When the Schlafly Tap Room began the Schlafly Reserve Series back in 2006, they bought a few bourbon barrels to age the Schlafly Reserve Imperial Stout in.  As the beers grew in popularity, so did the number of barrels needing to be purchased.

The problem with using barrels to age beer in is that it’s a one time deal.  When the barrels arrive from the distillery the woods has been exposed to the high-alcohol bourbon so any microorganism, such as wild yeast or bacteria, has pretty much been killed off, leaving the barrel clean and ready to be used.

But once you’ve used the barrel for aging beer, it’s a different story.  The alcohol in the beer isn’t high enough to kill off these micro-pests so they’re forced to buy new barrels.

As you can imagine, being able to use these barrels only a single time is not only wasteful, but expensive.  But what if you could use the wild yeast to your benefit?  I’m proud to announce the debut of the first step in the Schlafly Sour Beer Program.

As part of a half-million dollar upgrade to the Schlafly Tap Room, the very rarely seen boiler room, which is located under the beer garden, will be cleaned up and will be the home of this exciting new program.  New equipment will be purchased, new racks for barrels will be installed, and new draught lines will be put in to accommodate these new beers.

The first step of this new program began back on 03/31/2010 when a special blend of Belgian Single (which had already been fermented out) was added to four different bourbon barrels that underwent a cleaning and a conditioning.  It was at that point that three different strains of Brettanomyces were each added to separate barrels, with one barrel being left alone as a control.

The three different strains of Brett that were added were: Claussenii, Lambicus, and Bruxellensis. It’s important to note that Brettanomyces doesn’t necessarily add sourness to a beer, it usually adds a layer of funk. But, that doesn’t mean that certain lactic acid producing bacteria such as Lactobacillus and Pediococcus couldn’t possibly show up as the beer sits.

As for the release of these beers, that’s going to take some time. “From a brewing standpoint, I really want to give our folks some time to do it right. I want to make sure our guys have the tools to do this the right way,” says Schlafly Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Dan Kopman.

For more information about sour beers in St. Louis, be certain to check out the September issue of Feast Magazine. Feast will be offering up a look at this very interesting beer style along with additional information about Schlafly’s Hop in the City festival beer, the Oud Bruin.

You’ve asked and Schlafly delivers.  Starting tonight, June 8th, the second Tuesday of every month will be Cask Night at the Schlafly Bottleworks.  The beer will be tapped at 6PM.

Tonight will provide you with a chance to try a traditional ale, similar to what you would have found before the days of stainless steel and forced carbonation.  Tonight’s cask will be the Schlafly Dry-Hopped APA with what I’m being told is, “lots of added hops”.

If you’re not clear on what cask beer is, here’s a little information from Schlafly’s VP Dan Kopman on how they create their cask beer:

We take beer off the sample point at that 5 day point where the primary fermentation is complete and yeast and sugar still remain. We then simply bung the cask and store it to allow the additional fermentation and conditioning to happen. So the beer is cask conditioned.

If we take it too late then we don’t get enough natural carbonation and we can get very flat cask ale on tap. If we take it too early the opposite. Then we dispense without CO2 or nitrogen – no cask breather. We do not add finings as I seem to be the only consumer of cask ale that is still hung up on a “bright pint”. We do not add any extra sugar to the cask or yeast.

This is an excellent opportunity to educate or re-educate yourself on just how great cask beer can be.

I’m pleased to announce that the winner for the two tickets to the Schlafly Repeal of Prohibition Festival winner is Mike Bateman! Congrats to Mike and thanks everyone for entering. If you didn’t win, don’t be too upset, once again I have some cool stuff to give away soon.

I once again want to thank Dan Kopman from Schlafly for donating the two tickets to this fantastic festival. Everyone make sure to head out to the Repeal of Prohibition Festival next weekend. Tickets are still available.

If past years are any indication, I’m sure Cabin Fever is pretty close to selling out. So if you’re looking for a last chance to pick up some tickets to this wonderful outdoor event (it’s supposed to be 50° on Saturday!) well then this may be your best shot.

Thanks to Dan Kopman from Schlafly, I have two tickets to give away for Cabin Fever.

We’ll make this an easy contest, just email contest@stlhops.com with Cabin Fever as the subject. I’ll pick one winner Friday at 9AM. A couple of quick notes:

• If you’ve won something from STL Hops in the past 6 months, please be cool and let someone else enter.
• You must be 21 or older to enter.
• No multiple entries.

If you don’t win this one, don’t worry I will be holding more contests like this in the future, so you’ll have another chance then. Good luck!

The Wine and Cheese Place on Forsyth will be hosting a Schlafly Reserve Vertical Tasting this Friday, December 18th from 4-6PM.

Dan Kopman, the co-founder and Vice President of The St. Louis Brewery will be on hand for this very special tasting.  Dan is a facinating guy and will provide plenty of information not only about Schlafly, but about beer as a whole.

Here’s a list of what will be available for tasting:

• 2009 Schlafly Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
• 2008 Schlafly Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
• 2007 Schlafly Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout
• 2006 Schlafly Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout (Not available for purchase.)

• 2009 Schlafly Oak Aged Barleywine
• 2008 Schlafly Oak Aged Barleywine
• 2007 Schlafly Oak Aged Barleywine
• 2006 Schlafly Oak Aged Barleywine (Not available for purchase.)

You’re invited!  Schlafly is putting on the Brew & Q World Pork Steak Championships this weekend and has invited beer-writer Lucy Saunders in to judge the competition.  Well, to celebrate Lucy’s visit, Dan Kopman has decided to put on a semi-private “Pre-Brew & Q BBQ tasting” on Thursday, May 21st from 5PM to 8PM at Vlasis Park in Ballwin.

Dan is supplying some meat and some beer for the tasting, but if you want to bring some more meat (or fish or tofu) for the grill or more beer for tasting, feel free to bring it along. According to Dan, “the St. Louis BBQ Society is providing grills and expert grillers (big thanks to those folks) and Lucy will be on hand to make sure we all behave!”

If you want to attend, just please email Dan an RSVP to let him know you’re attending.

For those of you that don’t know, Dave Miller is probably most famous for writing one of the most referenced and influential homebrewing books in the past 30 years, Dave Miller’s Guide to Homebrewing.  But Dave, who had been instrumental in getting Missouri’s laws changed to allow microbreweries to exist, was also Schlafly‘s first Brewmaster.

Time moves on and now Dave has decided to reitre from brewing.  Knowing that, Dan Kopman and Stephen Hale conspired to throw Dave a surprise retirement party using the guise of the Pre-Prohibition Festival Party.  Using this opportunity, they had a chance to roast Dave and also retire his signature plaid shirt.  I’m sure hombrewers will know what the numbers mean.

If you weren’t able to attend, please enjoy some photos from the evening.

[View with PicLens]

123►