Flash forward to a couple weeks after GABF when we gathered in our sensory room for our daily tasting to release beers from our warehouse. All of the beers for the day had been tasted and Pauwels tells us about his idea to make a mint julep beer. We love our brewmaster and trust his brilliant brewing instincts, but this one was a bit of a tough sell. He told us that he wanted to age Long Strange Tripel from our Smokestack Series in a fresh whiskey barrel for a few months and then infuse it with fresh mint leaves. When brainstorming new beers, there really are no stupid ideas, but you have to admit, this one was a bit wacky. Thankfully for you, he’s very convincing—we went through with it and were all amazed by how tasty this beer cocktail hybrid was. It was so good that we blew through all of the kegs in our tasting room in a short period of time.

When something turns out so nicely like this, we’re tempted to keep the resulting beer for ourselves, but we knew this was something special that should be shared with Kansas City. For that reason, we’ve produced a very limited amount of five-gallon kegs that are pouring now exclusively in the Greater Kansas City Area during the next few weeks. We hope you enjoy it!

By: Jeremy Danner, Boulevard Brewer

-by Jeremy Danner, Boulevard Brewer

Not long ago, a group of Boulevardians sat down with The Roasterie’s Bean Hunter (what a title), Paul Massard, and envisioned a different spin on coffee beer. There was a lot to consider. What kind of base beer should we use? What coffee variety? Should we use whole beans or grounds? How do we incorporate coffee into the beer? Will it look enough like coffee that I can drink it from a mug at work?

Blind tasting ultimately favored The Roasterie’s Ethiopian Sidamo varietal, with its wine-like aroma and clean finish. Freshly roasted beans were added to a base beer—made up of rye, pale and caramel malt, subtly brightened with Perle and Styrian Golding hops—just after fermentation so as to contribute as much coffee aroma as possible. When finished, we found ourselves with an amber-hued, full-bodied beer with aromas of (you guessed it) roasted coffee and citrus, complimented by prominent caramel flavor and a sweet, slightly bitter finish.

And while you’d be just fine pairing this beer with smoked brisket or aged gouda, Coffee Ale inherently screams out for breakfast—think donuts—or dessert—think flourless chocolate cake. Just don’t expect much of a pick-me-up, according to Elizabeth Belden of Boulevard’s Quality Assurance Team. “You would need to drink four 750ml bottles of this beer in order to get the caffeine equivalent of 12 ounces of drip coffee,” Belden says. “And we’re talking about a 9.3% ABV beer here. You really shouldn’t drink four bottles of this all in one sitting anyway.”

Watch Boulevard scientists Elizabeth and Nathan describe Coffee Ale

Strawberries have been linked with lovin’ since as early as 200 B.C. when the Romans offered them to their partners symbolically saying, “You are delicious.” In 1990, Richard Gere offered a strawberry to Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman saying, “It brings out the flavor of the champagne…” prompting her to respond, “Oh. Groovy.” I can’t think of a beer that’s groovier than our Long Strange Tripel. I often use the pairing of Long Strange Tripel and strawberries when I teach beginning beer pairing classes because it’s a simple, but powerful pairing. The fruity character contributed by our Belgian yeast strain makes the strawberry pop and shine. Want to taste a strawberry again for the first time? Pair it with Long Strange Tripel and turn the lights down low.

Some scholars argue that the fig was actually the forbidden fruit that grew in the Garden of Eden. The fig is said to arouse based on its appearance, but thankfully for us, the fig is also delicious and pairs up amazingly well with The Sixth Glass. The rich dark fruit character of our Belgian-style quadruple naturally couples with the rich, fruity flavor of figs. Go for the gold and pair The Sixth Glass with this dish that combines figs, bacon, and goat cheese. We can’t be held responsible for what happens after this treat.

My personal favorite “in the mood” food is raw oysters. The traditional beer pairing is a dry Irish Stout because oysters were plentiful near pubs that served this style of beer. Oysters were actually a free snack given to pub patrons while they enjoyed their stouts and bitters. Find a bar that gives away oysters with beer and I’m there. If you delve into the flavor hooks between the two, you’ll find that the acidity contributed by heavily roasted malts takes the place of lemon juice that some might squeeze over the oyster before eating it. The smooth, creamy mouthfeel and rich flavor of the beer help balance the brininess of the oyster liquor. If you’re new to handling oysters, especially raw ones, I’d suggest trying them in a restaurant before you tackle them at home.

