Last night our new pub brewer Ben heated the water for todays brew while I attended the first ever meeting of Dogfish book club.Mike in sales put this together and lead a discussion on our first book, Let The Great World Spin.A really good read containing 27 percent more prostitute characters than your average literary novel. What happens at book club stays at book club.

Book club

Below is Ben today next to a fraction of the chopped up Fuji apples that will go into the press and eventually into this beer. For this recipe I meat a friend at the rooftop Birreria in NYC and we tested a whole mess of different fresh ingredients in a base of Belgian white beer. The combination we liked best included shaved dried cayenne pepper (just a touch - for complexity more than heat), fresh pressed organic fuji apple juice, farro, and greater cilantro stems at end of boil for aroma. An amped-up white beer base similar to Namaste in grain and yeast but totally different spicing and higher OG.So we got down to business and Ben and I are brewing the test batch today at the pub.

Apples

If your shirt matches your fruit press you might look like a total juice bag. No, wait, if you sing "I've been working on the railroad " while you press fruit you might look like a total juice bag

Pressing Fruit

Back to our story, check out the beautiful toasty slow roasted farro grain we got directly from our buddies at Anson Mills in Columbia, SC. If you are a chef or baker you should check out these guys product line on the interwebs. Amazing small batch local heirloom grains.

Farro

We got the Fuji apples, cilantro, and cayenne peppers from our good pal Zeke at Washingtons Green Grocer. All this stuff we are using is organic and all of it is delish on it's own. Can't wait to try it all together in the beer. Should be on tap at the pub in a month.

Cilantro

This beer shall be called Positive Contact. Its a white beer-cider hybrid spiced with an early addition of cayenne and a late addition of cilantro for aromatics.Itll come in at about 9 percent abv with 23 ibus.

For The Pigs

Above Ben breaks away the last of the spent apple cake After we pressed out all of the awesomeness. This will go in with the spent barley grain to make the most yummy lunch for the pigs we send this stuff to.Then, if you have our BLT here at the pub you eat the pig that ate the grain that made the beer you sip with your blt.And the circle of life continues....positive contact.