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!