We've done a lot of new brews recently including a few different collaboration brews. The first new batch to hit the brew kettles was Nelson Sauvin Single Hop. This is part of our single hop series as the last one I brewed was Galaxy Single Hop in 2012. This batch will also be split into a separate beer as we're working with a local coffee roaster, Sumerian Coffee, (Sumerian Coffee) to make a coffee beer. The coffee beer will be a bit different in that our goal is to make a lighter colored ale and combine the interesting NZ hops along with some Ethiopian Yirgacheffe Single Origin beans to provide a different coffee beer experience. It's been a cool project to work on as Dave and I have shared the same vision from the beginning. We've captured some cool video footage along the way and think it will educate customers about our unique beverages. Our trials have been progressing well and we'll do one keg later this week to see how we like the small scale results. Here's a picture of us dosing the beer with different volumes of cold coffee.
In the end we're going to use a liberal amount of coffee as the berry notes of the coffee combine nicely with the hops while having a light caramel note. We've also brewed our Spring Seasonal beer, Brawlin' Belgian Witbier, currently pouring at both BCB locations. This beer is based upon a traditional witbier but I add a little twist by using some organic pink peppercorns. The resulting flavor is light spiciness from the peppercorns as well as the coriander and Belgian witbier yeast. Subtle notes of orange peel make it uber drinkable and a real winner for the Spring weather in Shanghai. The yeast from this beer will hang around the brewery for a few months and we'll continue to brew some Belgian inspired beers through June before switching over to our Summer Seasonal beer (TBD). Another fun project was the collaboration beer for Shanghai Beer Week. I worked with Leon from The BREW and Teddy from Dr. Beer to create an Imperial Pilsner recipe and brew at our brewery in Minhang district.
Nearly all the ingredients we used in this beer were donated by our sponsors - NZ Hops, Castle Malting and White Labs. The beer combines the liberal use of several different NZ hops along with a high alcohol content. We hit a home run on the fermentation as the beer has finished at 9.2% ABV. The beer was dry-hopped with Motueka hops and a small amount of Mosaic hops. The aroma and flavor of this beer is amazing with notes of pine and tropical fruit. We're all excited to release this beer during SHBW 2013! (Shanghai Beer Week). We settled on a funny name for the beer, Porky's Revenge Imperial Pilsner, due to recent episode of pigs floating in the Huangpu River. The collaboration idea and the beer name gathered a bit of media attention (Jing Daily) so we're excited for May 17th and the SHBW kickoff party! A few other special beers that we've brewed recently include Hoppy Ending White IPA and Chocolate Stout. Of course our regular products are in production and we've been busy enough to warrant the purchase of another tank or two for the brewery so we can help keep up with the rising demand of beer. I visited a couple equipment suppliers recently and we're close to ordering the first bright beer tank....maybe we can even squeeze in another tap or two at our locations!?!
We've been busy shipping beer off for competitions and two different beer festivals. I sent TKO IPA, Sucker Punch Pale Ale, King Louie Imperial Stout and Standing 8 Pilsner to Melbourne for the Australian International Beer Awards. This is the 3rd year we've participated in this beer competition and for some reason we had customs clearance issues upon arrival in Sydney this year. I made too many phone calls to get it released from customs and only hope the weather and conditions didn't damage the beer before it sits in front of the judging panel. We also hand delivered some beer to Tokyo for Asia Beer Cup. It seems TKO IPA, Sucker Punch Pale Ale and Ringside Red all made it to the medal round for ABC 2013 so I'm excited to see the final results. The trip to Tokyo was great although I had some stomach issues that prevented me from judging beers...a real bummer and something I experienced just prior to the trip. Oh the joys of living in China sometimes.....
The keg cooler is a bit more empty than usual as we've shipped kegs to Hong Kong as we're pouring beer at Beertopia Hong Kong (Beertopia HK) on April 13th. It will be fun to check out the Hong Kong market and see how people respond to Boxing Cat beers. They're expecting a great turnout for this festival as the spirit of craft beer is alive in Hong Kong. I'll give a little talk on the Rise of Craft Beer in China as well so no rest for the weary these days! The other beer shipment that left the country is bound for Denmark and Copenhagen Beer Celebration. We're super excited for this festival (Copenhagen Beer Celebration) and will spend some extra time in Copenhagen and checking out the local beer scene. I'm sure it will include several visits to Mikkeller including his new bar in Nørrebro! The opportunity to pour BCB beers on this international stage is awesome and I'm stoked to try some beers from other amazing breweries.
My spare time has been spent organizing and promoting Shanghai Beer Week and the Sinan Mansions Beer Festival. Things are coming together nicely and we have a number of events planned for SHBW 2013. You can see a list of the current events here: (SHBW 2013 Events). The designer for SHBW has also worked up some great artwork and it's really cool to see all this develop and have John get it onto the website with Liz helping on the marketing angle. Here's our official banner for SHBW 2013.
Until next time - May your pint glass be full of delicious beer!
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