Sounding Good!

We flew The Hadouk Trio in from Paris for a few private parties and test run. It was three nights of great music with things going quite smoothly. The space sounds much better than I had expected and without a doubt will be one of the best places in Bangalore to catch a live gig. Especially with the caliber of musicians we plan to present, the quality of libations we are serving and the comfort of the space. We have another week of finishing touches before the grand opening on October 3.

The last of my six launch beers - a Coconut Brown Ale - is in the cellar and tasting really good. It was a bit of an experiment that turned out much like I had planned. Our most complex blend of malt was mashed with a bit of local coconut that we shredded and toasted. Some Jaggery sugar was added to the brewkettle for more complexity and finally more toasted coconut was added post fermentation. Original gravity was a hefty 13.9° plato. This beer will probably be our first seasonal offering so enjoy it while it lasts.

The rest of the line-up is:
Golden Ale - A refreshing session beer. 
Hefeweizen - The cloudy South German wheat beer with banana and clove overtones.
American Amber Ale - Rich & smooth with an abundance of toasted malt flavour. 
India Pale Ale - Hop heaven with a good malt backbone (my personal favourite). 
Porter - A dark roasty ale with hints of chocolate.

You can expect to see some new beers in the coming weeks and improvements to our line-up of regular offerings as I tweek the recipes to my idea of perfection and our yeast gets comfortable in it’s new home.

For my overseas readers, just now it’s Ganesh Chaturthi in India. A 10 day Hindu festival celebrated on the birthday of Ganesh, the elephant-faced god, where his presence on earth is experienced by devotees. I’ve been seeing lots of very large and colorful statues in many places around town where they were not previously. It’s believed that Ganesha is the embodiment of shakti or power and is worshipped for wisdom, prosperity and good fortune. He is traditionally invoked at the beginning of any new venture and at the start of travel. We had a little ceremony in the brewhouse the other day to get the brewery off on the right foot. I’m thinking that it worked!

Almost Open ...

After a lovely month in the U.S. I'm back at the brewery and busy brewing / filling all of our tanks. I've done seven batches so far and have some tasty beer flowing out our very stylish Italian taps. We have some private parties coming up with a special musical guest but the public launch has been moved back to October 3rd. I'm sure I'm not alone in hoping it doesn't move again. The place sure does look (and sound) stunning though. So hang in there, it won't be much longer.

Tomorrow I'm brewing a very English-stlye Extra Special Bitter with some of the best traditional Maris Otter malt and East Kent Golding hops available. I'm really looking forward to this one. It will be nice follow-up to the tasty American Amber Ale that is now in our cellar. Today I transferred our German-style Hefeweizen to the cellar and I'm pretty pleased with it. It's super refreshing and a good thirst quencher. Of all the beers I've made so far only the Golden Ale has seen it's second brewing. I made some changes that should make for a nice improvement. Things are going much smoother in the brewhouse. Now, if I can only get the air con working I'll be a happy camper brewer...