Busy Week
We made 80bbls of beer this week, all of them lagers. Two Schild Brau, one Pilsner, and one batch of Wheat. We really need to brew more… This is a good problem to have!
Though we do have other problems. My real frustration this week is the realization that the Pale Ale is moving so slow, that I will not be able to make a third batch of it, even though I have the ingredients. I completely overestimated the sales of it (without labels) and underestimated the sales of Pilsner, which we are now running short on. This brings along another headache: without Pale Ale labels, and without Pilsner to bottle, we will not have three bottled beers to put into our sampler packs. I think our only choice will be to put six Wheat and six Schild Brau in each one.
The lack of labels will become a heated discussion, i’m sure, during this years winter annual meeting. This has happened far too often, and we are going to have to do something to make sure we don’t get caught like this again.
The good news is that we have a beer club indicating it would like our Pale Ale in January, so perhaps I will not have to keep a thousand pounds of pale ale malt around for a whole year. Also we WILL have labels in August, and perhaps we will sell a huge amount that month.. we will see.
We really can’t do the Pale Ale and Oktoberfest at the same time, since they go into the same six pack carrier. This causes a headache at stores since they both ring up as the same beer. I am planning on making the Oktoberfest early again, since it was such a big success last year, and I would like to enter it into the GABF. It should be ready in the first week of September.
I have also been working on making a lemonade to mix with beer for the bike ride. This is called a Radler in Germany. It should be pretty tasty. If anyone reading this knows where I can get a little bit of citric acid locally, i’d be pretty happy to hear about it. Its ordered but i’d like to have some sooner than when it will arrive.
Don’t forget that this month is American beer month. The American Beer Month website is very nicely designed and pretty informative. Check it out. Americanbeermonth.com
July 9th, 2004 at 5:15 am
I was going to ask you about the Warsh Pail Ale labels…hopefully I can stop by the brewery and fill my growler soon, though its a little more cost effective to buy a six-pack (though I think tap beer is so much tastier!)