Posts Tagged ‘Brian Thorson’

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Farewell Brian Thorson

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012

It’s a sad day today, here at the brewery. With each passing minute we come just a little closer to the end of our time with our Head Brewer Brian Thorson.

Seems a little unreal that after today we won’t see him around: climbing atop barrels, stroking his wizard beard for inspiration, or willingly giving his time to help guide any interested person in learning more about making great beer.  Over the nearly five years Brian has been at Drake’s, he has been not only an exceptional brewer, helping to create some of our most loved brews, but a great friend as well. There’s no doubt; we’re gonna miss the guy.

Where’s he headed? Get excited Midwest folks, Brian says he and his family will be leaving the Bay Area for the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. There he will join Thomas (Tommy) Nicely (formerly of Half Acre Brewing) as the Head Brewing team for a brand new production brewery slated to open this year, Perrin Brewing Company. Brian says they will begin by brewing a handful of regular styles year-round and eventually build a Barrel Aging program.

So, we suppose that while we are sad to see him go, there is a silver lining worth mentioning: We will still get to drink beers made by this great brewer… We just may have to travel a bit further to get them. So, to paraphrase a little Henry David Thoreau for our craft beer world:

Nothing makes the world seem so delicious as to have great brewer friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes.

Good Luck Brian. You’ll be missed.



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Wood-aging: Step One

Thursday, March 29th, 2012


Wood-aging can be a fickle friend. From our experiments with oak barrels, we know that the subtle play of oak tones ranging from sweet vanilla or caramel notes to mild spiciness of clove or cinnamon to woody aromas and flavors can add dimension and complexity to our ales in a pretty satisfying way. Still, the long amount of time it takes to achieve these flavors from aging in a full barrel sometimes means the compromise of fresher flavors of the hops or malt. Also, our barrels, all former bourbon/wine/brandy barrels, have other flavor components that come into play besides the pure oak.

So, in an effort to see what a little straight oak tones can give to our fresh beers, we recently began experimenting with oak wood chips. Wood chips are small pieces of wood (in our case oak), usually about 2 inches long that have been toasted to varying degrees (untoasted, light, medium, and heavy) to achieve different flavor components. Chips with their greater surface area are able to infuse beers with oak flavors more quickly than barrels, which for us means we can get the oak flavor without losing some of the fresher flavors of our beers.

Brian began by taking growlers of a range of our fresh beers, taken anytime between when the beers had just finished and were conditioning to the point when they were ready to package. “I ran the gamut really: Denog, Barleywine, IPA, Red Eye, Drakonic, Dry Stout, and even a little Hefeweizen,” he said.

He then added a different type of oak-chip to each growler and left them to mellow. Generally Brian said, he likes to taste the beers at 1 week, 2 weeks, up to a month. So, yesterday, at about the 2 week mark of this round of tests, we gathered a seven person panel inside the Barrel House to try what we had.

Overall we came to learn that just a little bit of oak can go a long way. In some of our trials the oak did impart nice flavors but it overpowered the beer, leading us to think that maybe larger chip sizes in smaller amounts could be better. Some of our conclusions were expected—the Drakonic Imperial Stout did well with a hint of oak. Others were unexpected— who knew the Hefeweizen might taste pretty good with a very small dose of heavy toasted oak chips?

Our brewer Alex, noted how she particularly liked how the oak could be used for hoppy beers. “With wood chips, you can retain some of the bitterness and fresh hop character that falls away in the barrels.”

These fresh, oaked beers, Brian explained, could also be use to blend with some barrel-aged beers to further add complexity and freshness. But, he qualifies, “This is Step 1.” There are still many more iterations to come with this process as we work to discover exactly what method, which combinations of chips and ales, and possible what blending options will give us something truly of uncommon deliciousness.

 

For a more detailed review of oak-aging in general, this article sums things up pretty nicely. –> Using Oak in Beer

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Posted in beer, Brewers, Brewery, craft beer, Drake's Brewing | 4 Comments »

Restaurant Thir13en Sacramento Beer Dinner with Chef Adam Pechal

Friday, March 2nd, 2012

When it comes to a day that appears only once every four years that just so happens to land smack in the middle of Sacramento Beer Week, we figured it was the perfect excuse chance to have a tremendous, Epicurean night of food and craft beer. Chef Adam Pechal has been making a name for himself in his role as head chef of two of Sacramento’s more inventive restaurants Tuli and Restaurant Thir13en, so when he brought up the idea to do a beer dinner at Thir13en, we jumped at the opportunity to put it together.

