The Brew Blog

Posted By sbarker on June 11, 2010

Hello out there in Merry’d Men world! Today is the opening day of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Yes, not only are we big beer fans, but we’re also big soccer fans as well. And frankly, what kind of blog would it be if an entry on the first day didn’t have something about the World Cup on it…at least today! So, just a quick note tonight, as we’re brewing and watching taped games…

While Scot was sick last Friday night, Scoob and Charles ended up bottling the Ruby Rye Red and the Kolsch. They said they smelled and tasted great when they were bottling, so I’m going to have to take their word for it. Both batches should be drinking (albeit early) by next week. We’ll let you know how they taste.

Tonight, we’re brewing another smokey red (Smoke and Mirrors) and an Alt. These are two of our regulars, and definitely two of our favorites!

Let’s see, on the glasses front, we’ve moved almost half of them so far. Still interested? $5 each gets you a Merry’d Men pint glass. All proceeds go toward getting our licenses. Barkers and Burnhams in St. Louis — yours will be on their way sometime next week, I hope. I haven’t forgotten you, but I haven’t put them in the mail yet, either. But don’t worry, we have enough to make sure you all get a couple.

Let’s see, what else…oh yeah, the ciders. Let’s just put it this way, our friend from Mamata (from college) isn’t a huge hard cider fan, because it’s usually too sweet for her tastes. Well, she tried one and really liked it. Anne at Vermont Homebrew Supply told us they would continue to get better all year. And guess what, she’s right. They just keep getting better!

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Posted By sbarker on May 8, 2010

OK, so, we didn’t win any awards. But, how do we feel? Actually, we feel really good about the results. And why is that, you may ask? Well, read on, and see what you think.

First, some general thoughts. Number one, this was the first ever Greg Noonan Memorial Homebrew competition. Named for the late Greg Noonan, founder of the Vermont Pub & Brewery. When he suddenly passed away last year, the Green Mountain Mashers renamed their annual New England-wide competition to honor him. It was a great competition and as always, very well organized with a lot of entrants. Now, it should be noted that while it was open to the public for the best in show judging, we missed it. Why? Because Scot was convinced that part was on Sunday, May 2. Yeah…no… it was actually Saturday, May 1. So, we went online to get the results. Congratulations to all the winners! And on to the results.

We entered four beers — “The WP” a pilsner; “Lionheart” a stout; “Infrared” an Irish Red; and an “X” another Irish Red that we doctored. The one thing to note is that the “Infrared wasn’t our regular recipe because we couldn’t get the normal Horizon hops and had to use a different kind. Not quite as good as our normal batch, but not bad overall. All four batches scored extremely well, but here’s some specifics.

“The WP” (short for wife pleaser) — This classic American Pilsner scored the closest to style, which it should have, since it’s the one beer of ours that actually follows very strictly to the original recipe. (most of our others are significantly doctored from their original formats). Overall the judges said the balance of hops to malt was good, it has a nice aroma and is a very clean beer.

“X”– This is an Irish Red, but just barely, in terms of style. But you know, that’s OK. We like it that way! This one was called very clear and brilliant, with a balanced malt flavor. We were very happy with what they said, even if it wasn’t quite to style!

Infrared — This is our traditional red, but with a different hops. And to be honest, we certainly don’t think it’s as good as our traditional recipe. In fact, to prove it, we pulled an “original recipe” red out and compared it to this one. Yeah, we were right, the original recipe is WAAAAY better! Again, this one was called just off traditional style, but clear and brilliant coloring. strong caramel flavor, low hops, nice lingering head, good carbonation and body. All in all, a good review, considering that we like our original better.

Lionheart — This is our oatmeal stout and we think it’s better at this point in age than our original version. This one was minerally and coffee-like, roasty and drinkable, wonderful soft roast, no prominent defects, great, tight head good bitterness. We were very happy with this one, too!

So, overall, you’re looking at three very pleased brewers. And ultimately, here’s what we really think — we’re going to continue to brew original, flavorful brews that we (and others) like to drink. And hey, if we win some contests along the way, that will be great, too!

Thanks to the Green Mountain Mashers for hosting the competition. The feedback is great and we’re very happy to have competed. We’ll be back next year — so be on the lookout for more entries that push the boundaries of their styles!!!

- Scot

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Posted By sbarker on April 17, 2010

Wow! Has it really been since January that we had our last post? That’s just wrong, isn’t it? Where did all that time go? Well, we certainly didn’t stop brewing, but we’ve had to squeeze it in between our other life activities — work, kids, family… So, I guess I should at least give a bit of an update as to where we’re at.

In the midst of some international travel (Scoob in South America, Scot in India, Charles to Watkins Glen, NY — OK, that one isn’t really international, but he went a couple times….) we were able to put away four batches (red, a new experiment, stout, and a new pilsner) and then get a couple more brewed and into carboys.

