Join with us on our adventure as we build East Alstead's first brewery and what is quite possibly the only off-grid commercial brewery in the United States. We feel that what we brew and how we brew it are equally important. If you would like to help out with this project, contact me at: tim@belgianmare.com.




The Belgian Mare Says Hello!

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Year End

Once again another year has past.  We have definitely made some good progress this year.  Most recently the mash tun was completed, but we also finished the interior paneling and the boiler.  Don't forget that the siding is all painted and ready to go. As we now stand, the equipment is about 90% done.  The big part is finishing the building.

As usual we had several requests for home-brewed presents this Christmas.  Luckily, we were able to meet demand.  Several new formulas were tried and met with rave reviews.  I hope to soon be able to post some specifics of the new recipes.  

One recipe that was certainly not new was the cherry-cream stout.  This was one of the first beers I brewed after moving back to Alaska.  It was a great beer, but for reasons I no longer recall, I never brewed it again. For other reasons I do not recall, I decided to brew the cherry-cream stout again this winter.  

Once again the result were excellent, though very different.  The previous rendition had used pitted bing cherries.  This gave a cream stout character with just a hint of cherry.   This time I used tart cherries and ran them through a blender to ensure a more complete fermentation.  The result was a dark beer with a strong tart cherry character that dominated the malt flavor.  It bordered on being a dark kriek.  Maybe I created a new style: Kreik-stout!

In other news we passed 8000 visits to our blog.  It is truly unbelievable that so many people have seen fit to check in on our adventures and musings.  We are thankful for all the support and hope you will all stay with us as we complete our journey.

Once again, thank-you and Happy New Year!