Happy Christmas Eve and Hanukkah! A quick update on First Frost bottles…

We’re having some problems with the orange caps on our First Frost bottles coming off easily. We tried switching to different caps (caps we used last year), but the problem remained. It’s weird, because everything is the same from last year: caps, bottles, capper, process.

We filled about 800 bottles out of a planned 2,400 bottle run using the orange caps. We are now switching to a corked-and-caged bottle, which solves the problem. However, it’s a more time-intensive process, so we only have a few bottles for sale today (Dec 24) at our tavern. We will have more bottles available after Christmas, both at our tavern and at our retail partners.

If you purchased an orange-capped First Frost and had problems with carbonation, please let us know. We will issue you a refund or get you a corked-and-caged version as soon as possible. Orange-capped beers are generally holding their carbonation just fine…it’s just that the caps come off very easily. If you’re storing the beer (First Frost can age for a year), we recommend only aging the corked-and-caged First Frost.

Thank you for your patience. We hope to switch to an automated corking and filling machine soon. In the meantime, please join me in thanking Dave, Kevin, Ted, Mary Beth, and the rest of the Fullsteam staff who are working on Christmas Eve in an effort to get at least a few bottles under some Christmas trees tomorrow!

Lastly, a huge thanks to Aviator Brewing Company, who graciously loaned us their corker and supplied us with corks and cages; Mother Earth Brewing Company, who gave us great advice and insight into transitioning to corking; and LoneRider Brewing Company, who offered to help us out with bottles and supplies. The North Carolina brewing community is so generous, and we truly are thankful for to our brethren.

Merry Christmas to all.

Coming soon to Fullsteam R&D and beer retailers throughout North Carolina…the 2011 First Frost! We brewed this 9.1% ABV beauty with 500 pounds of native North Carolina persimmons – a resplendent harvest compared to last year’s 75-pound yield. The result? 2,400 750ml bottles of winter ale – three times more than last year’s 800 bottle run.

We release the bottles to the public at Friday’s holiday extravaganza, A Very Merry Durham. $15 a bottle at the brewery, just like last year.

Starting Monday, December 19th, you’ll be able to purchase First Frost at a better beer stores throughout North Carolina. We’ll keep you posted on the list of participating retailers. Don’t be surprised if a few bottles are available outside of North Carolina…we’re eager to share the goodness beyond the borders. This is one special beer.

]]> http://www.fullsteam.ag/blog/2011/12/arriving-soon-first-frost-in-bottles/feed/ 0 http://www.fullsteam.ag/blog/2011/02/beer-updates/ http://www.fullsteam.ag/blog/2011/02/beer-updates/#comments Wed, 16 Feb 2011 05:51:52 +0000 Sean http://www.fullsteam.ag/?p=3006 Hi everyone!

A couple of notes and thoughts from Fullsteamland.

• a lot of breweries ask their fans to request a bar carry their beer. That’d be great with us, but here’s our “ask”: this weekend, thank a bar, restaurant, or retailer who currently sells our beer. Talk to a bartender, your server, or the manager. Let them know that you appreciate them choosing Fullsteam, and that you’d enjoy seeing it stay on-tap (assuming both of these statements are true, of course!). We’re so appreciative of the 60-or-so accounts who individually decided Fullsteam was deserving of their tap line-up or shelf-space. Would you mind thanking them as their customer and supporter of our new venture? It’d mean so much to us.
• Sour Mashed Sweet Potato is almost gone. Enjoy it while you can! We’re down to our last keg or two. Don’t worry: we’ll have another tart beer in a few months: the one that started it all…Liborius Gollhardt Sour Rhubarb!
• We are out of El Toro cream ale until later next week.
• Next up, ready in six or so weeks: Sparkling Pear farmhouse ale. 135 pounds of heirloom pears, wit yeast, Pils malt. Dry. Crisp. Higher alcohol. You likey.
• A reward for those of you still reading: this Friday starting at 6pm, we will offer eight-ounce pours of a very limited beer.

Sour First Frost
One-year-old First Frost aged on persimmons and a cocktail of wild yeast, back-blended with this year’s First Frost. A spicy, earthy and sour Flanders Red-influenced ale with hints of cherry and dark fruit aromas.

Eight gallon batch. $8 a glass.

Part 1: Introduction and research
Part 2: Harvest
Part 3: Brewing (today’s write-up)

The first two blog entries on persimmon discuss our fascination with harvesting the fruiting wild tree. Part 3 discusses how we brewed the beer.

