Pre-Construction

It’s been a crazy time since we selected Herman/Stewart Construction as our General Contractor. We’ve been meeting with Lee McAllister, our architect, and Steve Hullinger from Herman/Stewart working the design and construction budget and getting ready to submit our permit applications. I’m starting to really feel a time crunch – the loop between the engineers, the general contract and the architect to get the permit drawings completed needs to move faster. I think the 6 months to opening is going to go very fast.

The interior design does not have to be done for the permit drawings, but the conceptual design is very exciting. Mad Fox is starting to look like more than just construction drawings. We are meeting shortly with our interior designer and lighting specialist to work the look. We are also meeting with an expert in  millwork and wood finish for restaurants and bars to do some pragmatic value engineering to make certain that we can get the best looking bar and wood finishes that we can afford.

On the brewery engineering side, I’ve been looking at a bunch of used systems. I drove up to New Hampshire to look at a used JV Northwest 15 bbl system from Pennichuck Brewing last Saturday. It would certainly work well for us, but the price is too high once I factor in decommissioning, transportation, retrofitting and installation. I’ve seen a half dozen used systems on the market that have the same potential, but are not a good value. I’m working quotes from manufacturers of new equipment to see if this new is a better value than used.

I’m wrestling with the concept of value for a used vs. new system. Brewhouses have a functional lifetime of 15 to 25 years. We have a 15 year lease with two 5-year options. How much more is a new brewhouse worth than a used system? Once the buildout is complete, replacing the brewhouse would be a major renovation. New or lightly used looks like the best option for the long term.

More to come.

Cheers, Bill

Post GABF

Well, the results are in and Vintage 50 and my 5 entries did not win any awards… next year!!  I am in very good company with many really good brewers who did not get recognized and I cannot complain.  What I look forward to now is getting the judges written notes on how my beers came across and whether or not they made it past the first round.  When a beer makes it past the first round is still a bit of a victory but not one you can promote.  It still means alot to me.  One of the many reasons I decided to start judging  was to better understand the process that goes into the GABF and I can tell you now that there are many variables to winning a medal but it is in no way a crap shoot.  There are many brewers who consistently get awards and they are typically brewers who have been at their craft for a long time and or have been working at the very same brewery for a long time.  One fantastic surprise winner was local brewer Jason Oliver of the brand spanking new brew pub, Devils Backbone.  Now Jason did the all time incredible job of pulling off 4 medals with a brewery that he has been working at for just 10 short months! An incredible feat that I applaud him for pulling off.  Jason has been hard working for many years in this industry and after years of brewing the standard recipes at Gordon Biersch he broke out in a big way, kudos to him.  Another Virginia brewer did very well for himself as well, Nick Funnel, of Sweetwater Tavern fame.  Nick pulled off two medals which is also a great bit of work and for a brewer who has been working the same brewery for a very long time.  There were two other medals for Virginia this year.  One medal for Preacher Mark Thompson of Starr Hill in the Irish Dry Stout category (which he has won for a long as I can remember) and another for Chris Rafferty of Rockbottom in Ballston.  All in all Virginia pulled off 8 medals this year, congratulations to those brewers.  I look forward to having Mad Fox Brewing Company add more awards next year.

More to come.  Cheers,  Bill

Today is the Results of GABF

I am sitting here having finished judging yesterday and having let loose a little last night.  Just a little celebration due to the fact that I did not have to “work” today and keep my palate in good shape.  Just had breakfast at my favorite diner in Denver, Sammys #3, which I go to every morning on the day the awards are announced.  It is just a couple of hours away before they start the ceremonies and I am not nervous or anything just looking forward to the culmination of what started months ago.  From deciding which styles of beer to target,  to brewing them , then packaging them carefully and tracking my babies nervously until they were safe and in the hands of the folks who would bring them to the festival.  It’s the waiting now that has me a little anxious.  Well, I am going to get ready now.  Wish me luck.

More to come, Cheers,  Bill

Day Three, Judging at GABF

I have been up since 6:30 am again and have gone thru my usual routine.  Saw Randy Mosher order a bacon, spinach and mushroom omelet this morning and finished my breakfast and left before he got it, whew…another bad situation averted.

