Brewery Update: Quality Control, a Humbling Experience

Making mistakes or so called learning experiences are never fun, the truth hurts, it's ugly, welcome to life, but as we've learned from the phoenix, dying is also a rebirth and can be celebrated for if nothing else, continued survival.

The year to date with the brewery so far has had some amazing successes and tragic failures. Inconsistent would probably be an appropriate description and for anyone that has experienced a less than stellar beer, I deeply apologize. A recap:

The Successes:

• The first batches in the spring were all generally hits, this includes the Flying Squirrel Amber Ale, Amaizing Cream Ale, Voyageur Pale Ale, the first Stout, and the Sand Bay Wheat.
• From these triumphs, we moved on to some more challenging beers, including the Valhalla Blonde and Drunken Loon Dark Belgian Ale, with a variety of different spices infused in the beer and over time, they just got better and better. The first batch of Drunken Loon I believe was one of the best beers I've ever experienced.

The Failures:

• Once summer hit, while we still had beers left over the spring and some of the new batches worked out, in general it was one disaster after another. The fact that it takes a month to realize if it works or not didn't help, allowing certain problems to keep going full steam ahead.
• One of these was the temperature of the wort when the yeast was added. While I thought I kept it under a certain amount of control, at the time with the previous successes, was feeling a little bit invincible and thought the yeast could handle a bit warmer than the standard 70 F ale temperature. The problem was when cooling the wort down, as we don't have a glycol chiller, was 100% based on the wort chiller, cooling it down to about the same temperature of the incoming tap water. As summer warmed up, so did the tap water and cooling it to 70 F was a nightmare. At the same time, we were hitting peak summer season so we never had enough and there was a strong urge to get it out, letting a few variables slide a bit, big mistake. When too warm, the yeast reacts with the wort differently and the results aren't what they should be.
• Another was an oxygen exposure problem. I recently discovered a very small, tiny, air leak in a hose with one of the fermenters, meaning every batch previously done in this fermenter had this issue.
• The third problem was simply impatience, not leaving the beers in the fermenter long enough or aging properly. Admittedly, I'm not a patient person and it's even worse as I can have a perspective of impatience being a virtue, i.e. once you make a decision on something, go full bore, no turning back, only one way to find out if you're right or wrong, find the issue, so be it, and move on.
• The result of these failures was producing beers that while still drinkable, were not always what they should be and eventually I ended up biting the bullet and dumping batches, much more than I care to admit. The most recent of which was early this morning from 2-9am, where I dumped the remaining Stubborn Moose, Valhalla Blonde, and Drunken Loon. 

Going Forward

• All that said, we currently have two beers on tap, the Black Swan Stout and Voyageur Pale Ale, both of which in my opinion are outstanding, were done right, temperature and other variables under control, and should be a sign of good beers to come.
• We currently have three more beers in the fermenters, all of which were done at the right temperature, are fermenting as they should be, will be patient and leaving them there for 3-4 weeks, and once done, I don't see any reason that they shouldn't have their previous glory, this includes a batch of the Amaizing Cream Ale, Sand Bay Wheat, and a new one, the Gold Portage Light Blonde Ale.
• Throughout these last few months in my frustration of batches not working out, have done tons of additional ingredient research, such as from the book Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers, from which will be applying to various batches over winter.

In Summary
We've been wounded, scarred, bruised, but not dead and if anything, will be channeling the energy of these failures to making beers better than ever over winter. Or, as the legend John Belushi, Bluto, declared:

Cheers,
​Loony's Brew