We took the four in bottles and entered them into our first ever homebrew competition. Deadline was yesterday and the finals are on May 4. We’re anxiously awaiting our results. Regardless of how we do in the competition itself, we’ll have official judges giving us feedback on all our beers. We’re excited for that, and to see where we stand against other New England homebrewers. Ultimately, though, we know we like our beer, and we know a lot of other people who like it, so we keep that in mind all the time.

On the business front, the school plays, the travel, the family visits, work and life in general has caused us to slow down our efforts at licensing so we can sell our concoctions. But have no fear, that dream hasn’t died. We’re looking for a new way to raise some money (though as always, if anyone out there just wants to throw money at us, our arms are wide open . We’ve put together a couple of budgets and it looks like we know how much we need to boot strap our little operation and run it as a side endeavor as we slowly grow it. We have the makings of a good business plan, and may start by selling Merry’d Men merchandise (hats, shirts, glasses, coasters, etc.) to raise the initial licensing funds. What do you think? Interested? Drop us a line and let us know!

Alright….off to get some errands done so maybe we can bottle and brew this weekend!

Talk to you all soon — and we’ll make sure to keep the time between posts much shorter!

– scot

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Posted By sbarker on January 24, 2010

It’s been a crazy few weeks for all of us at Merry’d Men Brewing, both from a brewery and a personal perspective. Things are finally settling down a bit after the holidays and the new year is off to a rushing start! So what’s been going on? Well, let’s see….

First, we have a contact at the local chapter of Score.org. This is a small business advisory service that helps small businesses build contacts, investments, business plans, etc. That’s exciting in and of itself, and there’s even more.

A couple alumni from the University of Missouri have reached out with an interest in providing advice and possibly even investments. We’ve been talking with them, and working to put together several iterations of startup business plans. Plus, two other people here in Burlington have reached out indicating they are interested in talking with us as well — mainly advice on getting started. At this point, that’s a huge help, trust us!

And then, the highlight of the last few weeks for the three of us (not to say the other stuff I just mentioned wasn’t great…) — we got a personalized, backstage tour of Magic Hat Brewery here in South Burlington, VT. WOW! First, a huge thanks to Matt Cohen. He really indulged us with our questions, comments and excitement. It was a great tour and only served to get us that much more excited. Of course, we learned a lot — but we plan on putting all that to work as we continue to move forward. If you haven’t tried the Magic Hat brews, you owe it to yourself to give them a shot. Their standard, cornerstone brew is #9 — definitely unique, but definitely worth it! Two things Matt shared with us that we really took away — first, the brewing industry is very close knit, friendly and open. That’s a great feeling, I have to say. The other? The gang at Rock Art started out by brewing and selling out of their home. If we could get started like that, it would be great!!! Matt said he would introduce us to the Rock Art gang so we can chat.

As we continue to pursue all the different aspects of this effort, I’d like to know just how much paperwork there was prior to the Federal Government’s “Paperwork Reduction Act.” I’ve never seen the likes of paperwork, and that’s just the federal side. There is that much more to do on the VT side.

Well, as you can see, it’s been busy and hopefully it will get even busier. We’re looking at putting together a set of glasses, coasters and t-shirts for sale to try and raise money for the initial licensing. Stay tuned on that front! We’ll let you know how it goes.

And, as always, tell your friends about our site, the blog, our Facebook pages…we need all the fans and friends and links and eyeballs we can find!

Take care and we’ll talk again soon!

–Scot

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Posted By sbarker on January 23, 2010

Hey gang. First, thanks for all the support lately — please, bring your friends to the sites. We’d love to get more fans and followers. To everyone who checked us last night while we were down, we’re back up! Yay! Thanks to the team at Fat Cow our blog is back.

I’m going to write more later, but wanted to say the brewery front is starting to move. I’ll give a bigger post to that later this weekend, but suffice it to say, things are looking better and better!

Thanks again for your support, and keep telling people about us!!!!

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Posted By sbarker on November 7, 2009

It’s been way too long since the last post, so I need to get everyone caught up on the goings on.

Well, we continue to brew…and drink…and share our passion for well-crafted homebrews. We’ve started to branch out a bit in terms of our experiments, bringing two batches of hard apple cider through the process. We bottle that today (11/7/2009) so we missed Halloween, but we’ll have it rolling by Thanksgiving. We fortified one batch with 5 pounds of honey and the other with 6 pounds of brown sugar. The results are totally different colors — both beautiful — and the potential for some bodacious alcohol content! We’ll have to see how they taste.

And back to beer…Scoob and Charles crafted a recipe for our X-periment. They used the grains from an Irish Red and the hops and yeast from our English Ale. The result was outstanding! Everyone loves it — it has a beautiful red hue and an amazing taste! Nice job guys.

On the business front, if you know people who are interested in investments, please spread the word. We’re definitely still working to get licensed — which is a lot of work — and costs a bit of money to boot. So, we are in the process of building business plans to use for investors. Our goal is that by this spring we are ready to move on the licensing. The interest in drinking our beers doesn’t seem to do anything but grow, so we remain encouraged that we have an opportunity — so we keep moving forward. We’ll keep you posted!