If it should turn out that you’re not able to gather up some great food for your love this week, we hope at the very least you are able to pick up a dozen Boulevard beers and pour your heart out.

—by Jeremy Danner, Boulevard Brewer

People often ask where us brewers get ideas for new beers. Sometimes we wake up from a dream where we’ve had this fantastic beer in a bizarro version of our favorite drinking spot and immediately reach for a notepad to jot the idea down. Sometimes food can inspire, as was the case for Dark Truth Stout—Brewmaster Steven Pauwels returned from a lunch where he’d eaten a piece of bread that was made from five different grains. And finally, a good drinking session with fellow brewers often serves as the inspiration. This is how Grainstorm Black Rye I.P.A. was born.

We had kicked the around the idea of making this style for a few months and finally a spot opened up on our production calendar for us to create a new beer. The idea to include rye in the ingredients was suggested by one of our brewers. None us had ever brewed a Black I.P.A. before so we weren’t quite sure where to start. This is where things got fun. We sent our sensory team out to grab some beers for us to taste: Black I.P.A.s, Porters, Stouts that were more hop forward, and finally some beers brewed with rye. Our team lucked into a fairly nice fall day and gathered together on the patio just outside our tasting room to do some, well, tasting. At this point, you might inquire as to the difference between tasting and drinking. Most brewery folks would agree that the drinking starts when the thinking stops. I’ll admit it, this sounds a bit like mumbo jumbo for us to justify drinking at work, but it really is true. We tasted a wide variety of beers, jotting notes and discussing the varieties of flavors and aromas we found in each. It’s important to point out that we never taste another brewery’s beer with the intention of cloning that beer, but rather to discover what it is we like or dislike about each beer. Then we try to write a recipe that makes every member of the brewing team happy. Sometimes this is very easy. Sometimes it’s very hard. This time, it was fairly easy.

The best way to build a Black Rye I.P.A., in our opinion, was to formulate what we thought was a very good Rye I.P.A. and then add grain to make it dark in color. We wanted to influence beer’s color, but not create a beer that had strong roasted or chocolate character. Midnight Wheat from Briess ended up being just the ticket to give the beer a dark color without the typical flavors associated with darker malts. It was a goal of ours for this beer to produce a completely different hop profile than any beer Boulevard had previously brewed, so Amarillo and Simcoe were chosen as the impact hops for this beer. It’s true, Tank 7 does feature Amarillo, but the Simcoe added a pungent, punchy character that changed the aroma and flavor quite a bit. The dry hopping was supplemented with Citra to deliver a bigger, fruity, citrus character.

The first test batch of what was being called “Test Black Rye I.P.A.” was brewed, fermented, dry hopped and filtered soon after the recipe formulation meeting. By most standards, we’re a super humble group, but the first time this beer was tasted, we knew we’d killed it. Grainstorm ended up being unlike any beer previously brewed at Boulevard and the recipe turned out to be spot on. Besides upping some of the amounts of the late hops and dry hopping, the beer that’s going into bottles and kegs to be released to the public is very close to the original test batch we brewed. Grainstorm truly was born from the brainstorming session of a bunch of brewers.

—by Jeremy Danner Boulevard Brewer

Grainstorm Black Rye I.P.A.-which is a seasonal in our Smokestack Series-will begin hitting taps and shelves in early February throughout our distribution region. 

Come late February, we hope to have a new tour plan in place, increasing our weekly tour offerings from 19 to 31 time slots, and potentially consisting of the following changes:

• Tours on Mondays and Tuesdays (thus we’ll be offering tours seven days a week)
• Sunday-Friday tours will be offered on a first-come-first-served basis (no reservations needed)
• Saturday tours will still require a reservation (made here). We’ll open up spots on these tours eight days in advance.
• More private large group tours on Monday and Tuesday for your office outing, family reunion, etc.
• Unfiltered Tours on Sundays

The resulting downer of the deal, however, is that as February winds down we’ll be ending our longtime volunteer tour guide program. For years and years, we’ve had a group of selfless individuals who have spent their free time leading people through the brewery (note the photo of our current volunteer crew). We want to thank all of them for sharing their time and passion, and we hope to see them at the brewery for years to come.

