Week 3 under wraps....Firecracker Imperial Red in the fermenter.

     The past week was not incredibly busy at the brewery as we only needed to brew once. Although this was the case it still felt like an incredibly busy week as many events are scheduled in the coming weeks. We were able to knock out a few more projects in the brewery and schedule some annual maintenance. This is rather rare in China as preventive maintenance is usually something nobody ever considers. I guess this is part my Western approach and something I take some pride in. It also means the brewery runs smooth!

     After knocking out these projects we were able to transfer the last batch of Southpaw Winter Warmer to the bright beer tank. The Winter Seasonal Selection should continue to pour through late February or early March. The Spring Seasonal will be Brawlin' Belgian Witbier so I'll have to coordinate the new yeast shipment during the last weeks of February. The beer transfer meant we had an open fermenter to brew into so we brewed a Boxers Choice beer that has been popular around Chinese New Year. Firecracker Imperial Red is a hoppy red ale that I loosely define as a Pacific Northwest Red Ale. The malt profile includes some light additions of caramel malts as well as a touch of chocolate malt. This malt provides a nice color hue to the finished beer as well as a slight chocolate note. The hops are the major component of Firecracker Imperial Red as we use Centennial hops for late additions as well as dry hopping. If all goes as planned it will pour around Chinese New Year at both locations. The brew day also included a visit from Carl at Great Leap Brewing in Beijing. We were able to taste Yunnan Amber from the bright beer tank and coordinate the shipment of some kegs to Beijing. We're both very happy with Yunnan Amber and think the light tweaks we made to the recipe made it taste even better. The beer has some additional richness while still allowing the black tea notes to come through. I expect Yunnan Amber to pour in the coming week or so.

     The other bright beer tanks have some TKO IPA and King Louie Imperial Stout so our beer lineup will see TKO IPA returning to the taps. TKO IPA is our second best selling beer and a beer that we normally have pouring at each location. The fury of collab brews and some special one-off beers meant this brand took a temporary hiatus....but it's back and tasting nice and hoppy. It's also the top rated beer on Untappd and RateBeer for China! Take a look......

     King Louie Imperial Stout is tasting wonderful as it's very thick and luscious with light notes of smoke upfront followed by coffee and chocolate. The 8% ABV is buried very well in this beer. I'm excited to keg this beer tomorrow and send it directly to our Sinan Mansions location for a VIP beer release party. It should be a fun event with some happy faces at the end of the evening.

     The remaining free time of the week was spent discussing our Brewmasters Dinner on January 29th and planning our Super Bowl Party for February 4th (China time). We've done the Super Bowl party the last several years and it's a fun time watching the game although kickoff is at 7:30 am on a Monday morning. This years party should be good with a breakfast buffet and free flow beers starting at 7am until 11:30am. The price for food and drinks is 200 rmb and if you only want the breakfast buffet the price is 100 rmb. During halftime we're going to have a wing eating contest so I'm hoping some wing lovers show up and provide some additional entertainment. 

     

     Another project I have undertaken is organizing the second annual Shanghai Beer Week. My friend John helps out tremendously as we bounce ideas back and forth as he builds the website. We're excited for this years events and think we'll have twice the number of participants and events in 2013. Currently we're targeting mid to late May for Shanghai Beer Week but are waiting confirmation on a few items. We plan to extend the events over 8-9 days and continue to have the Sinan Mansions Beer Festival during the last weekend of Shanghai Beer Week (SHBW). Stay tuned for additional information or feel free to check out the website as we publish information (http://shanghaibeerweek.com/).The website is still in beta testing so check back from time to time. In general this project is a labor of love for us as we believe it really helps legitimize the emerging beer scene in Shanghai. We literally pour our free time into this annual event to make the beer community stronger and wake people up to flavorful beer. In the end SHBW is a free promotion to anybody participating in the beer business in Shanghai. Shanghai Beer Week is done with clear intentions to assist in establishing a beer culture in the city we call home. This philosophy is opposite the "zero-sum economy" often seen in China where businesses fight for their "own" in fear that if they don't get "theirs" then "somebody" else will. Often the thought of working together to establish "something" is incomprehensible which leads to all the hardware shops or furniture shops being on the same street. In the end this is a deep conversation regarding East vs. West so I'll step down from the soap box. I just feel lucky that we have some supporters of SHBW that really get this community principle....it turns out there are people that understand this vision and they don't think we're totally crazy!