That’s about it. I need to let the delivery guys in — they just pulled up to deliver our new dryer. The old one died a horrible nasty death after about 20 years of existence. I’ll let you know later how the cider turned out!

Bottoms up!

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Posted By sbarker on September 30, 2009

I won’t take too long, but I couldn’t not tell everyone! Spread the news, we had our first press coverage today — and we can’t even sell anything yet. The local alternative newspaper (Seven Days) wrote a short piece about us today. You can check it out here: http://www.7dvt.com/2009booze-news.

Take a look and let us know what you think! Share it with your friends, spread the news!

And, while I’m here, I should give you an update, I guess. We decided to create a seasonal batch (OK, two batches) of hard cider. We’re hoping that our Lionheart Stout can be our winter seasonal, and the hard cider can become our fall seasonal. Which leaves just spring and summer for us to come up with a special seasonal. Becky is hoping we’ll put together a Belgian White for our summer event. Anyway, we tried one cider with brown sugar as the additive and the other with honey. We’re using Champagne yeast with both of them. We’re anxious to see how they turn out. But, we’re going to have to wait a while. They’ve been fermenting for over a week and they are still bubbling strong. Looks like we’re going to have some high alcohol content on these!

We also have another batch of Kissing Trout going, as well as a brand spankin’ new recipe — we’re calling it Experiment 57. It takes what we like about the Kissing Trout, combines it with what we like from the Infrared, and we added a dash of some darker grains (Scoob really worked the recipe — he is the chemist after all!). It’s already done fermenting and during the transfer to the carboy it had an amazing aroma. We can’t wait to give it a shot!

So, check out the article today. We were very excited! Talk to you all soon!

– Scot

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Posted By sbarker on August 26, 2009

Tonight we moved the two batches from the fermentation tanks to the carboys. These batches, just to keep everyone up to date, were a batch of the Infrared (one of our staple brews) and a Belgian Wheat (as yet un-named).

As we opened up each of them, the aroma of young, green beer wafted up. The color was good on both batches, as was the clarity. As we took the beer from the fermentation tanks and into the carboys, the aroma was so good we just kept breathing deep — wonderful!

And now we wait for sedimentation. That will take a few days, then we take it into bottles for carbonation and conditioning. So, we’re about two weeks or so from trying our newest brew, Belgian Wheat, and enjoying what is hopefully another great batch of Infrared! We’ll keep you updated.

– Scot

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Posted By sbarker on August 20, 2009

Much merriment as the latest brew session kicked off. We started by pouring a glass of wine made by Charles’s friend, Marty. He made up a batch of chardonnay and asked the Merry’d Men Brewing Company to taste and give a comment. As we tried that, we realized it is a solid effort. Good clarity and color (though colored a bit more like a pinot grigio than a chardonnay). The aroma is a nice bouquet and the flavor filled the tongue well. All in all, the three of us thought Marty did a fine job.

Otherwise, we kicked off a new batch of Infrared, and a new recipe, a Willamette Wheat beer. As we brew, we’re trying to figure out a name for that one. More updates on that as we come up with something.

We are encouraged as we read the latest edition of Zymurgy magazine — where some homebrewers much like us have been able to make a go of it as a real life — meaning they do this for a living. A dream become a reality for some…we keep faith alive on our end.

As we cracked open some of our Kiss My Trout (possible name change on the way….stay tuned), we decided we should film the pours in an attempt to post some beer video on the site — ultimately hoping we can get a nice pour video for each of the flavors. Let us know what you think.

We’ll give more updates later tonight. Things are starting to come together and we need all hands on deck to keep things moving in the right direction.

– Scot

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Posted By sbarker on August 15, 2009

As some of you may know, Scot and the fam just went back to our old stomping grounds in the St. Louis, MO area. Saw family and friends and had a great time! We went back to Mizzou for a day, but we didn’t make it back to Flatbranch, unfortunately. We used to go there when it first opened and we were in college. It’s nice to see they are still around. I assume their beers have only gotten better, but they were very good when we were in Columbia. Check it out if you get out there.

We did, however make it to Trailhead Brewing Co. while we were in town. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to meet Jen (brewmaster) but we did get to sample all six of their selections. They were all very good and it was interesting to compare some of the Merry’d Men’s brews with those at a full service micro-brewery. We had five people in our group (including me), and three of us had tried some of the Merry’d Men selections. According to them, we stacked up pretty well. So if you get to St. Charles, MO, you really need to check out the Trailhead Brewing Company. It’s in an historic mill building on S. Riverside Dr., right down the street from Missouri’s first capital building. Well worth the trip. And try to get a tour when you’re there. They had what looked to be a slick operation!

So, check these guys out! I look at it as research as I travel. You should look at it as a way to find good, quality brews on your travels, in your world, and even in your own backyard!

– Scot

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