Odell Brewing Company

Double Pilsner Rides Again

Amanda — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:31:17 +0000

Lager yeast has always been a favorite of mine to work with. It’s slow to get started, and even slower to finish up, but if you put the time in, with enough care it will never let you down. It’s like the old dependable yellow lab your Grandpa has. Pilsners show imperfections that could easily be hidden in more dominating beer styles. The true character of the beer comes from the people who bring it to life, and nowhere is that more noticeable than in a pilsner. Brewing practice shines in beers like these where balance is not only key, but a requirement. Our Double Pilsner is brewed with traditional Bohemian ingredients, just a heck of lot more of them. So get outside and throw the ball around, from one family’s trusty friend to another.

Double Pilsner returns on May 18th, and the brewery will celebrate the return in the Tap Room all weekend long.

- A Quality Guy

“01001001 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110010 01100100 00101110. It’s binary code for, ‘If you can read this, you are my kind of nerd.” (Eli Kolodny is the QA/QC manager for Odell Brewing).

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Pilsner, Sausages, and Brewhouse oh my

Amanda — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:37:11 +0000

Recently, I had the pleasure of taking two separate trips to Germany as part of the plan/design team for Odell Brewing’s new Brewhouse. This will be our first brewhouse expansion since Doug bought our original system in 1994; a 50 bbl 5.5 brews a day system. At the brewery we are very excited at embracing the new technology of a 135bbl finely tuned German engineered machine. Our first trip was in November for finalizing design and second, the beginning of April was to inspect the equipment before shipment. My first trip to Deutschland, I had no idea what to expect from the area or what working with German engineers would be like.

At the beginning of trip in November we visited the Brau Bevaile, which is like being at a brewer’s “Toys R’ Us”… Super-sized, no mega- sized. This spectacle highlights all aspects of brewing in virtually every facet and takes over 6 conference halls big enough to house 6 great American beer fests. It truly is a spectacle to see. I felt like a kid in a candy store, from talking hops, to playing with gadgets, to better methods of cleaning pipes and much much more.

After the Brau, we began our travels to Truchtlaching, Germany (home of Braukon, our Brewhouse supplier) On the way to Truchtlaching, we made two stops, first at Weipnstaphen (world’s oldest brewery est 1040) and second to Hofbrauhaus also in Freising (est 1160). We ate lunch and enjoyed beers at Weinstaphen but didn’t have the luck of seeing the guts of the brewery. (Most brewery tours in Germany must be formally arranged well ahead of time) Instead, we walked the old school grounds of this historic place, snapped some pictures and went off to the Hofbrauhaus Freising. We were quickly turned away by the receptionist there (since it was late in the day and the brewmaster was out. However, Doug used his charm and some beers we brought from OBC, we finally scored a tour. It’s good to see trading beer is also accepted in German. The gentleman giving us the tour was unbelievably hospitable and educated us on the nice rich in history and technology present at Hofbrauhaus. Reflecting after the tour, it was evident to me that tradition permeates through virtually every facet of German culture. From the way all homes are built, to Brewhouse, and brewing practices…all Germans are proud of their history and practices developed over time.

After our detour in Freising, we finally arrived late in the evening at Truchtlaching for our meetings the next day. Beginning early Friday morning, Brendan, Doug, and I hammered through a very long, tiring, but exciting day of design; covering all the many details and every facet of our future brewing system. It was exhausting, but necessary, and so much fun at the same time. Upon the close of our 12 hour meeting, Braukon opened up their on-site brewery, showcasing many non-traditional German style beers. Really impressive beers from Stouts, pale ales, IPAs, to a bourbon barrel aged Dunkle, etc. These guys are pioneers in a faraway land much like the craft pioneers in the US. They realize that the Reinheitsgebot (German purity law) doesn’t prevent you from trying new things with beer. Braukon’s brewing isn’t about appealing to the masses in Germany, but more about sharing beer with friends. If you make a high quality drinking product, they will come. Dominik our project manager from Braukon also shares this passion and over beers and into the night we talked more about our Brewhouse and the styles he loves and is anxious to brew on our system.