In the meantime, continue to check back to Brewery Tours for more updates about how you can pay us a visit.

January welcomes the release of our most popular seasonal offering, Irish Ale. Our homage to the Irish Red style of beer is itself a variation on the early English and Irish Pale Ales. At Boulevard, we believe that a good beer begs you to have another and take this philosophy to heart when crafting our beers. Irish Ale is no exception. It’s a beer that is suitable while the Midwest weather is still quite chilly, yet with it’s crisp and toasted malt characteristics, it proves a very drinkable beer even as winter breaks and we approach St. Patrick’s Day.

The last few batches of Boulevard Irish Ale are making their way through the brew house today. We approach this beer much the same as we do our Pale Ale, with a delicate balancing act between caramel malt, a slight roastiness, and the spicy, herbal bitterness of Saaz and Sterling hops. The deep garnet color comes from a blend of specialty malts in the mash tun, as well as an addition of milled chocolate malt in the lauter tun. This technique allows us to achieve a deep garnet color without extracting the roasty bitterness from the chocolate malt in the mash.

These final batches of Irish Ale will spend most of January in our cellar while previous batches have been already racked into kegs or stored in our warehouse where bottle conditioning is taking place just in time for the brew to begin hitting the market next week. In addition to being one of our favorite beers around the brewery, Irish Ale holds the promise of a new year and near the end of it’s season, a welcome relief from the blustery cold.

One of the most common questions I am asked (besides “How can I join the taste panel?”) is “How do you come up with new beers?” In the case of our collaboration with the Roasterie, it began with a meeting – which, like all productive meetings, began with a beer.

Brewers and members of the Quality Assurance team brainstormed with Roasterie Bean Hunter, Paul Massard. There was a lot to consider, from both tasting and technical perspectives: What kind of base beer should we use? What coffee variety? How are we actually going to incorporate coffee into the beer? Should we make a batch of toddy and blend it with beer? How would we do that on a large scale? Should we use whole beans? Ground beans? What are examples of good coffee beers out there? What should we avoid?

After deciding on a direction, we set up a series of bench tests. Paul recommended six coffee varieties from all over the world that might blend well with beer. Three existing Boulevard beers were used as bases to give us an idea of how our beer works with coffee. Each coffee variety was dosed into each beer at three different concentrations. There was a lot of measuring, dispensing, and hand-crowning in the lab that day. Nathan Perry, the brewery’s microbiologist, and I agreed that the coffee aroma was too tempting to ignore, so we whipped up a couple of iced toddies to drink while we worked. I learned that a large quantity of afternoon caffeine really allows beer people to get things done quickly… and that the Roasterie folks must be operating on a whole other level than the rest of us.

Another thing I discovered is that coffee is tricky to work with, as its contact time with liquid must be carefully monitored. Paul taught us that roast can become bitter and astringent if it extracts at the wrong time or temperature. Because of this, Nathan and I had to set up our tests on a specific schedule.

Most combinations we created were eliminated immediately for one reason or another. We learned with every attempt. A coffee concentration was too faint, a variety didn’t work well with a beer, or a base beer didn’t work well with anything.

The first round of tests set the stage for a second round… and then a third round. By the end, we had narrowed our options. A unanimous vote elected Ethiopian Sidamo as the varietal. The brewers discussed a new recipe for the base – something with a smooth mouthfeel, maybe a touch of malt spice to complement the roast, reddish-amber color. In considering which coffee concentrations everyone preferred, we agreed on an important aspect of what this collaboration would become: a beer that utilized coffee as a main ingredient, but not in an overpowering way. We also didn’t want other ingredients to dominate the coffee. This is the main reason we chose a lighter beer for the base rather than a stout or porter. Highly-roasted malts tend to exhibit their own chocolate- and coffee-like qualities, as well as burnt/roasted characteristics that we felt would detract from the nuances of the Ethiopian roast everyone enjoyed so much.

