Square Peg Brewery

Pictures from CBC Boston

2009-05-11T22:10:00.004-04:00

There was quite a fair number of brewers from Toronto, these are just a few of the many I bumped into... all very positive and encouraging towards the concept of Square Peg!

Paul Dickey and I...

Paul, who was my mentor, is the brewer at the Pepperwood Brewpub, and was a great teacher as I learned how to brew.

Friday and beyond...

2009-05-04T12:34:00.002-04:00

Day five, 6am, I found myself in a distant corner of Boston, watching the sun peek over the horizon... Despite the lack of sleep, I knew I had to hustle back to the Westin, pack my bags, and prepare for the day ahead. As difficult as it had been to try and absorb all the information, faces, and great tasting beers, I now had to try and stuff a week's worth of ephemera, bottled beer and glassware into my bags, and get back over to the trade center for the "Green Stream", the sustainability seminars. You know the trouble with any 45 minute lecture is you really can't hope to emerge with a master's degree. You will however, pick up small snippets and insights that serve you well, no matter what else you might wish for. Sustainability is a big part of the vision for Square Peg, and I'm always fascinated by the steps we can take to minimize our "footprint".

Sadly, the travel plans meant leaving Boston mid-afternoon to get back to Toronto by 1am, the curse of cheap JetBlue flights! There were some great talks I was going to miss (new theories on Hop Aroma!) to say nothing of the Munton's Boat Cruise of Boston Harbour, but what can you do... bags were packed, and I headed off to the airport. Of course, after sacrificing all that, our plans changed. JetBlue actually got me on a direct flight, leaving Boston at 9pm, arriving ten minutes BEFORE the connections would have.

So... I headed back into Boston, walked around the financial district, saw Samuel Adams headstone, went to Boston Common. A nice warm, sunny spring afternoon. I decided, of course, that it was time to find a pub, some place with great craft beers on tap, although what I might find compared to what I had been sampling all week probably defies comparison. In any event, asked directions, and went this way, turned down that street, went further, turned again, asked some more, and was generally getting pretty tired and frustrated, when I saw a high end liquor store, and got the idea to enter and ask directions.

"Where can I go for a great beer" I asked. "Downstairs," came the reply"we're having a beer tasting". So, I trudged down this tiny rambling little stairwell, into a cellar filled with cases of vintage wine, and world class beers. We had stumble upon a beer tasting held by Shelton Brothers, arguably one of Anerica's finest importers, who "seek out unmanipulated beer, looking primarily to small breweries with craftsmen taking seriously their passion for a natural, traditionally-made beverage." There was a series of beers from Japan, notably Baird, wish I had had a taste of that, as my friend CJ has just started brewing there. However, I was thrilled to meet Stephan from Mahr's-Bräu, an old family brewery using traditional methods, who was pouring a bock, and two lagers, one of which was the delightful Mahr's Ungespundet Lager.

An inspiring hour was spent in that basement, with Ron from Shelton Brothers encouraging me to keep in touch, and provide him with samples when I'm finally brewing. There must have been some little trick of fate that changed my flight, got me wandering the streets, and led me down into that tiny basement, to meet people whose passion is for small breweries producing hand-crafted natural brews!

Thursday Too Much Too Little Too Late!

2009-04-24T11:32:00.002-04:00

The rising sun woke me up pretty early Thursday morning, but I had to
be at the Trade Center for an 8:15 seminar by Dean Bromwell on New
Media. Dean seemed to be one of those fast-talking geeky looking whiz
kids with a Phd in studying Generation X, Y and the millenials. He
pointed out that, in 2010, the universe is on Facebook. It is THE
portal to the internet, THE virtual networking sight at this point in
time. I ca 't begin to cover the intense number of ideas that he
proposed for "getting your name out", but keep an eye open for changes
to both my personal, professional photography, and brewing identities.
Looks like I have some tweaking to do... or tweeting for that matter!
I spent more time on the trade show floor, studying bottles, labels
signage, discussing the possibility of getting samples of malted
barley shipped to us… it's a bit of a slog. Keep talking, keep
walking, keep asking. Vendors are pretty funny about start-ups,
there's definitely an interest from many of them, and others will
actually belch in your face!
More seminars… Women & Beer. Very disappointing presentation, I think
they could have presented some hard facts, something for us to chew
on, rather than just giggling about why more women don't "like" beer.
The driest presentation of my life followed, a scientist stood there
READING his PowerPoint presentation to us, a description of the 12
year developmental process that brings new grain varieties to market.
What DID I learn at that seminar? Don't even try to get the farmer
down the road to try and grow something for you. Don't even think
about trying to make a GENUINE historical brew with today's hot new
modified barleys. Just close your eyes and imagine what must have
been!
About 5pm the beer sampling started, and just kept going. The
hospitality suites were jumping, lots of beer industry folks from
Ontario in attendance, got to meet a lot of the insiders, including
the folks from Volo. Very interesting to hear what they had to say
about the quality of Casks they're getting for their festivals.
Sadly, there just wasn't enough food to fill all our bellies. Okay,
well I have to find some excuse for what transpired over the next
twelve hours. You see, Thursday night was Cask night at Harpoon. 60
cask conditioned ales from various Massachusetts breweries. IPA,
barrel conditioned Imperial Stouts, 5 Barrel blended Sour Ales, lots
of high-gravity tasty brews. I tried to taste several…. And enjoyed
them all!