Beginning our last day in Germany with blood shot eyes and a slight headache, we made our way down to visit another pioneer in Bavaria, named Eric Toft. Eric is the brewmaster at brewery Schonram, named after the town it’s located. Schonram is a beautiful small town nestled close to the beautiful alps. (Although we didn’t see them at all because of fog sunken in the valley) Brewery Schonram’s published history dates back to 1780, but they have found recent documentation putting them back to 1512. Hard to judge the brewery from the outside but we were anxious to meet this fellow brewing friend, as he hails from Cheyenne, Wyoming. See Eric moved from Cheyenne to Bavaria in the mid-80s to study brewing and loved it so much he stayed. Eric is one of the kindest and gracious people I have met in this industry. He welcomed us in tap-room/restaurant and gave a tour of the beautiful brewery showing us their new warehouse, ancient brick cellars 40 feet underground, modern Brewhouse, to open fermentation vessels 30 feet sub ground level. Cellar after cellar greeted us, and was a visit I will certainly not forget. Interestingly Eric is making the traditional German beers but is also introducing beers such as IPAs, pales, and other to local German liking.

Over the past several months we have worked very hard on our project; progressing from cellar and tap room planning, brewhouse details, schedule changes, etc. Finally the time came to inspect our brewhouse before shipping from Germany. Doug, Brendan, and I flew back out once more to meet with Dominik. First stop Trauenstein, Germany to inspect our CIP system and new Hop back.. .wow it is big, can’t wait to see our brewers pack this thing with beautiful hops! In Trauenstein we also inspected our Vapor condenser (recovers steam from the boil to heat up hot water) reviewed shipment schedule, for installation plan, and commissioning plan. Again, a long day but soon we would finish and again share some beers with some friends. The next day we would finally get to see our beloved new Brewhouse, being built in Nordhausen, Germany. Driving to the facility I felt like a kid at Christmas anxious with anticipation and hoping we got all the details correct. Seeing the equipment in person is where it finally seems real after two years in planning the building, function, and design, we finally could see our equipment, two weeks from shipment. It was beautiful. These four vessels towered over us and nearly 15 German welders/artists were hustling to finish up their project. We looked through everything asked questions and smiled with approval. We then traveled to Frankfurt to investigate some more future equipment and then walked the city of Frankfurt prior to leaving back to the US.

Germany’s dedication to quality, tradition, design, and attention to detail has certainly left a lasting impression with me. The time spent with everyone involved working on Odell’s new dream brewhouse will be an experience I will never forget.

- Matt Bailey

Matt Bailey manages maintenance and engineering for Odell Brewing Co.

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Zero Landfill or Bust

Amanda — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 19:56:56 +0000

Odell Brewing is on a mission to operate as a zero landfill company by the year 2014. Have you noticed the classy looking diversion stations in Tap Room? They are just part of the initiatives we’ve implemented to move us toward our zero landfill goal!

The brewery has once again earned Gold Medal status through Climate Wise. We have been part of the program for 5 yrs and have had Gold Medal status for 3yrs.

Honoring businesses that make environmental strides in their daily operations, Odell Brewing was a recipient of the Fort Collins Chamber of Commerce 2012 Environmental Award.

Upcoming events:

Growing Green w/Happy Heart Farm: 4/24, 7pm @OBC

Earth Day Fort Collins 4/27, Sat. at Gardens at Spring Creek 11-5

Green Drinks 4th Wed of every month check out SLA website!

Residential Environmental Program series hosted by ClimateWise- at Midtown Art Center May 1st, 8th, and15th

Tour de Coop 5/19 8:30am- 1:30pm $25 sustainablelivingassociation.org

DENC, New Belgium, Odell’s, and the Fort Collins Downtown invite you to – The Electric Ride and Drive: May 19th, 12pm to 4pm

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Snow in August, err April

Amanda — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 15:24:00 +0000

We have had a bit of a second winter in Colorado. The brewery received just under two feet of snow in the last week, so it was a pleasant departure to return to our beloved summer seasonal. Everyone around here is already chomping at the bit for the warmer weather to return. Plans of backpacking, fishing, yard games, and sweet, sweet barbeque. Of course, nothing goes better with warm weather like a crisp, hop forward brew. Familiar nose of lemongrass returns with the Saint, which melds into a smooth pilsner-esque body, and is cleaned up by some classic American hop bitterness. Now if only the snow would melt…

St. Lupulin returns Saturday April 20th with a special Tap Room celebration.

- A Quality Guy

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Spring has Sprung!

Amanda — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:41:10 +0000

Which means= EVENTS! Certainly your calendars are filling up with all of the AMAZING events
that Fort Collins boasts all over town from the Hilton to the Agave Room above the Rio… most
benefiting an extraordinary effort to give back to our brilliant community.

