St. Paddy's Day Stout

St. Patrick's day is right around the corner. Corn beef, leprechauns and green beer. Who doesn't like green beer? So guess what, we're doing green beer this year - with a twist though, naturally. Not of the green algae variety like our delaware-based compatriots.

Into our lucky pot o' gold, I mean, mash tun, we combined light and dark malts, a dozen or so pounds of oats. We added a variety of hops to the kettle and allowed fermentation magic to happen, but for old St. Patrick that wasn't enough. We decided to add nearly 4 pounds of coffee beans to the mix post-fermentation as well. How is it "green" you say? It's 100% Organic, all the way through. We might not be wind-powered but this is the greenest beer we've ever made.

100% Organic, hops and all.

Seven Bridges Cooperative, specializing in organic brew ingredients supplied the malt and the hops (even though the organic label does not require organic hops until 2012!) - but the coffee we sourced locally.

San Diego's newest coffee roasters Coffee and Tea Collective stopped by on the 23rd to "dry-bean" our coffee with us. Before we could add the coffee to the fermenter though, we had to have a cupping of course.

Hand-powered, Ceramic Grinding.

They hooked us up with the Ethiopian Harar bean less than 24 hours after they roasted it at their pico-roaster. It provides an enormous coffee aroma and flavor. If you like stouts and/or black coffee this beer will be right up your alley, main thoroughfare and side streets ahead.

Japanese Siphon Brewed.

So, what's it all mean? On Saturday the 19th, we're celebrating St. Patrick's Day at Hess. Music, food, all our awesomely regular beers and Fortuna Hiberniae (Luck of the Irish). We're even trying something new - nitrous. That's right, we're souping up this concoction with a 30 pound boost of nitrous-dioxide, all for your drinking pleasure.

That's fresh, baby.

We're making changes here at Hess, and one of them is better flow at the taps. We'll have two taps for all the beers up (including one regular tap for Fortuna and one on the nitro) so the line for beer should be at a minimum. We're trying our best to make sure you have a great time. To that end, we're bringing back Family Wagon who rocked for us at our grand opening back in August. For food this time we will have BBQ Republic featuring the following:

Babyback Ribs.

Two Pulled Pork or Chick BBQ Sliders, Two Pulled Pork or Chicken Tacos, or Three Meaty Babyback Ribs all feature BBQ beans on the side.

So from Noon till 6:00PM, bring your glass, a chair if you want to and let's celebrate St. Patrick's life and death.

A Blog About a Blog About Another Article About Another Article

Perplexed about the title?


A few weeks ago I received an email from Bob Batz Jr. of The Pittsburg Post-Gazette. Bob was wondering if he could reference our "Great Nanobrewery List" for an article he was writing about some up and coming Philly nanobreweries.


It was a fun list to compile over the last 18 months and I think it has been well received.


But then on Friday Beer Briefings scribe, John Holl, read about his Brewer's Association Craftbeer.com article being quoted and he had this to say about it:

Confused by the headline?

A few weeks ago I wrote an article for Craftbeer.com about the growing trend of nano breweries in the United States.

It was a lot of fun to write and I think it was well received.

On Thursday, friend of the Beer Briefing Julia Herz sent me an email with a link to an article in the Pittsburg Post-Gazette on the rise of nano-breweries in the Keystone State.

....

I love it! It’s an article quoting an article. Now, I’m mentioning it on the blog.

It’s all about sharing the news about good beer.

Now, we just need to see if we can get someone to write a blog about this blog which is about an article inside an article…

I love it! It's a blog quoting an article quoting another article. I couldn't help but take up his torch and continue to quote a quote of a quote. While I'm at it I'll include my quote from the Post-Gazette for prosperity's sake.

From the Philly Post-Gazette:

Michael Skubic, of Hess Brewing Co., "San Diego's first licensed nano-brewery," keeps a list of other nanos on its blog, hessbrewing.blogspot.com. As of the end of February, he was tracking 54 in operation and 39 in planning (including Saint Benjamin Brewing Co. in Philadelphia).

"It does appear to be a trend with no clear end in sight," he says, noting that "there are probably dozens more of active 'nano' breweries that I have not found yet."

Of course some little breweries don't stay little for long. Since Mr. Skubic started "The Great Nanobrewery List: From CA to MA" a year and a half ago, he's seen numerous ones outgrow his three-barrel definition of a nano.

Now it's official. It's a blog quoting a blog quoting an article about another article. So hopefully the title makes sense.

But I plan to further deepen this rabbit hole by quoting Jon's original article here as well:

"It's got to be a side job," said Mike Hess the brewer and president of San Diego's Hess Brewing, which produces about 1.6 barrels of beer per batch. "Producing this low of a volume of beer wouldn't support many lifestyles or raising a family."

Hess, who works in the financial services industry, opened his nano-brewery in July 2010. He estimates that he spends about 20 hours a week brewing in an 800-square-foot garage that also serves as a tasting room.

All joking aside. It is pretty awesome how many nanobreweries are in planning and/or opened throughout the USA and beyond. I have a few more to add to the list this month!

Now if I could just get someone to re-tweet about the tweet I am about to tweet about this blog...


Read John's full article here and Bob's full article here.


Cheers Bob and John!