• Mossberg Owners is in the process of upgrading the software. Please bear with us while we transition to the new look and new upgraded software.

I've Been Called up to the Big Leagues (Pro Brewing)

honkey

.270 WIN
After brewing beer in my apartment for 4 years, I have been offered a job as a brewer at a local brewery. Yesterday, I brewed my first batch (A Wee Heavy that will be aged in bourbon barrels) here are some pics...

5368cd8b36a63608c2cf83fdc413c496.png


This is our 15 barrel brewhouse... We brew two batches every brew day to fill our 30 barrel fermenter.

6033b7904757d621502f2a118a7dd9fc.png


The inside of the boil kettle right after the firs hop addition

cc9a370ad87c512f61601871f94536e0.png


Bottling our red ale while we have some down time in the brew day. There is always some kind of work to do!

a6e7351fb25fd9df239e7a193562ab32.png


3,000 lbs of spent grain to be picked up by a local cattle farmer for free feed.
 
This

Thread

Will

Go

Down

As EPIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wish you the best, honkey!!!!!!!!!!!

How does it stack up against a really good pizza????? :)
 
Thanks! I am really excited about it. I will get to brew some of my own recipes when we set up our small batch system and we will serve those in our tap room. There may even be some bottles near you. We are bottling in 22 oz. bottles and right now we have a Strawberry Saison and a Hoppy Tripel in stores.
 
...and as I look at those photos a single tear rolls down my cheek...It's BEAUTIFUL!!!

Congrats honkey!
 
As a homebrewer myself since 1997 I tip my beer to you...cheers and congratulations! That's so cool that you started with a Wee Heavy, it's one of my favorites to brew and drink. I don't know of any homebrewer that didn't ponder going pro while waiting for the mash to convert of the wort to cool.

Please keep us filled in on your progress and likes/dislikes so I can brew vicariously through you.

Again, congratulations!
 
Congrats!!! That's pretty cool
 
Sweet! Congratulations and good luck in that awesome job. I am a homebrewer as well. well...more like a helper. D8 is the name of the club, and we get together the last thursday of the month and make a new batch. Thirsty Thursday!!
 
Honkey, we need an update how the brewing career is going!? I have heard it's very hard work at the microbrew level.

Any good brews coming out?

One time I was at the Straub Brewery in St.Mary's, PA partaking of the "Eternal Tap". It's small enough that I ran into the company president and he talked with us for awhile. Super nice guy. He said Bud spilled more beer than he made in a year.
 
Hey Mike, it is going well. It is a very time demanding job. I am working a lot of 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. days so I haven't had much time to do things outside of brewing, but it is an awesome job still. We do have some exciting beers coming out in the next few months beginning with a Wee Heavy next week. After that, we will release a limited edition of bourbon barrel aged Wee Heavy and we will be doing the same thing with our stout which is our winter seasonal. I brewed a rye altbier a few weeks ago that was wildly popular in our taproom and I just brewed a low gravity pale ale. A homebrew equivalent of the pale ale recipe would be:

100% Vienna Base Malt

Mash at 150 degrees
OG-1.044

1 oz. Centennial at 60 minutes
1.5/.5 oz. Cascade/Columbus at 20
1.5/.5 oz. Cascade/Columbus at 10
1.5/.5 oz. Cascade/Columbus at flameout
1.5/.5 oz. Cascade/Columbus for dry hops

Wyeast 1056 or White Labs 001

We also have a big stout festival coming up in November where we will release 8 variations on our normal stout recipe. We have a lot of ideas of different things to try, but we will almost definitely dry hop a barrel, add hot peppers to one, add pumpkin to a barrel, and add dark cherries to one. It is a fun time to be working in a brewery!
 
Hey man, thanks for the update! Your hours sound about like what I have read from others but you sound like you have a great attitude to succeed..give em' hell!

Your beers and the ones upcoming sound like quite a variety. The stouts sound particularly interesting. I am partial to oatmeal stout.

Thanks for the recipe. I will have to try it out. I have done a 100% munich all grain (o-fest) but not one with Vienna, let alone a Vienna with all the C hops and an American ale yeast. It's unlike any recipe I have come across...thanks!

Keep us posted when you get a chance and good luck.
 
Great news man. Congrats on happy brewing!!

I didn't see the name of your brewery in the posts, if it's possible could I get the name? I'll have my local package store see if they canorder some beer from it....
you can pm it if you are weary of posting it here....
 
We are the Blue Pants Brewery from Madison, Alabama. We haven't really started distributing too much out of the state yet, but a package store could possibly do an order.

Mike, Vienna is an awesome basemalt. That hop combo is what we use when we are out of centennial as a substitute. We wanted to see just how much it really is like it.
 
We have had a lot of fun lately at the brewery with many events going on. Last week, I added habanero peppers to our stout for a challenge to our customers. If you can finish the beer in under 2 minutes, you get a free t-shirt. The peppers were homegrown in my garden on the balcony of my apartment (using a kiddy pool as a garden worked out well). I sampled the beer the other day and it is SPICY! It actually tastes pretty good if you like peppers, and it would be a great beer for cooking bratwursts in.

I also brewed a pumpkin stout last week and had a heck of a messy brewday as a result. Both of these beers will debut at our stout festival where we will have 12 variations on our regular stout. It's going to be one heck of a night!

Anyways, for anyone that cares, I just brewed a batch of brown ale tonight and I thought I would share my recipe. Brown Ale is one of my weaker styles, so I can not really attest to how good the recipe is until it is done fermenting, but here it is...

http://hopville.com/recipe/1655870
 
That's awesome honkey!

I'd love to tackle that habanero stout. Sounds like a great brew. Congrats on your success bro, looks like you're havin a great time...
 
That is awesome honkey and I wish you the best of luck with your new venture!
 
We have had a lot of fun lately at the brewery with many events going on
That's great, not many people can say they had fun at work lately.

Honkey, thanks for the update! Peppers and stout sounds pretty different. Usually when I see peppers being added it's to something less flavorful than a stout. It sounds like the heat would creep up on the drinker.

I have my own annual pumkin beer that I just put on tap this week. I use pumkin in the mash and it made the sparge a pain in the butt at times. It is great beer for autumn through Thanksgiving.

Thanks for the link to the brown ale recipe. It looks like it would be a great session beer. I usually brew higher gravity beers but may try that one next year as a British "lawnmower beer".

Keep up the good work and keep us posted!
 
Very few people have the ability to say they truly love their job and can't wait together back to work every single day. I have never met a brewer that was not a happy worker. Enjoy your awesome and fun job. I wish I was near you to appreciate your hard work. Congrats no being called up to "the big show".
 
Back
Top