I visited a brewery today!

[Ward Chillington]

My kid gave me a beer nerd tour of Flying Dog located down in Frederick, Maryland for my birthday . What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon!

The Brewery is located in an industrial park on the south part of town that is fronted by a good sized tasting room that also had a lecture on first amendment rights going on at the same time. Apparently it's one of the company's pet causes. This tour is pretty darn cool as you start off in a class room with a short lecture on safety and such as they were brewing at the time and you basically followed the whole process from grist to case or keg.

Along with getting into the guts of the process, you also get a number of different samplings throughout the tour including s shot of green beer direct from a 250BB tank...their Pearl Necklace Chesapeake Stout in this case, which gets a bunch of oysters thrown into the batch in order to put a little bit of the bay in each bottle! Believe it or not they even have a brew with Old Bay in it!
.
Along with the Stout, we sampled their Thunder Peel, a hazy IPA, Field Notes which was a Pale Ale with all Maryland ingredients including hops from a program with the University of Maryland School of Agriculture who is on their 3rd of 4th year of introducing hop culture back into the state. Another "Cause Beer" that they are brewing on a very limited release was a golden ale called Bee Beer, obviously its got local honey in it were a part of the proceeds go to some wildlife cause. I dunno...maybe it should have gone to Farm Aid....No Bee's, No Farms.....No Farms, No Beer!

 

[jmcnamara]

That place is really cool. My wife and I did a beer tour thing where we visited flying dog and 3 other breweries. Very cool to see the vastly different size breweries still putting out good beer. I swear one of them couldn't have been bigger than a 711

 

[Ward Chillington]

I forgot about these 2 pix from the F Dog tour. Put this in your lesson book under cautionary tales.

So if you have a kid, cable TV and you are here in the USA, you probably have an awareness of the Cartoon Network...and you probably know about "Adult Swim" programing that shows up there in the wee smalls when the kiddos are fast asleep. Flying Dog decided to name one of their summer specials after it. Their people called the Cartoon Network people and asked if the could use it, they said yeah...we're not in the beer business, go ahead! So Flying Dog did...then a few weeks later Cartoon Network changed their mind! So what do ya do? You rename it..... and you repack it and you keep your Ralph Steadman original artwork on the box!!

 

[ChicoBrewer]

At the Sierra Nevada taproom tonight. Busy as usual.

 

[Mase]

I was in there back in the early 2000’s when we did some environemtnatl cleanup at an old wood treating facilty in Orrville/Feather river area. I recall we were the for 4-5 months and it never rained a drop. If I recall, they were just recently selling outside the west coast about them. I remember the open fermenters begins the large bar area. I bet it’s changed a bit since then. I’ll have to look up when I was last out there.

 

[ChicoBrewer]

The wildflower is tomorrow. Famous century bike ride. People come from all over

https://www.wildflowercentury.org

 

[jmcnamara]

Went to Stumptown Ales in Davis, WV. Pretty good (but heavy on the IPAs) and great people

 

[jmcnamara]

Went to Stumptown Ales in Davis, WV. Pretty good (but heavy on the IPAs) and great people

 

[ChicoBrewer]

I was in there back in the early 2000’s when we did some environemtnatl cleanup at an old wood treating facilty in Orrville/Feather river area. I recall we were the for 4-5 months and it never rained a drop. If I recall, they were just recently selling outside the west coast about them. I remember the open fermenters begins the large bar area. I bet it’s changed a bit since then. I’ll have to look up when I was last out there.

that's the thing about California. It never rains from may until the end of September then it rains and snows from October through April. The snow piles up in the mountains and sends us water for irrigation all summer. Then the cycle starts over again in the fall. It's a beautiful thing . . .

 

[ChicoBrewer]

Brought home some samples .

First - a Trip in the woods barrell aged Bierre De Garde. Havent tasted it because they didn't have samples. Looks promising. How long should I keep it in the bottle?

Then the Oude Mode Belgian Tripel. OMG I think this is the best beer I ever drank. Seriously. Sorry boys and girls you can only get it in the Chico Taproom. I brought home a crowler full. Gonna have to go back for seconds...

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/140/388239/

 

[GFHomebrew]

Visited Sunshine Brewery today a little local craft brewery. Had some lovely brews too the porter was my favourite just a really smooth roasty toasty brew. Got to have a chat with the brewer too as he was mid sparge whilst brewing one of their IPAs.

 

[Craigerrr]

long time ago actually, but just stumbled across this picture I took at Flying Monkeys in Barrie Ontario.

 

[GFHomebrew]

Not quite a brewery more so a tavern doing pest control. Old mate was cleaning beer lines when I rocked up so I asked him his process. He sends the "Cleaner Slippery stuff as he put it" then let's sit for 2 1/2 hours then flushes the lines with water get this 3 20lt buckets per line! Wow! I flush my lines with a Lt or two of hot water but 20lts gee wizz boys and girls. Anyway thought I'd share dat.

 

[Craigerrr]

Not quite a brewery more so a tavern doing pest control. Old mate was cleaning beer lines when I rocked up so I asked him his process. He sends the "Cleaner Slippery stuff as he put it" then let's sit for 2 1/2 hours then flushes the lines with water get this 3 20lt buckets per line! Wow! I flush my lines with a Lt or two of hot water but 20lts gee wizz boys and girls. Anyway thought I'd share dat.

Ben, nice story!

 

[Craigerrr]

These guys are making some great beers! And hey, you are what you drink, right?

 

[Head First]

Bare bones but great beer.
Draught Works, Missoula MT

Had a blood orange gose, great refresher and cant stop by without having an award winning Septerhead IPA. Very well balanced beer.
But the neipa, Milksteak ipa was like a hop flavored chalkboard. Must be why i don't like neipa. I like all flavors of hops but that was to thiiick.

 

[ChicoBrewer]

That's a good description of NEIPA. That and paste like the stuff you used with a popsicle stick in elementary school. I don't like em either

 

[Head First]

That's a good description of NEIPA. That and paste like the stuff you used with a popsicle stick in elementary school. I don't like em either

I thought this would be a good place to try it, as all of their beers have tasted great to me. They had a pineapple express I wish I would have tried instead.

 

[Craigerrr]

Camping at Turkey Point which is on the north shore of Lake Erie (that is one of the "Great Lakes"). Went to a relatively new startup called Hometown Brewing,
https://www.hometownbrew.com/home
I sampled everything they had, the beer was good but not great. I purchased a mixed 4 pack of cans.
From there we went to Charlotteville Brewing, can't seem to get their website URL to load. They are calling themselves an Estate Brewer as they grow most of their ingredients. Beer was quite good, but again, not great. I purchased a small growler of the one I liked the most. We also stopped at a local winery for my lovely wife to get some Vino

 

[GFHomebrew]

Camping at Turkey Point which is on the north shore of Lake Erie (that is one of the "Great Lakes"). Went to a relatively new startup called Hometown Brewing,
https://www.hometownbrew.com/home
I sampled everything they had, the beer was good but not great. I purchased a mixed 4 pack of cans.
From there we went to Charlotteville Brewing, can't seem to get their website URL to load. They are calling themselves an Estate Brewer as they grow most of their ingredients. Beer was quite good, but again, not great. I purchased a small growler of the one I liked the most. We also stopped at a local winery for my lovely wife to get some VinoView attachment 6491

Camping in style!