April 17, 2010

Iron Brewer II

Filed under: Iron Brewerjtroegs @ 11:55 am

The teams for Iron Brewer II have been formed. The line in the sand has been drawn…ominous music sounds…. Let the games begin! Now to expain; one of my favorite shows of all time is The Iron Chef. I love the idea of putting two chefs at the top of there game up against each other in a Kitchen arena with one common goal: to be creative as possible with one ingredient, all the while being under the gun of only have on hour to pull it off! (i love it!) Borrowing this idea we decided a couple of years ago to try out our version. We took everyone that works at the brewery and formed teams. I tried to mix brewers, homebrewers, sales crew, musicians, creatives, and of course the rest that don’t fit any single category. Those are the wild card ones, they can bring something to the group thats unexplainable, pulling the parts together for a common goal. The goal is to brew a beer with a secret ingredient, label, package, and present with whatever means they come up with while trying to out do the other teams. Judges then will award points for presentation, creativity, and of course taste..

I will unveil the secret ingredient Wed. Trash talking has already started along with brainstorming of team names. (i’ll share as soon as they solidify)

stay tuned for details….duh duh duhhhhhhh

April 12, 2010

Scratch and Splinter

Filed under: Scratch Beer, Splinter SeriesTim @ 9:45 pm

In other posts we’ve talked about the Scratch Beer series being a way for us to explore and experiment.  Sometimes it’s a new ingredient that sets things in motion, other times it might be a new (or historic) technique we want to try.  Occasionally we’re just thirsty for a particular style.  Last week, we jumped in to new territory for Tröegs with the bottling of Scratch Beer #X (“X” because we don’t know where it will fall in the numbering of Scratch Beers).  If you recall previous updates, Scratch #X is the barrel-aged, dry-hopped, Tröegian (not-Belgian) IPA.  Now we can add “bottle-conditioned” to that list of descriptors. (read more…)