Down the Rabbit-Hole We Go

                 Oh my ears and whiskers! The White Rabbit.

Today I visited a brewery right in my home town, White Rabbit Brewery. 

White Rabbit Brewing Company

219 Fish Drive

Angier, NC 27501

(919) 527-2739 (BREW)

They invited me over to help them brew and they would pay me too! Pay me in Beer! That's like taking a kid to a candy store and letting them try all the candy.

'Who are you?' said the Caterpillar.


White Rabbit Brewing Company is a brewery that bases all their beers on the book "Alice's Adventures In Wonderland." . All their beers names come from the book, like: Tea Party Porter, Dunkin Dormouse Octoberfest, Cheshires Pumpkin Ale, Jabberwocky Tripel, and Drink Me Cream Ale just to name a few.
 

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”  Lewis Carroll

I had a chance to talk with Owner and Brewmaster Kenneth Ostraco while I drank one of their Tea Party Porters, Which was amazing.  It being a Vanilla Bourbon Porter, It was strong on vanilla and bourbon flavor in the best way possible. But to focus on the quote above, Kenneth told me the brewery's story from the beginning to where he is looking to go with it in the future. He started off like most all other Masterbrewers, As a home brewer. White Rabbit has a nice size space with a tap house in the front and the brew house in the back.  The tap house has eight beers on tap at any given time and the brew houses air is full of malt and hops about twice a week.  Kenneth went on to tell me he is right where he wants to be. He has a good clientele and a list of clients waiting for beer. From our conversation, it appears that Kenneth didn't want his brewery to be like fire works, shoot to the top and fizzle out. " I want to take small steps and stick to my grassroots" said Kenneth.  He had told me he has had some big offers to help him go full size and become a full size brewery.  He went on to say "I do not want to jump into the deep end and have someone hand me two cinder blocks and see how long I can tread water".

   

 





I'm late / I'm late / For a very important date. / No time to say "Hello, Goodbye". / I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. The White Rabbit


Time to start Brewing.  We brewed three barrels of beer. Gryphon’s California Common, Rabbit's Nutbrown Ale and Pale in the Park.  Good times hanging out with Kenneth from White Rabbit and Adam from Homesteaders Brew Supply.

Brew today, See you tomorrow

Give me one of those Hop Candies!

I went in to my local brew supply shop Homesteaders Brew Supply to get a few things (Star san and a bottle filler).  If you did not know today was my Bottling day. I know f***ing awesome. My 1610 Brown Ale is now bottled and conditioning, But I will do a follow up blog on that later.


Anyway, To todays topic. I was in the brew shop talking to the owner about recipes when candy caught my eye.  It was Hop candy, Made with real hop oils. The company that makes them is B Hoppy Candys. They have a few hop flavors , Like Cascade, Nugget, and East Kent Goldings.  As I was looking at them I asked him if they are any good. He reached under the counter and pulled out 4 or 5 sandwich bags with smaller sample pieces and said try them. So I did and WOW  I don't know which one I tried first but it was very hoppy but good.  If you like IPAs then you will like this candy.

B Hoppy Candies

They come in bigger pieces than what is in the picture. This is some sample pieces that I took home and I broke in to smaller chunks so my wife and kids could try. Lets just say they were not the biggest fans.  My three year old said in his words " its Buscusting". Ha ha I think they are an acquired taste that I have acquired.




In the picture Below is the packaging they come in.

Photo from Northern Brewer
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/cascade-hop-candy-4-oz.html

Brew today, See you tomorrow

Brew Day. I'm thinking 1610 Brown ale.

I got all my ingredients needed for my partial mash brew Brown ale, I got all my grains and DME from my local brew store, HomeSteaders Brew supply.  This being my third brew I wanted it to really work and taste like BEER.  My first batch was a Mr. BEER kit, Good to get my brewing passion going, but no good as far as beer. Next as you can see here  I brewed an all grain California Ale. I jumped right in to the deep end and could barely swim. My Cali. ale came out as beer, but was weak. It hardly fermented and tasted very young.

This time I...

This time I did a lot of watching youtube and after all of that I feel I have a good idea on how to brew.   I knew I wanted to brew a Brown Ale.  So I want to my local brew supply shop in town and picked up my LME, my barley grains, my hops, and my dry yeast.   My 1610 Brown Ale is ready to brew. I got the recipe from local brew supply shop, I told the owner what I was looking to brew and he helped me tweak the recipe to my liking. 

 

 After that...

After that it was time to brew .

Getting that right Temp. to pitch the yeast

That's it.

OG 1.065
Now it's in it's fermentation bucket and bubbling away.