Had a great experience judging yesterday, I judged English-Style Summer Ales.  The way the process works for getting your judging assignments is you fill out a form months before the festival indicating your preferences for categories by ranking them, I believe it is one to twenty five of the seventy eight categories possible.  Some incredibly tedious process somehow gets all the judges assigned and manages to put judges with what they kinda want and NOT a category which they have a pony in the race.  I got one of my top categories which doesn’t always happen.

Our judge table consisted of Fal Allen of Archipelago Brewery in Singapore, Chuck Skypeck of Boscos in Memphis, Jeff Nickel (a classmate of mine from UC Davis) of Oskar Blues in Longmont, and our Table Captain Glenn Payne of Meantime Brewing Co. in the UK.  We were fortunate to have Glenn on the table to guide us in some of the finer nuances of the style.  We are given the descriptions from the GABF but there is alot more to it than the black and white of the sheets.  We were all newbies to the style but there was much interest from the panel to understand it better from someone who has really experienced this beer from the country that developed this newly created style.  Glenn talked about the various hop characteristics that could be found in the style and that the use of American hops, which was not out of the ordinary.  He described the various hues of the this beer that were available in the UK and the balance of the malt to hop that is characteristic of the style.  This was a great learning experience for me since my V-50 days and the coming Mad Fox I have always been very committed to cask ales and English styles of beer being done properly.  I have never brewed this style before but with the experience I have just received and maybe a little research in the country of origin (hint, hint) I look forward to taking a crack at this one in our new brewery.

More to come, judging ESB’s this morning, gotta run, Cheers,  Bill

Day Two, Judging GABF

Today started much like yesterday.  I get into my routine and make time for what needs to be done for me, breakfast, shower and the like and then for Mad Fox, e-mails, this blog and other various stuff.  Just as I get into the routine it usually comes to an abrupt halt and then the judging is over and it is festival mode is on, working the booth, working the crowd and making industry connections with old and new friends.  It’s a very friendly business and most folks are open and interested in talking and sharing ideas.  This is much better than my suit days in sales constantly gritting my teeth at night wondering where my next big sale was going to come from.  I did not like dealing with the big egos and the look or answers you got when someone realized you were trying to sell them something, ugh.  I like the biz I am in!

Gotta get ready now, I am judging American-Style Lager/Premium Lager and need to get my tongue ready for the slight nuances of such a really tight flavor profile.  I am looking forward to the challenge.  Then I move on in the morning session to English Style Summer Ales which is an up and coming category that I am very interested to learn more about.  I hope I have a good, knowledgeable Table Captain like yesterday, that really helps.

More to come, Cheers, Bill

Day One, Judging at GABF

I managed to get thru the morning of Fruit Beers and Barley Wine style Ales.  Man, they are getting real specific with Categories and sub categories.  I actually judged the Fruit Beer or Field Beer category.   Field Beer?  What the heck is that you say?  Well here it is, they are ” any beers using vegetables as an adjunct in any of the mash, kettle, primary or secondary fermentation, providing obvious (ranging from subtle to intense), yet harmonious, qualities.”  It goes on to NOT include chili peppers or pumpkins (which have their own category).  Well I guess from a marketing perspective Field Beer sounds better sounding than its predecessor, Vegetable Beer…..

Judged Old Ales or Strong Ales  and then Kellerbier/Zwickelbier in the afternoon.  Our Table Captain was none other than Todd Ashman currently with Fifty Fifty Brewing Company of  California.  Todd brought a lot of very insightful points about the Kellerbier style and has some favorites in Franconia and the surrounding area.  He mentioned that he likes to spend at least 2 weeks per year in the region just to research the beers of the many family owned and slowly disappearing breweries there.  Good stuff and  I learned more about the style which is part of the reason I enjoy judging at this event.