Even under construction we continue to host wonderful events benefiting our community
partners; they happen on weeknights in our tap room from 7-9, we donate the space, our time and
the beer. In the last 6 weeks we’ve had fundraisers for the NoCo Rebuilding Network, Wolverine
Farm Publishing, The Growing Project, Leadership Fort Collins’ fundraiser for Wildlands Restoration
Volunteers and last night we brought in the Campus Feminist Alliance’s Take Back the Night fundraiser.
Each group was able to raise thousands of dollars in just a couple hours in our tap room! The events are
always fun and typically supported by wonderful community contributors like Jax Fishhouse, The Garlic
Knot, Spoons and Wholefoods~ they bring in delicious bites to pair with our beer! These events continue
to evolve with bands, silent auctions, even yoga(!) and are important time spent at Odell offering us
the opportunity to be present when the fundraising is happening and the organizations get to enjoy the
ambiance and delicious brews; a real WIN-WIN!

We have some fantastic events coming up as well; next week we’ll host the Environmental
Learning Center folks from CSU as they raise money for their program on Wednesday night, Thursday
we’ll see NOCO Shares for volunteer appreciation, Thursday, April 25th we’ll host Save the Poudre and
Wednesday, May 1st we’ll help the FoCo Café gain some much needed funds to get their doors open!

We are pressing forward with Odell Outreach, our volunteer effort to include co-workers and fans of OBC alike! We hope that you’ll join our mission to serve our community that has given us our success! You can join our Odell Outreach’s Facebook page at and watch for event postings and the latest haps. We’ll have volunteer contests and of course, rewards… We have a couple of events coming up in April (National Volunteer Month) and hope that you’ll find a little time to work hard and then CELEBRATE! The first is here, if you don’t Facebook, email me at karlabaise(at)odellbrewing(dot)com and we’ll get you signed up. The second one will be on Saturday, April 27th and we will be painting the interior of the brand new home for the Center for Family Outreach; more details to follow on that Facebook page.

We are taking a group of Odellians up into Davis Ranch in May for further fire mitigation with
Wildlands Restoration Volunteers. We can’t wait to get our hands in the dirt and get some seeds in the
ground!

Happy Spring to you all; may the advent of “fresh and new” around you remind you of Odell
Brewing!

Our Charity of the Month program continues to thrive and we are witness to our guests gaining
pertinent knowledge about the organizations that we represent:

May Tips: Growing Project
• Gardens On Spring Creek
• Rocky Mountain Farmers’ Union Charitable and Education Foundation (Denver)

June Tips: Project Self-Sufficiency
• Women’s Wilderness Institute (Boulder)
• Hands of the Carpenter (Lakewood)

July Tips: Volunteers of America
• Poudre Wilderness Volunteers
• Wildlands Restoration Volunteers

August Tips: Juvenile Diabetes
• The Lift of Northern Colorado (Fort Collins)

• Wray Rehabilitation and Activities Center

For more information on our charitable program, please see our Philanthropy Webpage

Happy Spring to you all; may the advent of “fresh and new” around you remind you of Odell Brewing!

- Karla

Karla is originally from Pittsburgh, PA. She graduated from CSU 10 years ago and made Fort Collins her home. She has been given the extraordinary opportunity to work at making it a better place through her employment as Community Outreach Coordinator at Odell Brewing Company.

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Peachy Keen!

Amanda — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:11:17 +0000

The Western Slope of Colorado is the source of many a bountiful harvest. The unique geography and soil provide for the perfect fruit growing seasons. If you’re from Colorado you know the year isn’t complete until you have a Palisade Peach. Palisade is a tiny town in the heart of the Western Slope’s agricultural scene. They love peaches. We love hops. When they come together it’s a beautiful thing. Tree Shaker is our attempt to bring a little of that Colorado love to our loyal fans. We dropped some Rakau hops that were chosen from New Zealand into the whirlpool, which naturally lend a peach character to the beer. With Amarillo and Crystal hops bringing a touch of citrus to the nose, this beer introduces a bit of peach jam from a 6,000 pound peach addition that is quickly cleared by an assertive bitterness that one would expect from an Imperial IPA. The perfect companion for a warm Colorado spring day.

Odell Brewing will celebrate the release of Tree Shaker this Saturday, April 6th with a party in the Tap Room. Guests can try the brew and enjoy live music by Hectic Hobo as well as tasty eats from Common Link.

- A Quality Guy

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Food Trucks!