Until next time....may your glass be full of flavorful and locally produced beer!

     

More Dark Beers in Production - Week 2

     Well the past week was a bit slow around the brewery as the Yong Fu Lu location is undergoing renovation...and it's delayed by a week. It seems the 1st floor project was more work than anticipated and it's taking longer for the concrete to dry in the cold weather. Hopefully we'll be back up and pouring beers around January 22nd. I'm eagerly awaiting for us to re-open and let people see the changes we've made....to the interior but also the brunch menu!

      For the time being the brewery is packed full of beer...which will actually be a relief since Chinese New Years is approaching and it will impact the production schedule. The brewery will be closed for about a week so this way I won't have to worry about us getting behind and running out of kegs! We began the week by kegging some Contender Extra Pale Ale as well as topping off the 2 wine barrels I discussed last week. I've inoculated each barrel with Brettanomyces bruxellensis and letting the beer age patiently. The kegged version of Contender Extra Pale Ale is already pouring at our Sinan Mansions location and tasting wonderful. It matured beautifully with pleasant pineapple/passionfruit notes and is very bright....one might even think it's filtered! The following day we brewed a batch of Donkey Punch Porter. Some people are familiar with this beer as we re-created the brand identity last Fall. Prior to that it was called Black Magic Porter. Same beer just different name...Anyway Donkey Punch Porter is a robust brown porter that uses some extra ingredients to provide a unique flavor. The "extra kick" is a cacao and chili mix that our executive chef has created for me. The spice mix adds a Mexican mole dimension to the beer along with some subtle smokiness. It's a beer that we've brewed at Boxing Cat Brewery for nearly 2 years so I was tickled when I saw a few of these "mole inspired" beers in the US this past Summer.  This beer will be released in early February just before Chinese New Year. Here is our fun little logo for this beer:

     The rest of the week allowed us to work on some projects around the brewery and also take the brewery staff for a little field trip. One of the many crazy things about Shanghai is that you can find almost anything you need if you know the city well. Take Beijing Lu for example....It's a street full of all sorts of lab equipment, stainless steel parts, motors, hardware and hose. It's actually a bit freaky if you watch Breaking Bad....but I regress. You can nearly find everything on this street that you might need to use in a brewery. The tough part is finding the better quality equipment and then negotiating the price with the tiny shop owner. It can be pretty comical as often the thing you need is a phone call away and some chain smoking dude rolls up on his scooter with your desired part. Luckily our small brewery staff can help me out with the negotiating and language barrier and we walk away getting some pretty nice stuff. This trip we bought a new digital scale, pH meter, electronic long probe thermometer, food grade hose and some small stainless steel parts. The grand total for these items was around 2000 rmb or 320 USD. To finish the day I treated the staff to a nice lunch and stopped by to see our brewing friends over at Dr. Beer. It was great to show another brewery to our staff and have a couple beers with Teddy and Alvin. I met up with Teddy later that night for a Belgian beer tasting at Kaiba...but that's a whole different story.

     I previously mentioned we have an upcoming Brewmaster's Dinner near the end of the month. I'm getting real excited about this event and thought it would be good to share the menu and beer pairing for the evening. Take a look at the menu:

     If you're in Shanghai and interested in attending this event you can contact the phone number on the flyer to make a reservation. It's a great deal and the past dinners have been a real blast. Our executive chef will have some time to explain each dish and how it was prepared. I'll talk about the each beer and we'll both chime in about how they pair together. The seating is limited to 20 people so try to make an early reservation if you're really interested as the Brewmaster's Dinners always sell out.

