Still Going...

Greetings loyal followers!

I apologize for the tardiness of my postings this year.  Let me assure you that it is not due to lack of activity on the brewery.  I have continued to chip away at it whenever opportunity presents itself. Recently, the mash tun, exterior door and loft floor have all been completed. At this stage of the game, I would say that the building itself is 80-90% finished.  Most of the materials to complete the brewery are on hand, so I will continue to work away.  Some things, such as building the chimney for the boiler, will require a professional and we have received estimates for that work.

On the farm, the big news is that the chickens have started laying again!  We have plenty of eggs to go around so stop on by for a dozen and a peak at the brewery.

The sad news is that we had to say good-bye to our friend Duchess the Great Dane, who was a fixture at the farm and appeared in several of the brewery photos.  She is greatly missed.

So I am still going on the brewery.  Some farm structures sustained damage this winter and will need to be repaired or replaced (one horse shed is a complete loss). This will slow progress on the brewery a bit but we shall persevere! 

Those of you who have followed us from the start know that this has been a long process.  However, we are nearing completion and are considering taking on investors to help give this venture an extra push to get launched.  If you are interested, or know anyone who may be, please contact us by phone (603-835-7801) or email (tim@belgianmare.com).

Cheers!

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!

Boiler Room

As of late, I have been concentrating my efforts on building the wood-fired boiler that will be the heart of our brewhouse.  This has been quite the adventure as I have, with some advice from 19th century brewing texts, designed the boiler myself, from the ground up.  Further, construction required the acquisition of bricklaying skills.  Fortunately, the good people of Whitcomb's were more than helpful throughout construction. Admittedly, this whole process was a bit scary, if I messed up here, going back would not be easy.  In the end, the results were better than expected and quite acceptable for a first effort, if I do say so myself.  And I do.

The bricks are standard fire bricks.  The cast iron door is from a barrel stove kit.   The tank is a stainless steel sap tank that was modified to my design by Perley Lund and  for which I had a lid constructed by Ray Britton Sr.  Both are excellent craftsmen..

The next step is having a scaffold built for the mash-tun!

The pictures below show the evolution of the boiler! Cheers!

The base of the firebox is in place.  Note the outlet with tri-clamp fitting that Perley welded on.

The boiler tank is set in place.

The brick work is finished and the cast iron door is in place.  Success!

Rear view of the boiler.