Amanda — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 16:30:14 +0000

Did you know we have local Food Trucks onsite daily? Here’s this month’s schedule:

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The Ladies of Colorado Craft Beer

Amanda — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 14:56:55 +0000

The first all-female-brewed collaboration beer in Colorado, brewed for Colorado Craft Beer Week, will be tapped at The Mayor of Old Town Saturday March 23rd (TIME TBD) .

Ellegance is a delicious Belgian-style brown ale brewed with Simpson’s Golden Promise malt and specialty malts and a blend of hops including Nelson Sauvin, Motueka and Centennial. All fermented with a Belgian yeast. Elegant and highly quaffable, the 5% ABV beer features a creamy beige head, a glorious tea/garnet color, aromas of fruit and hops, flavors of toast and light caramel, hints of spice and a refreshing, lingering hop bite on its finale.

The project was headed up by Wynkoop’s Bess Dougherty, along with Natalie Lesko of Funkwerks, Sydney Skilken of Denver’s TRVE Brewing, Linsey Cornish of Odell Brewing, Reva Golden from Twisted Pine, Ashleigh Carter of Prost Brewing and Melissa Antone and Sara Ferber from Avery Brewing. The Denver branch of Brewers Supply Group donated the base malt for this one-time-only, super-limited-release beer.

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What’s Our Secret Ingredient?

Amanda — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 20:57:55 +0000

Around here, play isn’t a distraction from brewing—it’s an important part of everything we do because it inspires collaboration and creativity. It’s what we put into all our beer. And what we hope you get out of it. What’s your secret ingredient? Show us on Facebook.

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Lugene Chocolate Milk Stout Cake

Amanda — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 17:18:47 +0000

It’s good to have friends…especially friends who bake. Our friend Michael recently shared this amazing cake with our crew. Here’s the recipe…enjoy!

Cake Ingredients

4 ounces Ghirardelli unsweetened chocolate, chopped**
2 1/4 cups organic all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
14 tablespoons (1 3/4 sticks) butter (bring it to room temperature ahead of time)
1 1/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons sugar
3 large eggs, separated
12-oz. bottle Odell Brewing Company’s “ Lugene Chocolate Milk Stout” (plus one extra bottle)
2/3 cup freshly brewed strong coffee

PREHEAT OVEN to 350F and adjust racks so there’s room directly in the middle rack for 2 cake pans.

PREPARE two 9” cake pans by coating bottom and sides with melted butter (or spray oil if you prefer), then coating bottom and side with flour. Cut an 8.5” round of parchment paper and place in the bottom. If it won’t stay flat, spray the bottom of the pan again before putting the parchment in to help hold it flat.

MELT 3 oz. of unsweetened chocolate, either over a double boiler or very carefully in a microwave. I do it in the microwave at 10-15 second intervals, stirring in between each nuking. Don’t microwave it until it’s completely smooth, you’ll want a few chunks left that will melt with some stirring.

WHISK together in a small bowl 2 ¼ C flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda and ½ teaspoon sea salt. Set aside.

CREAM 14 tablespoons of butter and 1 ¼ C of sugar. While the butter and sugar are creaming, separate 3 large eggs (or 4 small eggs) setting the egg whites off to the side for now. Cream the butter and sugar until it is very light in color. Scrape bowl often during mixing (after you’ve turned the mixer off, of course).

OPEN both bottles of Lugene Chocolate Milk Stout. Pour one into a pint glass and enjoy for yourself. Set the other bottle aside.

BREW a small cup of really strong coffee. I used the left over coffee from the morning and boiled it down to about a cup. Don’t use left over coffee from three days ago. That’s just disgusting. If you prefer, make espresso and water it down a touch. Make a little bit extra if you really like coffee. It’ll come in handy later when putting the cakes together.

ADD egg yolks, one at a time, to well-creamed butter & sugar. Mix until well combined, scraping once or twice during addition to make sure it all mixes well.

POUR in 1 12-oz. bottle of Lugene VERY SLOWLY while mixer is going on low-speed. If you pour it in too fast, the egg/butter/sugar mixture will start to separate. Not to mention it’ll splash Lugene all over the place. Which is bad. SCRAPE sides of mixing bowl down. VERY SLOWLY pour in ⅔ C of coffee, scraping bowl. See note about pouring in the Lugene.

ADD dry ingredients in 3 batches to butter/sugar/beer/coffee/goodness mixture, scraping bowl as needed.