Until next time....may your glass be full of delicious Winter beer!

Rolling in 2013- Week 1

     I have taken a couple weeks off from writing as I travelled for Christmas to the Philippines. It was a nice warm vacation but lacked any flavorful beer as I primarily had San Miguel or Red Horse as the only available options. Hopefully the next trip to the Philippines I can visit the Global Beer Exchange in Manila as they're supposed to have a good selection and some craft beer from America.

     The brewery has been steadily cranking out beer since week 49 with 2 batches of Right Hook Helles and single batches of TKO IPA, Southpaw Winter Warmer plus a batch of King Louie Imperial Stout. This will allow us to keep up with the 4 core brands and keep the Winter Seasonal beer flowing until late February or early March. I'm excited about King Louie Imperial Stout as we brew this once a year. This beer has gained a loyal following amongst stout lovers in Shanghai so it's a joy to brew this beer and of course sip during the cold winter months. We'll look at releasing this beer towards the end of January and will keep people posted via social media circles.

     Just prior to New Year's Eve a massive bottle tasting was held in Pudong with some fellow craft beer lovers. We accumulated 42 different bottles of beer to taste! The selection was very diverse as most of the beers were muled to Shanghai from all over the world. The tasting was sensational and we "only" made it through 36 bottles. Here's a lineup of the bottle aftermath.....Lots of stuff from NZ and AU.

     One particular gem of the evening was a bottle of Sanctification 006 from Russian River Brewing in California. This beer is 100% fermented with Brettanomyces and has amazing complexity and depth. The style of beer is described as a Sour Blonde with the nose of the beer having typical horse blanket aroma from the wild ale fermentation. The layers of flavor were amazing with different fruit notes and some acidity to scrub the mouth. We set this beer aside for awhile to let it develop while also using it as a refreshing palate cleanser to recalibrate our tastes. It worked very well and it's a 2012 beer highlight for me. We also tasted a bottle of Cantillon Cuvee Saint-Gilloise later in the evening and this beer was equally impressive. These 2 bottles of wonderful beer inspired me to get the Brettanomyces bruxellensis I've been sitting on in my refrigerator at home. I acquired these during my last trip to America and I've decided to use these 2 vials (pictured below) to inoculate 2 wine barrels I've used over the past 2 years.

     The red wine barrels have seen 3 different "beer turns" and essentially become "barrel neutral" as they're only providing light oak notes to the finished beer. The beer destined for these barrels is our Contender Extra Pale Ale (formerly called Mosaic Ale). This beer is a light golden ale with some tropical fruit notes from mosaic hops. I think the resulting beer will be very interesting and I'm eagerly awaiting the process of this beer developing over the next several months. The resulting beer will be one of the first sour beers (intentionally might I add) in China.

     The month of January is an exciting month for Boxing Cat Brewery as we're renovating the entire first floor space at our Yong Fu Lu location. The bar is going to be completely redone and will no longer be double sided. This will allow for more space behind the bar as well as improving the seating at the bar. The garden section of the old bar will also allow for more seats. The kitchen will get an overhaul and some new equipment for our ace executive chef and his new menu launch later this Winter. If all goes according to plan the Yong Fu location will re-open on January 14th. The Yong Fu location will have a fresh face as we have a new manager at this location and what I consider to be a top notch beer guy amongst Shanghai beer circles. Some of you may now him as Nick previously managed a Belgian beer bar called De Refter. In addition we hired a marketing person and Liz is doing a great job so far (follow her on twitter @boxingcatbeer. You'll see Liz and her warm Aussie personality around BCB so it's only a matter of time before our regulars get to know Liz & Nick. I'm very excited about the new team we have in place at BCB as we continue to push beer culture forward in Shanghai. To wrap up the month we'll have our Brewmaster Dinner on January 29th at Sinan Mansions. We're currently locking down the menu and beer pairings so I'll have to write about that in the near future. All in all 2013 is shaping up to be a great year for Boxing Cat Brewery!

Until next time....may your glass be full of delicious craft beer!