Evening with a Brewer : Mitch LaGoy of Rorhbach Brewing
When: 7 pm Sept 24 2010
Where: Rhino Bar and Grill
Mitch is from Upper New York State, he’ll be taking us into fall with an Imperial Pumpkin Ale.
Mitch is the brewer at the Rohrbach Brewing Company’s brewpub location. He also brews at the company’s production brewery. The brewpub produces about 700 barrels per year with about 12 different beers on tap at one time. Most batches at the brewpub are approximately 7 barrels. The production brewery output is about 3,500 barrels per year, mostly in 20 and 40 barrel batches.
Mitch started with Rohrbach in August 2008. He took a leave to attend and complete the American Brews Guild 28 week course.
Mitch was also a homebrewer for two years before becoming a professional brewery. His says his most interesting brew was a peanut butter porter. That brew has not yet been produced for sale. Rohrbach’s award winning lager and ales are proudly served at over 100 “certified tap houses” throughout Rochester and upstate New York.
Rohrbach’s Restaurant & Microbrewery is a SIX TIME winner of the Democrat and Chronicle’s – Rochester’s Choice Awards for best local beer.
It didn’t take long after I started brewing beer before I discovered the joys of swing-top bottles. As I’m sure happened with many new brewers, my first batch (or two?) was bottled exclusively with capped bottles, and the process was slow. I’m fairly certain my first bottling night back in 2007 was about four hours long. Today, that same bottling night is probably about half that in time; and although much of that increased speed can be attributed to a better understanding of the processes involved, some of it is also because of the number of swing-top bottles (mostly Grolsch and Christoffel) that have found their way into my bottle collection one way or the other.
A tip I’ve learned from my new brewing buddy: If you have a local bar or pub that serves beers with swing-top bottles, talk to the manager about buying the swing-top bottles. Some are bound to let them go for the return price. That will increase your swing-top bottle collection quickly and reduce the number of bottle caps you’ll need come bottling day.
As I’ve written about in the CABA Times, one of the things I enjoy about homebrewing is the experimental nature of the hobby (and the hobbyists). Many brewers like to brew to style, and more power to them, but outside of a couple of reasonable attempts to brew to style, I mostly aim for whatever seems like a good idea at the time — and sometimes those ideas lead into such things as my infamous 2007 Christmas ale or my clone of CABA President Kevin Tighe’s jalapeno ale.
The most recent homebrewing experiment I’ve been involved with is with a new homebrewer who has taken an interest in historical beers, as well as in using ingredients from his garden. Looking into his herb garden and doing some research into historical beers, he discovered that prior to the use of hops as a bittering agent, brewers would use whatever they could get their hands on. The one that caught his interest was sage, an herb that is growing out of control in his garden.
This has rekindled my interest in historical beers. Since I started homebrewing three years ago, the one historical bittering agent I’ve really wanted to use is heather (so perhaps you can expect to hear about a heather ale experiment in a future blog post or CABA Times article).
If you missed the GCHC this year, you missed a lot. Author Ray Daniels took us through the start to finish of brewing your own lagers, Mike Duggan furthered that with a talk on Bock beers and other strong lagers. We sampled some great beers, lunch was fantastic mexican food. There is a complete write up in the CABA newsletter and if you are a member you should have received it by now. If your not a member, you will have to wait until September to read about it. Why not become a member now, and avoid the wait?
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The results are in! Check this post for a complete rundown of all our winners from this year’s GCHC.
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Starting the day at Cheval Blanc
Great turnout in Montreal this year! For those that couldn’t make it, here’s a bit of what you missed.
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Deadline – May 28 2010
Get those Lagers and Ales going for the GCHC. The conference this year is “More than meets the Lawnmower” with special guests, style specific competitions and more.
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May 14 2010 – 7 pm
The Rhino Bar & Grill 1249 Queen St W Toronto
Jeremy Coghill, who is featured in the homebrewer spotlight of this months CABA newsletter has been interested in Sake for some time.
Sake is also referred to in English as rice wine. However, unlike true wine, in which alcohol is produced by fermenting the sugar naturally present in fruit, sake is made through a brewing process more like that of beer.
To make beer or sake, the sugar needed to produce alcohol must first be converted from starch. But the brewing process for sake differs from beer brewing as well, notably in that for beer, the conversion of starch to sugar and sugar to alcohol occurs in two discrete steps, but with sake they occur simultaneously. Additionally, alcohol content also differs between sake, wine, and beer.
Jeremy will be talking about making Sake,and we’ll take a look at Japanese beer.
Update: This is new.
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