CLEAN out the mixing bowl by transferring the butter/sugar/beer/coffee/goodness mixture to another bowl (or if you’re using a hand mixer, just clean the mixer and move on to a different mixing bowl). Using the whisk attachment, whisk the eggs whites until white (about 1 minute or so, depending on how fast you’re mixing) and slowly sprinkle in the remaining 3 TBS. of sugar. Continue whisking until the egg whites are stiff. They should hold peaks.

FOLD in ⅓ of egg whites into butter/sugar/beer/coffee/goodness mixture gently folding from the bottom and scraping sides of bowl. Be gentle, as the egg whites are what give the cake it’s light and airy nature. Add remaining ⅔ egg whites in two batches, gently folding until combined.

POUR batter into the two prepared cake pans, place in oven and check after 25-30 minutes. To check if they’re done, the tops should be firm (no jiggling when you open the oven door) and a toothpick/small knife/chainsaw should come out clean after inserted in the middle.

COOL the cakes – in the pans – on a wire rack for 20-30 minutes. Separate the cakes from the sides of the pans with a butter knife and then invert onto a plate, re-inverting back onto the wire rack to cool for another 1.5 hours. After cooled, either wrap with plastic wrap and store at room temp and keep for up to 1 day. Or prepare (see below).

Frosting Ingredients

1 pound Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate (minimum 60% cacao), chips or chopped**
2 cups organic heavy whipping cream
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
2-3 tablespoons of sugar (optional)

NOTE: Don’t start to prepare the frosting until you are ready to prepare the cakes. The frosting will harden if left sitting for too long (like an hour or two) but can be reheated to melt it back down.

CHOP chocolate and place in large mixing bowl. Set aside.

POUR 2 C whipping cream into pot and mix in 1 tsp (or more, to your liking) espresso powder and place over medium high heat, stirring occasionally. DO NOT let the cream boil. You just want to get it simmering because once it boils, it will boil over and make a really big mess. Then you have to start over with a new pint of cream. Which isn’t cheap.

POUR simmered cream mixture over chocolate and let it sit for a minute or two.

STIR the chocolate mixture until smooth.

ADD the sugar if you care to. The frosting is pretty chocolate-y. If you want to sweeten the bitter chocolate taste a bit, sprinkle the sugar in while mixing, making sure it all dissolves completely.

PLACE the frosting in the refrigerator for 1.5 – 2 hours, stirring often (every 15 minutes or so). Or, to speed things up, throw it in the freezer for about 35 minutes, stirring every 8-10 minutes.

**If you can get really good chocolate, do it. It will only make things better, but if not, Ghirardelli is readily available and actually a pretty decent cooking/baking chocolate.

PREPARING THE CAKES FOR EATING

Once the frosting is ready and the cakes are cooled, trim the cakes (if necessary) to make the tops flat.

PLACE one cake layer on a cake dish or cardboard round (Wholefoods will sell you a cake round and cake box for $2.00, other bakeries might do the same).

***OPTIONAL: Drizzle some of the remaining coffee from above on each of the cake rounds. This helps keep them moist and also adds more coffee flavor. If you’re really crazy, drizzle 4-6 oz. of Lugene over each cake round.

SPREAD enough frosting to coat the top of this layer, spreading with an off-set spatula (8” or comparable) to smooth.

PLACE second cake round on top of first layer. Pour enough frosting to just barely coat the top and sides, spreading thin to just barely coat it. This is called the “crumb coat”. Throw the cake (on the cardboard stand) into the freezer for 5-10 minutes.

PULL cake from freezer and finish frosting the cake. The reason for doing the crumb coat is so that when you frost the outside, the crumb is kind of frozen in the “crumb coat” and doesn’t mess up the final frosting, so you get a nice, clean, smooth frosting.

I find holding the cake in one hand (I’m right-handed, so I hold it in my left) and frost while gently rotating to the cake is the easiest way. If you have a rotating cake stand, then that is way cooler than holding it.

Let the cake sit at room temperature for at least 2 hours before serving. When cutting, use a hot knife and clean the blade in between each slice to make sure each slice is clean looking. You just spent probably 3-4 hours (and $30+) on this cake. Make that thing look like the gem that it is.

If you want to go all out, make up some raspberry coulis and drizzle that on the plate before serving. People love that kind of thing. Well, I do, anyway.

PAIRING

Obviously, open those other two Lugene Chocolate Milk Stouts you have in the fridge. Or a nice Bordeaux. Or Chateauneuf de Pâpe. Or coffee. Raspberries go really well with this, too. As would a Frambozen or similar.

QUESTIONS

Hit me up onTwitter @weepapa.

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