Filthy Beers

Summer is coming, there is no denying it. We’ve got big plans in store! So many plans, they probably won’t all fit in during the summer. If we call them all summer plans, and they extend past the summer months, does that mean our summer will technically extend with them? Could we have struck upon the secret to a truly endless summer? We extended that summer so hard, you now have My Wave by Soundgarden stuck in your head, and you are dreaming of surfing in Australia. BELIEVE IT.

In any case, check out the latest Filthy Beer on the Filthy Beers page. Introducing our weisenbock, Filthel Castro. We flipped Weihenstephan on its head by pumping this wheat weisen monster full of munich and honey malt to turn it bright red. It is so red it was reported for its anti-american politics during the 50′s. To balance the scales, we are using an amazing new (to us) hop strain called Delta that mixes our favorite aspects of Sterling and Cascade hops to add a crisp yet spicy depth of flavor to combat all of that complex malty goodness. This one is already in the fermentor and will be good to go for the next party. Dare we call it the Communist Party?

After that, we have options. We have a slate of 5 new session beers we will be cranking out for the summer time. These all range from 4.5% to 5.5% percent (which is still session to us, because that is the way we roll). Get excited, these are going to be great. Over the last two years, the three of us have together purposefully forced ourselves to adopt a second, lighter approach to brewing to go in concert with our boundary pushing ways in order to grow as brewers, and these are the highlights that came out of this shift in philosophy. And yes, included in this list is the direct descendant of Lightheaded, our award winning lemon pale ale.

Oh god the excitement. I can’t contain the excitement! SO MUCH EXCITEMENT.

So yes, look forward to all of this, and remember, for relaxing times, make it filthy times.

Hey, did you know?

It’s beer day in the good ol’ US of A.

Apparently, there was some leeway passed by FDR during prohibition times to allow beer less than 3.2 ABV to be commercially released to the public. Hence, beer day. This sounds like one of those days to celebrate drinking beer, which I have to say, is a great thing. I really wish prohibition had never happened though, it makes me wonder how much further along beer culture in America would be. We’re out here making beer though, so better late than never, right?

Anyways, happy Beer Day! Drink a beer you love, drink a beer you’re OK with, drink something rancid you made months ago and have been keeping around to see if they get any mellower with age.

But really, if you’re like me, everyday is Beer Day.

hello there! been awhile, it has.

Brewed some more fortnight yesterday and there was some riding dirty. Things like the mash tun getting stuck and dropping things was par for the course. My favorite was having the tube running from the mash tun to the boiling pot popped out while it was running, and ended up on the brewery floor for a little bit. oops. but we’re filthy after all.

speaking of filthy, we’re turning one! the inception of this whole idea came about around this time last year, and we have some beers to show for it. Our party will be the 16th, but check the Facebook for details. I feel like we move so slow these days, but when i think back to where we were a year ago, this is pretty damn impressive.

could we be working harder? sure. but when you’re filthy, you do it your way.

Thanks to everyone who came out and enjoyed our beer with us last saturday night. Everything went over pretty well, and we’re all pretty convinced this batch of Filthy Gentleman we made is by far the best batch of beer we’ve made so far. Good on you if you ended up getting some.

There are rumblings about us maybe upping our production a bit and getting more out there. Stay tuned for that!

A little networking going on, thought I’d throw this out there.

First off thanks to Chef Ricky for coming over and inspiring a beer last Sunday, it was fun to brew and hang out with someone who wanted to know more about the process, even though I explain things in a somewhat confusing manner, it went pretty well. We’re making a sweeter amber with chili flakes and lime zest/juice and  at some point, salt. i’m interested to see how it tastes so far. It’s my first attempt at making a spicy beer, and the sweeter aspect of the malt will hopefully blend with the lime and balance out the spice from the chili flakes. that’s the idea anyways.

Ricky is a blogging machine though, and we love him. He wrote up our little adventure here: (http://bbrunches.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/brewing-a-custom-beer-with-filthy-brewing-alliance-methodology-flavors-my-brew-master/) He does personal chef classes, and we occasionally make some beer for him, so check out his site as well (http://bbrunches.wordpress.com/)

On Monday night, Joe and I went out and visited NW Peaks Brewing (http://www.nwpeaksbrewery.com/) and had a nice chat with Kevin, who is doing great things in ballard for nanobrews, all by himself. We talked about some of the paperwork hoops that we need to jump through as a nano ourselves, tried some of his delicious Redoubt Red, and talked about brewing. It was inspiring to see another fellow brewer working his ass off to get his beer out there, it is a standard to try and live up to.

Despite the chilly temperatures, we have some beer coming through the pike now, Filthy Gentleman should be ready soon!