Internal Brewsletter - December 11th, 2024
General
Festive Fridays
Feel free to wear your (family-friendly) holiday sweaters or accessories each Friday through the holiday season!
Holiday Hours
Christmas Eve:
Pub: 11 am - 4 pm
Tap Room: Closed
Caves: Closed
Christmas Day:
All locations closed
Holiday Party January 13th
Please use this form to RSVP for the Block 15 Holiday Party! This year, we will be holding it at our Southtown Tap Room on January 13th from 5 pm - 9 pm. We've got lots of fun activities planned such as:
Kegeritas
Pinatas
White Elephant Gift Exchange
Holiday Baking Competition with fabulous prizes
DJ Scottie with a community playlist
Photobooth
Food catered by Grindz Hawaiian from Albany
Afterparty at Squirrels 9pm - 12am!
This party is for adults only, and each employee is allowed a plus 1. If the plus 1 is a former employee, please include their name in the spot below!
Employee Provision
A weekly special served at the Pub, the idea of which comes primarily from Block 15 employees.
This week’s Employee Provision will be brought to you by Garrison! Swing by the Pub this Thursday for a Chicago Dog!
We’re always looking for more submissions, so send in those ideas!
This Week’s Releases
Releasing Friday, December 13th
Hoppy New Year //
Description: Welcome in 2025 with a bang of the finest Northwest-grown hops, a crisp body orchestrated by a dance of specialty malts, and a bubbly finish. Hoppy New Year from Block 15! // 8.80%
Key Takeaway: Ring in the new year with an ipa that pairs the citrus character of Amarillo, citra and Wai-iti with the tropical and herbal character of Talus and Nelson Sauvin. Also features Pure Idaho pilsner malt from Great Western Malting Co.
Tasting Notes: Orange Peel • Herbaceous • Snappy
Format: Draft & Cans
Series: Orbital
Beer Style: Imperial IPA
Imperial IPAs (often called Double IPAs) feature a more robust profile of malts and hops. Significant factors that set Imperial IPAs apart from regular IPAs are their alcohol content and bitterness levels. An Imperial IPA can range from 7.5%-10% ABV. Due to the increased malt load it takes to create the additional alcohol, more hops are required to balance out the beer and keep the malt in check. An Imperial IPA should be intensely hoppy, medium-light to medium-bodied, and have balanced hop characteristics. There can be Imperial versions of virtually any IPA style or sub-style.
Continuous Darkness //
Description: Embrace the darkest days of the year with this luscious concoction that balances notes of chocolate, caramel, espresso, and decadent dark fruits, concentrated to velvety heights by an extended boil. // 14.00%
Key Takeaway: Implementing several new techniques to make something unique, Continuous Darkness is a step beyond for us. No adjuncts were used to make this exceptionally big stout.
Tasting Notes: Bitter Chocolate • Espresso • Indulgent
Format: Draft & Cans
Series: Emerging
Beer Style: Russian Imperial Stout
Also more simply referred to as “Imperial Stout,” the term Imperial originates from the late 1700s when a London-made strong “export stout” was shipped to the Russian Imperial Court at the request of Catherine the Great. The Lonon-based brewery that exclusively made this beer, Anchor Brewing, later renamed Barclay Perkins, saw the marketing opportunity to rename this beer to “Russian Imperial Stout,” this is the origin of the term “Imperial” in describing beer with exceptionally high strength. As the name implies, this is a strong beer, usually between 8% and 12%, but some American examples can exceed 15% ABV. Dark with a strong roasted malt character, they often present notes of dried fruit, chocolate, and coffee flavors with a warm, bittersweet finish.
Upcoming Releases
*This list is subject to change based on the production schedule, so please keep that in mind!
The Prophecies // Belgian Quad
Series: Orbital
Releases: December 20th
Format: Draft & Cans
Description: Inspired by a favorite Abbey quad enjoyed on a visit to Belgium. Blending specialty malts, dark Belgian candi sugar, & Abbey yeast with hints of dark fruit and Dutch cocoa with a rich yet delightful finish.
Crowler/Package Sale for Sippin’ Sunday
20% off all packaged beer to-go, $5 Crowlers, and $10 Growler fills all-day Sunday of a specific beer.
This week’s beer is: Joy
Beer Education
2:30 pm Tuesdays @ the Tap Room
Join us at the Tap Room every week for an educational session where you can taste and learn about the week’s releases. All are welcome!
4:00 pm Every Other Thursday @ the Pub
The next meet-up will be on December 19th!
Join us every other Thursday in the Game Room at the Pub to taste through beers, discuss our beers, brewing, or any other related topics you have questions about. This is a casual session, and anyone is welcome to attend. If you have an interesting bottle of beer you would like to taste/share with the group, bring it in. Your first beer is on us if you attend.
Beer 101: Continuous Darkness
Written by Garrison Schmidt, Head Brewer
Continuous Darkness is a really interesting beer, and it gives us an opportunity to talk about the different ways we can change the beer we make. We talk a lot about barrel aging and using new exciting hop products and varieties, but what happens if we take those both off the table? What if we want to brew something big, powerful, and full of character but can’t use those two common levers from our program? One answer is to use a more interesting and complex grain bill and play with the duration of key steps during the hot side brewing process.
Let's compare Continuous Darkness to another of our favorite dark beers, like Nebula, for a look at just how intense this big mama really is. Nebula has seven distinct malts used, including five specifically darker malts, that come to a total of 1290 lbs per turn. Continuous Darkness has ten distinct malts, with seven darker varieties, for a total of 2262 lbs per turn. That means that there are considerably (almost twice as many) more sugars available from the malt in a single batch of Continuous Darkness than in Nebula, which means that much more can be converted to ABV during fermentation. Nebula is also boiled for 70 minutes, and CD is boiled for 240 minutes. This gives the wort a lot of time to condense through evaporation, increasing the viscosity and giving it a really special mouthfeel, which the style is famous for. Increasing the boil also increases Maillard reaction influence, which refers to the flavor and aroma caused by chemical reactions that take place during a cooking, toasting, or burning process. Think about the difference in aroma between bread and toast.
Russian Imperial stout is one of my favorite styles, especially this time of year. They are big, bold, flavorful, and pack a serious punch that is great for chasing off those winter blues.
From the Executive Chef
Pub Updates
The Pink Moon will be temporarily falling off the menu for a few weeks while we feature an Egg Nog at the Pub. This Egg Nog will have a blend of rums, coconut, banana liqueur, and sherry in it, and is a little bit lighter-bodied than the classic, ultra creamy versions. We’re going to feature this same recipe at Caves as well. It’s very approachable and great for this holiday season.
Tap Room Updates
Caves Updates
Congratulations to Aidan for stepping into the Caves GM role as I (Goody) begin my transition out of Block 15. We will spend some time training, but feel free to direct questions and feedback his way!
Events
High Fives
Makenna White - For her beautiful holiday decorating skills at the taproom, it looks lovely! Thank you for your hard work.
Whitney Parks - She's doing an excellent job at both locations. Thanks for your efforts and always being willing to help where it's needed.
Holly - I am really enjoying the window decorations. That was a great idea!
Spencer, Zach and Myles - Making training a lot of fun, easy to understand and in general showing how much the distribution team works together has been awesome to watch. As well as be a part of this team.
If you have kudos or kind words to share anonymously in the Brewsletter, use the button below!
Human Resources
Staff Section
Please welcome the following folks to the team:
Neil Abrew - Distro driver
Charles Clack - Prep cook
The People’s Pint / Cheers for Charity / Dine Out
Check back next week.