Hello from third shift! At times I wish third shift meant 2.64 hours but it does not... oh well!

I'm kickin' it in the graveyard because the brewing department welcomed the second of three expected babies on Thursday morning and the proud papa (who is our third shift senior brewer) is spending some quality time with his newly expanded family. The first baby we got this year was made by Brian Connery. That Jude is a cute little bugger. The second baby was brewed by Jeremy Hunt. He and his wife welcomed a baby girl named Gemma. Good luck to all of you and your new arrivals. Jesse Prall is going to be a papa some time in September so stay tuned for updates.

Now for the beer...

Cellarman Josh Tierney recently finished the American Brewers' Guild course and elected to complete his apprenticeship with us. This is good because we would have missed him for the five or so weeks he would have been gone had he done it elsewhere. So since he already knew his way around the cellars, his assignment from me was to formulate a new beer to be brewed at our brewpub, brew it, succesfully ferment it, condition it, perform a few analysis on it, and serve it. This past Sunday saw the end of the journey as the majority of the brewing staff met at the brewpub where Josh served us the first few pints. Wahsaht? is an imperial black IPA weighing in at a hefty 8.5%ABV packing 84 IBUs boasting an impressive malt profile finished off by a whopping 3.4 pounds per barrel in dry-hops. This beer is a sexy beast. Try it while you can.

Last Thursday, I went down to the pub with brewer Todd Perkins to brew a very rare German Gose style beer. The beer was brewed with 50% German Pils malt, 45% German wheat malt and 5% flaked oats; lightly hopped and spiced with coriander and Hawaiian Alaea salt. We had a wicked good time making the beer and by the first tastes during fermentation, it should be just as fun to drink.

On Thursday of this coming week, Sam and I will be brewing at the pub with our good friend Patrick "the Hat Trick" McGovern. Since this will be our fourth beer with Pat, I'll have to come up with a new nickname for him. All I can say is that this beer is going to be really really cool to make.

Oh yeah... hop harvest is right around the corner which means a fresh hop beer is on the way!

Well, I'm going to go try to fix one of the burners as well as the pump on the heat exchanger on our pilot brew system here in Milton so I can work on some projects in the coming weeks...

Until next time.

-Bryan