Wednesday The Keynote Address, the Trade Show, and all that Data!

2009-04-22T23:13:00.001-04:00

11pm

Information Overload.

There's no other way to describe the last 13 hours. Early this morning
we got up to blue skies and sunshine. A nice change of pace! We had
the supreme pleasure of listening to Charlie Papazian deliver his
opening remarks. Cool guy. Of course it was my writing to him on
Facebook that actually convinced me to come. Funny aside, I bumped
into him tonight, and introduced myself, and he said "OH, you're THAT
guy!"
After Charlie we had some pretty hard stats delivered from Paul Gatza
on the State of the Industry. Craft Brew sales are up, a good thing
for a potential start-up like ours. It seems that local, flavourful,
quality brews are capturing the public's imagination.
The keynote address was delivered by Greg Koch the guy from Stone
Brewing. He opened with an incredibly moving video, essentially a
collage type message from 35 different micro-brewery personalities. It
was a stunning piece of work, a great message, I shall have to hunt it
down and see if it is on YouTube somewhere. The inspiring message was
to create something beyond the everyday, more than a mere commodity: a
product with authentic character… so go small, be something local,
and of the highest quality. An ultra-premium product. Today was so
much market analysis, so many results from Craft Brewer's market
surveys. Data suggests the higher the price, the greater the volume in
sales growth. In 2008, Seasonals surpassed Pale Ale!
I ran the gauntlet of the trade show, trying to absorb the dozens and
dozens of suppliers of brew systems, grains, yeasts, hops, labels,
bottles, signage…and at each turn beers were being poured to show off
this new smoke malt, this special yeast, this liquid concentrate, the
new hop variety. You sample an awful lot of beer, trying to sort out
the particular nuances of aroma, body, malt flavour… and somehow never
get inebriated! The seminars start, and you're attending with a glass
of Arrogant Bastard in hand. You run out on the break and grab a
bottle of Victory Torpedo. The seminars have topics ranging from
sourcing capital, to cleaning the stainless, writing the business
plan, or Ray Daniels discussing how to determine brewhouse size. By
mid-afternoon, I was seriously starting to wonder how much more
information my brain could absorb!
So far, it's been an amazing conference. We're meeting with a lot of
warmth, support, and encouragement from brewing industry people from
all over the world. Tonight's reception was at the Samuel Adams Boston
Brewery. We not only got to sample many experimental beers from one of
America's finest craft brewers, but were chatting and hanging with
the leaders of the craft brew movement. Even the bus ride home, I sat
with Fritz who was brought here from Germany to lecture at the Master
Brewers Yeast Symposium on Monday. You rarely find that level of
travel companion on the TTC!

