At Odell Brewing Co. we are very selective about every ingredient that goes into each and every beer we produce, and this even extends to the barrels we hand select for our barrel aged projects. Because of this Brent, Doug and myself headed to Kentucky to get a better understanding of the barrels we use for our single serve offerings. Specifically, we went in search of the best bourbon barrels for our next Bourbon Barrel Stout and we planned on paying a visit to Canton Cooperage, producers of our virgin Woodcut barrels.
♦Posted in Blog Home Page, Bourbon Barrel Stout ♦ 1 Comment »
I am sure many of you fellow craft beer lovers have watched the recent video from the Brewers Association regarding ‘At Home Craft Beer Tasting.’ I could not agree more with what can be gained by having friends over and tasting unique craft beers, especially when paired with delicious craft foods. The new experiences had while savoring craft beer with friends during an ‘at home beer dinner’ are what inspired us to do these in the first place. The write-ups associated with each one we are hosting are to help inspire all of you, whether full Cicerones or just recent graduates into the inspired world of craft beer, with new ideas to try in your home with your friends and our passionately brewed offerings. Most importantly for us here at Odell Brewing is the fun of savoring and dining with friends. For this meal we stripped away any possibility of the “pretentia” that could be associated with craft beer dinners and served up a big ol’ pot of Gumbo paired with our India Barleywine, followed by an old family recipe for Peanut Butta Pie paired with our Bourban Barrel Stout. As always I have provided background for our inspired pairings along with the full recipes, including preparation notes and pairing notes, and some visual imagery. So find the largest stockpot you can (or borrow a kettle from a friend that homebrews) and invite your friends and family over for a pre-holiday pairing of Odell Brewing Co. India Barleywine and Gumbo!
♦Posted in Blog Home Page, Bourbon Barrel Stout, India Barleywine, Recipes, Single Serve Series ♦ 3 Comments »
It is exactly why we pilot brew, because sometimes the best laid plans do not always result in what you thought… and because experimentation is a lot of fun! We wrote a recipe for the first pilot brew for our Odell Brewing Co. Strong Belgian Golden that involved a number of ingredients and techniques we personally had little experience with. We were rewarded with a beer much different from beer we “brewed on paper”, but very inspiring to the end goal of the project. Being adventurous and rethinking what has been traditionally accepted about brewing is the reason craft brewers are always progressing while developing new beer styles, brewing techniques, and brewery equipment. Pilot brewing can produce unexpected and delicious results, even if it was not quite what we set out to do!
♦Posted in Blog Home Page, Bourbon Barrel Stout, India Barleywine, Mountain Standard Reserve '09, Single Serve Series, Tap Room, Woodcut No. 1, Woodcut No. 2, Woodcut Series, pilot ♦ 1 Comment »
The Single Serve 750ml Series has been fun for us brewers at OBC. Over the past year we have been able to design, develop and brew 5 entirely new beers for 2009. We have also been working on, or have already brewed, numerous beers for release in 2010. We are really excited about developing these new beers and we wanted to let you, the lover of hand-crafted beers, in on the process we go through in developing beers we are excited enough about to serve up to our friends. You can follow our brewers on this Blog as we work on creating and brewing a Strong Belgian Golden for release in a caged and corked 750ml bottle in 2010; from the very first email that started the project, through the various pilot batches, and concluding with the release party in our tasting room.
♦Posted in Blog Home Page, Bourbon Barrel Stout, India Barleywine, Mountain Standard Reserve '09, Single Serve Series, Woodcut No. 1, Woodcut No. 2, Woodcut Series, pilot ♦ No Comments »
All of our 750 ml corked and caged bottle beers are 100% bottle conditioned. This means we add fresh, active yeast to the bottles along with some unfermented sugars to allow the beers to go through a secondary fermentation within the bottle. The beer is flat when bottled and over a period of several weeks the yeast ferments the sugars producing carbon dioxide within the bottle, giving the finished beer it.
♦Posted in Blog Home Page, Bourbon Barrel Stout, India Barleywine, Mountain Standard Reserve '09, Single Serve Series, Woodcut No. 1, Woodcut No. 2, Woodcut Series ♦ No Comments »
