretty Unique Bikes (P.U.B.) Expo II was held this past November 1st, 2nd and 3rd. We started this little show last year to highlight the efforts of the local, custom framebuilders we have in our little mountain town. We also had local collectors bring in vintage and unique cycles. We had a great turnout and decided to go for number II which was a great success with a slew of new bikes and only two repeaters. For 2011 we extended the show to three days and we gave the public a chance to vote for their favorite P.U.B.
A custom hand built steel cross bike. Owner: Warren Ostler. Builder: Tim Hoff, Hoff's Bikesmith
A few oldies came out of the woodwork. Keith Benefiel built his own road frame back in 1976 and she’s still going strong.
Keith's handbuilt 1976 Benefiel
All told seven local framebuilders had bikes on display. Drew Gillingwators of Greybike had his first urban hipster single speed hanging in the show.
Drew's first Greybike SS
The focus for two builders, Shane Dawson and Tim Hoff has been on swing bikes. basically your top tube pivots at the fork and also right in front of your seat tube. The crazy frame designs inspire a few more flourishes than just the standard double diamond of a normal bike.
hey, how come the wheels don't "line up"???
A Shane Dawson headbadge affixed to the Tim Hoff Swinger
Shane Dawsons King of Swing won the people’s choce for best in show. The buttressed bridge of a top tube and his intricate paint job swayed the voters.
Shane's sublime King of Swing
Carl Detwyler builds his own bikes for his own pleasure. he’s been turning out one frame a year for the last three years. This year he built a 29er dir road touring machine. His earlier Pingora I was a high vote getter among visitors to the show.
A class touring bike, handbuilt by Carl Detwyler
Pingora I detail
Pingora I Detail
- Pingora’s lugged construction
Jack Koehler had a business building custom bikes for riders and racers throughout the nineteen eighties. While he still lives in town he no longer works in the bike biz but his custom built beauties ride on and on.
80's Purple fade paint
Mike Lowham formerly of Jackson and now living in Lander has built lots of custom crazies but he always includes some nice details like this “JH” heaad badge on a road bike he built for brother Doug.
Besides the handbuilts we got to show other unique bikes. Our local hometown hero “Jay P” Petervary had just recently completed his No Idle Tour an amazing solo trifecta dedicated to the memory of Willie Neal and reminding us all to turn off the car engine when you don’t need it (dammit!). Below is a pic of the Orbea Alma that he rode to a new record time on the Tour Divide route from Banff, Canada to the Mexican border. And keep in mind you’re seeing it fully loaded just as he rode it for 2745 miles in 17 days, 9 hours!
There were many other bikes in the show and we do expect to keep the Expo alive for as long as new bikes are built and new collectors come out of the woodwork with vintage curiosities.
Thanks to everyone involved and see you next year for P.UB. Epo III!
Reno Int’l Canfest 2011
Chris put his beer down long enough to write this on November 19th, 2011 | No Comments
Last week Auggie and I loaded up the SRB rig to head out to Reno, NV for the third annual Canfest. This festival is an international competition and public tasting for canned beer which was started by the owners of Buckbean Brewing a canning only micro in Reno. They have done us all a great service in their efforts to promote the benefits of canned beers and we were excited to participate!
First off, Jackson to Reno is about an eleven hour drive. Fortunately for us, Ruby Mountain Brewing Company outside Wells, NV is right at the halfway point! Steve and Maggie Safford have always warmly welcomed us to their remote Angel Creek cattle ranch with microbrewery and whenever I pass through this part of the basin and range country I make it a point to stop in!
Next day we found ourselves in the” biggest little city” (any city is big to us!) just in time to attend the Canfest beer dinner and awards ceremony at the downtown Silver Legacy Casino. As simple mountain folk, our heads were spinning in the midst of all the slot- playing, dice-throwing, card-playing, buffet-eating mass of American humanity that was present. But we came back down to earth with a finely prepared multi-course meal with all canned beers as accompaniments.
The chef used last year’s canfest winners in the menu. At the after-dinner awards ceremony we were gratified to receive a Golden Can for our Pako’s IPA and a Bronze for Snake River Pale Ale. To top it off, after all the categories were announced, it was revealed that Pako’s IPA had been named “Best in Show” at the festival, Woo-Hoo! Go Snake!
On Saturday, the Buckbean owners, Doug and Dan, treated all the visiting brewers to a nice tour and sampling at their facility. They have a spic and span operation that stands poised to undertake a nice amount of growth as they mature into their market place. On shelves around the tasting room they have a collection of a can, a bottle and a pint glass from all fifty states and lots of foreign countries. We left some cans to fill in the Wyoming section alongside a lone pint glass from Bitter Creek Brewing in Rock Springs, WY. We grabbed a nice lunch at Great Basin Brewing, well known for their Ichy IPA and Cerveza Chillibeso chili beer. (Oh yeah and we found the Trader Joe’s in Reno, stocked up on snacking goodness to import back to Wyoming) A stop at total wine yielded us many speciality brews to cart back home as well.
By then we needed to get down to the business of setting up for the public festival. The organizers donate the proceeds to a non-profit and this year the festival money went to the Reno Bike Project, a non-profit that is certainly in line with my own cycling related tendencies!
The public flooded in and drank us dry by the end of the evening. The Pako’s ran out first and a few unfortunate, procrastinating souls missed out on that explosive Simcoe nose that has done so much for the beer’s reputation.