Tuesday: CBC Day - One The Tour, Opening Reception

2009-04-21T22:24:00.002-04:00

10pm
Man am I bagged…. What a day! I started the day by transferring
hotels… the switch from the Hyatt to the Westin. Pretty easy, they
even let me check in at 8 am.
I had signed up for the Crosby & Baker tour. When we all met in the
lobby we were thrilled to see that we would be joined by Thomas
Weyermann, who was very warm and supportive when talking to us. We
sat with the distributor from Munton's who offered to do whatever he
could to help us sort out our recipe formulations. Chip, from
Berkshire Brewing Company, had brought along a special pilsener using
Weyermann's new floor malted Bohemian Pilsener (this malt to be
released tomorrow), with a little Vienna and CaraAroma, 5.5% ABV…and
this beer was simply delightful!
We had a great tour of Boston Harbour, getting a great understanding
of just how container shipping works. We were treated to lunch in
Westport MA, a real genuine little fish and chips seafood little place
called the Bayside, right on the ocean, the salt spray coming in the
window made the Hop Devil from Victory go down nice and easy. We were
taken on a tour of the Crosby & Baker facilities, and make it back to
the World Trade Center just in time to attend the Hallertauer Hop
Growers Hospitality Suite, where several different beers were being
poured, all of which featured different German hops. I was
particularly engaged by a pilsener heavily hopped with Hallertauer
Mittelfruch (sp?)…
I should point out that we had spent most of the day in heavy fog,
Atlantic Ocean rain. Not my favourite weather. At about 6 we found our
way over to Harpoon Brewing's Boston Brewery, and several thousand
other brewers joined us, milling about munching down, and drinking the
offereings from several area breweries. We particularly enjoyed the
cold-pressed coffee porter from Berkshire, Mayflower Porter, and
Harpoon's Leviathan IIPA. A very unique beer was Harpoon's Old Smoky,
which was formulated with 30% smoked malt. At that point, I was
thrilled and delighted to bump into my old buddy Bill White, who had
so thoroughly enjoyed himself at my 7 Beers event on the seventh day
of the seventh month of the seventh year, not so many years ago!
Overall, we're quite delighted to be here. We're getting a very
positive response to our ideas, and our branding. (Hey, we have been
offered our first tap at the Rhino!) We may be the small fry here, but
the serious players in the craft brewing movement have been very open
in providing us with advice and practical guidance. If this is our
introduction, we can't wait to see what the rest of the week will
bring!

Monday, or the journey to Boston...

2009-04-20T23:01:00.002-04:00

5:55
Sitting on my bed in the Hyatt Regency… a long day's journey through
many rainy flights to get here. Crazy to be in the Jet Blue Terminal
at Kennedy in NYC, very hip environment, from leather lounge chairs,
touch screen ordering of fast food, free WiFi, vending machines for
iPods, and a bar with 45 different craft beers on tap. Very Cool. But
now, of course, I have arrived in Boston!
Took the Silver Line Shuttle bus in from the airport, a very
inexpensive $2 ride. It goes right by the World Trade Center on the
way in, so I saw where I will be spending the next several days, the
hotel (Westin) is literally connected to it. Lucky me.
To get to the Hyatt for tonight, jumped on the Redline Subway line…
as the train pulled in the station to pick us up, I noticed that
the lighted sign on top read, "Alewife"… a small omen perhaps?

10:36
After an enjoyable evening at the Cambridge Brewing Company, I'm
retiring early. The CBC has an incredible assortment of beers on tap.
19 to be exact. They seem to have a 7 Bbl system, and they tell us
that they brew every day. We started with their Spring Training IPA on
cask: heavily hopped with Palisades and Ahtanum, this 6.3%ABV was
light bodied and easy drinking, despite the big hit of hops. We moved
on to the Charles River Porter, rich, chocolately, roasty, 6% ABV.
Served too cold, but as it warmed up, it was a delight to drink. I
finished off with The Colonel an authentic 19thC porter with hints of
Brett, aged in bourbon barrels for 15 months. Again, served too cold,
but WOW! What a beer. If this is any indication of the brews we'll be
sampling in Boston we should have a great week ahead of us. We noticed
(and talked to) other brewers arriving in town, who also dropped by
the CBC. It should be a very educational week…

Craft Brewer's Conference 2009

2009-04-19T18:26:00.001-04:00

Well, my bags are packed, and I'm thrilled to be heading to Boston for the annual Craft Brewer's Conference. http://www.beertown.org/events/cbc/index.html I've been talking about this for years, and finally got my act together to go play with "the big guys". I've created a new "start-up", intriguingly called Square Peg Brewery.
We've found some great $44 flights out of Buffalo on Jet Blue. i went on priceline.com, and scored some awesome deals on 4-star accomodations. Monday, the night of the Boston Marathon, we'll stay downtown at the Hyatt Regency. For the duration of the conference, we'll be staying at the Westin Harborside, connected to the convention centre.
The conference itself? It looks AMAZING. Three intense days of seminars... I have had a tough time deciding which seminars I'll attend. There's a trade show with hundreds of beer industry suppliers to meet and build relationships with. Of course, there's the hospitality events. At Harpoon, 60 different cask beers from New England Brewers. The Hallertauer Hop Growers Hospitality Suite pouring five different German Beers. I don't begin to understand how I'll absorb all the information, and deal with the sensory overload!
I have spoken to brewers such as Steve from Beau's, and the legendary American homebrewer Charlie Papazian. They have all assured me that it is money well spent, a week to remember. Can't wait for it to begin!