November 17, 2010

CATCHING UP


What a delay since the last posting! Thanks to all of our great customers! We have been fighting to keep up with demand since the weather has taking a turn in the right direction. We are selling about 160 packs of yeast liquid yeast per week (and who knows how many dozen packs of dry), which definitely helps keep it fresh, but makes it really hard to have the ones you need, when you need it. It may be time for more refrigeration! We've been selling tons of whole leaf hops from this years harvest as well. Fortunately for the brewers who prefer pellets, the hop-gods have begun pelletizing many varieties from this years hop harvest, so we will have Amarillo pellets again! Yipee! We really are grateful for your business, and your patience while we expand and train our staff to keep up.
Some fantastic news: As of Friday Nov. 19th, brewers will be able to sign up for the 2nd edition of Brooklyn Wort! Thanks to the guys at Sycamore Bar & Flower Shop for their help
getting this event together. This time around will be even better than the last. We have many news sponsors, like Valley Malt, Wyeast, Beer Sessions, Greenport Harbor Brewing Co., and many more to be announced, as well as all of the great sponsors that made the 1st Brooklyn Wort possible.

Because the competition will take place on February 26th, and its likely to be cold as f#%k. So in order to accommodate 25 brewers (that's right, 25 brewers this time) the event will be held around the corner from Brooklyn Homebrew, at The Gowanus Studio Space. Brewers should be on the lookout this Friday @ Noon if they want to sign up! Go to brooklynwort.com for details on participating.

We never had a chance to share some photos from Jamil Zainasheff visit to Brooklyn Homebrew. It was a great time, and a fantastic way to kick off another crazy NY Craft Beer Week. Many thanks to our friend Jaclyn Elder for taking these great photos. She is available for any type of beer related event you need!

We now have some hop teas available (blended in house!), which would make a great gift. We also have our equipment kits available in boxes, to make them easier to gift wrap. And maybe some bows will be added as Christmas creeps closers!

We have reorganized our grains, and added even more information to the grain bins to help you learn about the ingredients in your beers. When buying beer kits to give as gifts (from us or online) keep in mind that beer ingredients ARE perishable. Malted barley can keep very very well when it's un-cracked (un-crushed, un-milled, etc.), but beware of buying beer kits in which the malted grains have been pre-crushed. Once the tiny grain has been cracked open, exposing air and moisture to the center of the malt, it not only loses its delicious aroma, but its flavor will quickly fade. Even worse than loss of flavor, if the grain oxidizes or hydrolisis of the lipids (fancy words!) within the grain takes affect, then you may end up with an unpleasant or even metallic taste in your beer. So if you buy a beer kit as a gift, make sure the grains are crushed for you at the time of purchase and not in advance, because you have no way of knowing how long ago the grain was milled. Or, when you buy the kit, make sure they are not milled at all. By the time you give the "gift of grain" to the brewer on your Christmas shopping list, a full month may have nearly passed already..... and who knows when they will have time to brew the beer. Let the person you give the beer kit to either mill the grain themselves if they have a way to do so, or let them take the grain to the friendly neighborhood home-brew shop (Brooklyn Homebrew) and ask them (us) to mill the grain for them right before they brew.

And finally, we want to congratulate our good friend Mark Zap (who played a big part in helping us get our store up in running last January) for his amazing creation that he recently unveiled. Brewing as Art. Mark and his co-creator and metal sculptor friend, Scott Van Campen have been working hard through the summer months to get this done. A hand-made mobile sculpture piece that actually functions....... it can make 10 gallons of beer! My photograph (below)
doesn't do it justice. You really need to see it in person to appreciate the amount of work that went into every detail of the brew sculpture. Hopefully he will be blessing us with his sculpture at the next Brooklyn Wort!