(One of our volunteer pourers, Zeina, had a unique Wyoming tie in. She went to high school with the late Matthew Shepard. Talking to her brought back a flood of memories of this sad chapter of Wyoming events. Zeina left me with a purple wrist bracelet that encourages us all to “erase hate”. If you don’t know this story please take a moment to visit the website…)
On Sunday, being the simple mountain folk that we are, Auggie and I left behind the glitter of the city and headed up to Tahoe for some sight-seeing and skiing. (of course we had schlepped our skis with us on this trip, yeah we’re like that!) Apres and dinner at the Fifty-fifty Brewpub in Truckee. Great food and beers here! Auggie had some high school buddies up in Squaw valley that we crashed with and then did a 5am Monday morning turn around back to the Tetons, home in time for our own winter to begin.
Canfest 2011 was AWESOME. We sincerely hope Buckbean will keep the ball rolling as the canning breweries are just going to increase geometrically and this festival is likely to become a major force in the craft brewing world.
Thanks Guys!
Summer Brewers, Part B
Chris put his beer down long enough to write this on August 4th, 2011 | 1 Comment
If you’re like me and you hear the name Hieronymus this is probably what you think of :
The Hell panel from the Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymus Bosch, circa 1500.
No…? Well then you must know the beer world and the last name Hieronymus. It carries a lot of knowledge and prestige, a la STAN Hieronymus, famous beer author, homebrewer and blogger. Stan’s brother’s kid is Cameron Hieronymus and he showed up here as our other summer brewer. So beer geeks get ready to be confused and astounded as more and more Hieronymuses (Hieronymusi?) make their reputations in the craft beer world.
Cameron plunged himself/was plunged into full bore wort production as soon as we got our hooks into him! Cam is amazingly passionate about beer; so much so, that after only two months working here we tasked him with his first signature series. The result is Slow Guy Ale, a Belgain style “single”. Imagine the monks in an abbey brewing a simple table beer to fortify themselves at mealtimes and that might be your “single”. They would devote the rest of their production to Dubbels, and Tripels to sell to weary travelers and tourists in order to meet the financial obligations of their order.
Now as far as the name goes, that has to do with a footrace against Acacia and a sandbagging mountain bike ride with the rest of the brew crew. I’ll just leave the finishing order of those events up to your imagination!
With a little luck we’re going to have to try and keep Mr Hieronymus here a little longer if we can…
With a break-out signature series like The Slow Guy, we can hardly wait to see what he’ll come up with next!
Summer Brewers, Part one
Chris put his beer down long enough to write this on July 22nd, 2011 | No Comments
As the southern gateway to Yellowstone park (which receives 3 million visitors a year!), Jackson Hole gets extremely busy in the summer. For the last few years we’ve had an intern program to beef up our crew during the crunch times and to help train some enthusiastic new brewers. (Intern is a bit of misnomer, these are full paid but temporary positions.)
For 2011 we have two noobs in the brewhouse, today I’d like to introduce Acacia Baldner. Acacia came to us from 
Standing Stone Brewery in Ashland, Oregon where she served an apprenticeship last summer under the tutelage of Brewmaster Larry Chase. (Thanks for training us up a great employee Larry!)
Acacia, 23, is a 2011 graduate of Southern Oregon University with a BS in Chemistry. Hailing from Bend, Oregon and then Ashland, Baldner purports to be a true Northwest Hop head but also enjoys the Belgian Sours. She claims her desert island beer would be a nut brown ale.
With a hop-growing homebrewer father, Acacia caught the brewing bug early on and after starting a pre-med program, she decided brewing was more to her liking. Acacia’s long term goal is to return to Oregon to open her own brewery. In the meantime, she is enrolled at UC Davis for the Master Brewers Program this fall. And when that program ends she’ll be gettin’ hitched next spring. Congrats!
Acacia will be exploring the Tetons as much as possible this summer. She enjoys mtn. biking with her fellow brewers (!), hiking in the mountains and floating the rivers.
Acacia has been cranking out lots of brews for us this summer and we hope to give her a well-rounded background in cellar ops and packaging as well.
Thanks A and welcome to the team!!
Acacia’s all over the blogosphere! Check her out here and here
Pako’s IPA cans reviewed
Chris put his beer down long enough to write this on July 1st, 2011 | No Comments
We are grateful for our friends and fans out in the blogosphere. Russ over at craft cans dot com wrote up a nice summary of his tasting experience with our Pako’s (say Paco’s) IPA recently. Read it here. Thanks Russ!
Pale Side by Side
Chris put his beer down long enough to write this on June 23rd, 2011 | No Comments
Big thanks to blogger Logan Thompson for conducting a bottle/can comparison tasting of our Pale Ale. Please have look here. Logan lives just outside of Portland OR, up in Vancouver, WA. and has a very useful site.
Portland is the number one beer town in my book and most Portlanders know more about micro-beers than your average joe six-pack! It’s like when we have a German or English or Belgian or Czech visitor come to Jackson, we’re on pins and needles to see what they think!
So which package came out on top? I won’t spoil it, you’ll have to go to Logan’s blog to find out!
Le serpent cerise
Chris put his beer down long enough to write this on June 13th, 2011 | No Comments
The serpent returns to the pub with the Cerise on tap and in bombers. This is the cherry version that is oh so tart and tasty.
Get it or regret it!!
How they do it in the old country...
Cory doing it new-school