Historically speaking, it’s debatable whether or not these “opportunistic” historical Southern persimmon beer methods would really be considered “beer.” The conspicuous lack of malted barley and hops is the biggest clue. While beer can be made without hops (gruit), Sebastian from Natty Greene’s puts it well: beer without hops is like soup without salt — not impossible, but certainly uncommon. The obvious implication that something is rather missing.

Beer can be made with sorghum or other grains, not just malted barley. Often times the goal is to create a gluten- or wheat-free alterative for people with celiac disease or wheat allergies.

That said, a gluten-free was not our goal this time around. The homebrewers of a century ago fermented what they farmed. Two-row barley is a cool-climate crop. Hop bines grow well here in North Carolina, but are historically subject to powdery mildew. Around these parts, wheat and persimmons and green  pine straw grow well.

But we rather like our barley and hops!

Our persimmon beer, First Frost, blends opportunist Southern fermentation with more traditional brewing methods and ingredients. It’s a tribute to “Southern scrounge” brewing (dare I call it that?), but with a traditional English-style winter ale as the base.

Food-wise, the inspriation for this beer is the complex flavor of persimmon pudding. Though it’s not about recreating the holiday dessert into liquid form; instead, we wanted a beer that expressed its essence with hints of cinnamon, raison, and the slighltly tannic, savory persimmon.

The base beer is a simple “carrier,” which allows the persimmon to add depth, complexity, fermentables, and flavor. In this twelve-gallon test batch, we added two pounds of mashed permission puree at high krasen with a small addition of turbinado sugar. We hope that the persimmon flavor will carry through the beer without the need for cinnamon, molasses, or any other flavor additions. Early samples of the beer were very promising.

Illustration 44: persimmon beer
http://www.ncroots.com/Beaufort/wilkinsonbook.htm

Eagle-eyed readers (and a few doe-eyed ones) may remember a post from a few weeks back discussing a Southern persimmon beer recipe from 1913. We’re thinking about making this recipe, following it to a T — including the rainwater part. But it’s far more important to see if we could take this Southern winter tree fruit and make tasty beer out of it. I’m pretty sure that a non-barley-based beer from 100 years ago would likely taste more like Pruno than, say, Westvleteren.

Alas, I’m getting ahead of myself.

The first step in a persimmon winter ale is to get some persimmons. A few years back, I read a great article in the Carrboro Citizen about finding persimmon trees. Check it out. But come back, because I’d be sad if you didn’t read the rest of my story!

Are you back? Great! Thank you!

I had to find a persimmon tree. To become its “caretaker,” a seemingly Southern euphemism for “if you’re not using the fruit from this tree, I’ll gladly take some.” At the peak of the harvest (particularly good this year, word had it), I was still hunting down a source. I posted on my local bulletin board — not much luck. I asked renowned chef Bill Smith of Crooks Corner for advice — he told me to keep asking around; to find someone just as he has.

Facebook to the rescue. I posted a request and within a few days had my source — a family from church we’ve known for a few years. Here’s the tree.

By the time I got to the tree, some of the fruit had already fallen to the ground. That’s good and bad: persimmons taste best after they’ve fallen to the ground — you only need one bite of an unripe persimmon to learn this lesson. It’s rather like eating felt. The bad part is that animals love persimmons.

But a gentle knock of the branches to “encourage” the fruit to fall seemed reasonable. I started with a gentle shake of the limbs, which produced healthy results:

After several hours of knocking and collecting, I had quite the batch: two huge bagfuls of sweet, ripe wild persimmons. Next time around I’ll collect the persimmons in a large tub of water, as the sheer weight of the harvest tended to crush the already-ripe fruit. For some reason, I didn’t take a picture of the final harvest, so here’s a shot of 1/100th of the end result:

There are already a cuss-ton of pictures in this blog post, so suffice to say I followed this procedure to mash the fruit. We ended up with two large bucketfuls of sweet fruit puree. It tastes like spiced fruit. Perhaps those of you who’ve had persimmon could come up with a better description. I personally think of it as ripe apricot meets fig meets tomato. Sound gross? It’s not.

The harvest will make several rounds of First Frost, our winter persimmon ale. Details on the beer coming next week — right now, it’s fermenting away. I also made some persimmon pudding, following Chef Bill Smith’s recipe…yep, the same Bill Smith who encouraged me to keep asking around and keep hunting.

I found my treasured tree. Thank you to my friends, its true caretakers, who shall remain nameless on this post so no one else bugs them.  I offered them some persimmon pudding but they seemed more interested in the beer. Here’s hoping it turns out…the harvest took some time, and I can think of nothing more rewarding than having 32 craft the harvest into a memorable winter ale.