The test brew is bottled and now have we wait for it to finish conditioning. We’ll then taste it and determine what tweaks need to be made before producing it on a larger scale. Right now we anticipate having Coffee Ale for a March 1st release. Stay tuned!

Since we began experimenting with barrel aging, we’ve learned a tremendous amount… mostly about patience. Sometimes, when a release was supposed to be ready for bottling, the beer had a different agenda. And that brings us to Bourbon Barrel Quad, a popular limited release that, for the past three years, has come out in December. Unfortunately for 2012, BBQ has decided it’s not quite ready. As Orson Welles famously (almost) said, “We will sell no beer before it’s time,” and, unless you’ve got some stashed in your cellar, we must regretfully inform you that you won’t be able to again savor this robust ale until the fall of 2013.

To our barrel-aged beer fans, we say “fear not,” because we won’t leave you out in the cold. While you won’t be sipping a BBQ by the fire this winter, we’re pleased to announce that another round of Rye-on-Rye will be ready in time for the holidays. We hope you enjoy the unexpected appearance of this sought-after ale, aged in Templeton Rye whiskey barrels.

For 2013, we’re bringing back some favorites from the Smokestack Series seasonal and limited release lineups, and adding a few new brews we’re pretty sure you’ll enjoy. In the first few months of the New Year, you can look forward to a zesty black rye IPA and a distinctive coffee ale. Saison-Brett, Reverb Imperial Pilsner and Harvest Dance Wheat Wine will all make encore appearances, along with the aforementioned Bourbon Barrel Quad and the venerable Imperial Stout. We’re even working on a few collaborations with industry peers that should add a little excitement to the shelves.

As always, friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to get the most up-to-date news on all things Boulevard. We wish you and your loved ones a safe and joyous holiday season.

Cheers! ]]> http://www.boulevard.com/upcoming-releases-from-boulevard/feed/ 0 http://www.boulevard.com/upcoming-releases-from-boulevard/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BoulevardBrewingCompany/~3/8lVBxBD5Cxk/ http://www.boulevard.com/bringing-home-the-gold/#comments Wed, 17 Oct 2012 19:03:51 +0000 julie http://www.boulevard.com/?p=2802 Read the Rest]]> For the second year in a row, Boulevard won two coveted gold medals at the Great American Beer Festival (GABF). This year was all about summer seasonals, as ZŌN received top honors in the Belgian-Style Witbier category and Reverb Imperial Pilsner took gold in the Other Strong Beer category.

GABF remains the largest commercial beer competition in the world. Winners were chosen in 84 categories, consisting of 4,338 entries from 666 breweries. Matching its largest field to date, this year’s GABF saw its biggest panel of judges ever, with 185 beer experts—including our very own Neil Witte and Elizabeth Belden—who judged categories in which we didn’t have an entry. They spent three days determining winners, bestowing a total of 254 medals at an awards ceremony on Saturday in downtown Denver.

According to Neil, sampling more than 50 beers a day can be compared to a marathon. A typical judging day starts at 9a.m. and wraps around 5p.m. Judges taste three flights in the morning and another three afternoon, with each flight averaging nine beers (as few as six for a medal round or as many as 13 for early round judging). Each flight is a blind tasting, consisting of two-ounce pours of beers up for consideration. Witte says because the beer is consumed over an entire day, judges don’t get intoxicated, but rather very tired. He enjoys the process because he’s able to sit down with people with very trained palates, assessing beers with some of the most experienced people in the industry.

GABF, in its 31st year, welcomed more than 49,000 guests to four beer-drinking sessions over three days (Oct. 11-13). This year was the biggest sampling fest yet, with 578 breweries pouring more than 2,700 beers (or 36,500 gallons). The event sold out in 45 minutes during the public sale. Throughout our history, Boulevard has won 11 medals: six golds (’08: Unfiltered Wheat Beer, ’09: ZŌN, ’11: Pale Ale and Saison-Brett, ’12: ZŌN and Reverb Imperial Pilsner), one silver (’04: Dry Stout), and four bronze (’03: ZŌN, ’08: The Sixth Glass, ’11: ZŌN and Collaboration No. 2). Cheers to everyone at the brewery who works hard on a daily basis to make sure our beer is always of award-winning quality!