More to come, Cheers,  Bill

GABF Breakfast

Wide awake at 4:30 am which is 6:30 am back home and tried to get back to sleep to acclimate to the time change.  Before I knew it, 6:30 arrived and I shot out of bed, cleaned myself up and dressed quickly to get to breakfast early to “beat the crowd”.  We were warned by Chris Swersey, GABF Competition organizer, that getting there before 7 am was the smart thing to do and I wanted to get back to the room and jump on the computer .

I ordered an omelet and went to check out the other offerings, the Marriott puts on quite the spread and I have to watch myself not to over do it.  Just when I went back to the omelet station I noticed another Beer Judge taking what looked like my omelet with spinach, mushrooms, onions and cheese.  The woman working the omelet station says ” can I make you an omelet?”  and I realize then the protocol is to stand over the station and hawk your omelet until it is ready.  I tell her I already ordered one and described my order with which she responds ” well, I have this one with ham, spinach and tomato or I can make you another, no problem”.  I accept the one offered without really thinking about the impact to someone else and assume it is the one ordered by the person who took  mine.  I walk to my table with which I hear the next fella  go thru the same routine I did.  I look back and watch Randy Mosher describe his “ham, spinach and tomato” omelet that is now on my plate.  He orderred another.  My bad, sorry Randy……

On to the morning session of  judging, more to come.  Cheers,  Bill

Brewers Orientation

Well we got our assignments and yep I pissed off the Beer Gods somehow.  If this was Spirit of Free Beer and Tom Cannon were organizing the Judges I would have done something really bad like piss on a Virginia Tech flag or something.  Tomorrows morning session of judging I have pulled Category 4. Fruit Beer or Field Beer  and then Category 78. Barley Wine-Style Ale.  What a way to start the day fruit and B-wine, better eat my Wheaties tomorrow morning.

Went to the Judges Gathering at the Rockbottom in Denver and just got back.  They had a killer selection of food and some really great beers on.  I had to limit myself since I do take the job of judging GABF seriously but the Baltic Porter there was very good.  I shared one with Jason Oliver, brewer at the newly opened Devils Backbone Brewery in Wintergreen, Virginia.  Jason is a brewer who is known for making a really great Baltic Porter at a number of breweries he has worked at in the DC Metro area and he spoke well of this beer.

Must get to bed now, more to come.  Cheers,  Bill

Sitting here in Denver

Got up early this morning to catch my flight to Denver, my lovely wife drooped me off at the airport.  Uneventful flight but low and behold we were 36 minutes early!  Kudos to the Frontier Airlines pilot who pulled that one off, I love direct flights (who doesn’t).

We have a Judges Orientation meeting at 5pm and my roomie just arrived (we have to share a room so the GABF will pay for it).  I am sitting here and trying to get in the right mindset for judging.  At the orientation we recieve our category assignments and I pray that I get some good ones.  Nothing worse than starting your morning with a Double IPA bomb that blows out your palate until after lunch.  That happened to me last year but I know I would not be assigned that category since we entered Molotov Hoptail in that very category this year.  Please no barleywines and especially not in the morning!  More to come….Cheers,  Bill

Great American Beer Festival

I have shipped all the beer bottles needed for the judges to do their work and the festival kegs were dropped off some time ago.  Now it’s getting ready to fly out to Denver.  I leave tomorrow since I have been asked to judge again at this years GABF.  THe beers entered are some of my last brews for Vintage 50 and we have entered five beers; Catoctin Kolsch, 80 Shilling, Devils Due (Belgian Strong Golden), Wee Heavy (Strong Scotch Ale) and Molotov Hoptail (Double IPA).  Wish me luck! 

Tomorrow we have a judges meeting in the afternoon to go over procedures and receive our judge assignments.  Judging at GABF is tough work believe it or not.  There are over 3000 beers to be judged this year making it the largest competition ever.  There will be a morning session and an afternoon session for Wednesday and Thursday and then one morning session on Friday.  Last year I also judged the Alpha King Challenge but decided to enter Molotov Hoptail so I cannot be in on that one.

Looking forward to seeing some old friends in the brewing community and hopefully making some new ones.  Next year instead of V-50 it will be Mad Fox beers entered and I look forward to that.  I will be posting from GABF frequently so check back for more.  Gotta run, Cheers,  Bill