With a contagious exuberance that likely hasn’t waned much since he was a small boy and an undeniable talent in the kitchen, Chef Pechal worked with our Head Brewer Brian Thorson and created a 5-course menu of sumptuous dishes each paired with a different Drake’s beer.

As guests began to arrive early in the evening, we poured our light and crisp Kolsch-style Blonde ale, to pair with the first dish of the night: Lobster and Blonde Beer Fritters with Meyer Lemon Aioli.

Hungry from set-up and the choice to eat very lightly throughout the day pre-beer-dinner, the intoxicating smell of these delicious golden puffs of beer batter and lobster made it difficult to keep from promptly stuffing four into our mouths and washing down with a full Blonde, but we refrained. Good thing too, because the hits just kept on coming.

Chef Pechal finally instructed us all to take our seats for the next course and introduced to the crowd our owner John Martin and Brian. Then, when the opening remarks were complete, the wait staff brought in dish and beer number 2. Drakes Amber paired with 12 Hour Pork Belly with Honey Amber Mustard, Toasted Pistachios, sauteed Blueberries, and Red Mustard Frisee.

After the delicious and almost mandatory infusion of pork belly, we moved on to course three: House Made Squid Ink Pasta with Grilled Monterey Squid, Calabrian Chilis and Arugula paired with 1500. The lightness of the 1500 and the citrus in the hops perfectly paired with the richness of the pasta, lightness of the squid and the spice from the chilis.

Now that we had hinted at the hops and the spice, the fourth course took it to the next level. Glasses of our seasonal Hopocalypse Double IPA made their way to each guest as servers dropped vintage martini glasses filled with Fort Bragg Rockfish Ceviche with Blood Oranges, Habeñero, and Hopocalypse-Avocado Mousse garnished with a crispy corn chip.

Then, the night got even more interesting. In a mad scientist turn, Chef Pechal brought a table to the front of the room and had his sous chef bring in a large metal container filled with liquid nitrogen. After donning protective gloves and goggles the two chefs began to pour the -320 degree liquid nitrogen into a container filled with a hefty amount of our latest sour Theia (an American Strong Ale aged in Chardonnay Barrels with Brettanomyces), thus creating tableside sorbet. Fog from the liquid nitrogen billowed out of the top of the container as Chef Pechal stirred the mixture to a perfect sorbet consistancy– the perfect palate cleanser for a beer dinner. Chef Pechal served small spoons of the Theia sorbet with garnish of carbonated blood oranges (made by putting oranges and beer into a keg and cranking up the psi to carbonate the juice inside the oranges) and a glass of the non-frozen Theia.

After the entertainment of the evening was finished, and all of our palates thoroughly cleansed, servers began to bring out the fifth pairing: Black Robusto Porter with Porter Braised Beef Shortribs with Crispy Fingerlings, Carnival Cauliflower, and Toy Box Carrots. We had no words…

Nearly stuffed, a bit red faced, and very happy at this point, every cheerfully welcomed the final pairing for dessert that was both delicious and inventive. Dessert paired our well-named Barrel-aged Barleywine blend, The Good Shit with Apple-Barleywine Bundt Cake with Cardamom Ice Cream and Apple Barleywine Granita.

We left that night full, completely satisfied, and absolutely certain to dream about the foods and beers we had had. Both Brian and John agreed it was one of the more excellent pairing dinners they had ever had the pleasure to experience, and if Chef Pechal wants to do another dinner with us… you can be sure that we’re in.

Quick shout out to the servers and staff that made the dinner as wonderful as it was. Probably going to dream about this food again tonight. Cheers.


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Posted in beer, Brewers, cooking, cooking with beer, Event, food and beer pairing | 1 Comment »

SF Beer Week 2012- Twas Epic- Our Highlights

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

This year’s Beer Week was by all accounts the most phenomenal showing by breweries and attendees across the Bay Area in the week-long event’s history (we would know, we were there). With something along the lines of 300 events throughout the tumultuous ten days, Bay Area beer lovers smelled, sipped, paired, guzzled and enjoyed craft beer in every way imaginable, and many many of them did it all with us.

We did a staggering 22 events from food pairings to pig roasts to good ole beer fests and blind tasting competitions, and it was pretty excellent to see several of our fans at more than a few of our events.

As we couldn’t possibly cover the vast amount of excellent things that happened throughout the week without spending far too much time on this blog post (still have beer to brew…), here are a few of the highlights as we saw them from Monday on.

Monday: Beer and Cheese Pairing at Mission Cheese. This tiny cheese shop helped us pair 5 beers with 5 cheeses, and the results were so delicious that we must share said pairings for your own cheese & beer adventures to come.

Pawlet (cow’s milk) with 1500 dry-hopped Pale Ale.
Aged Tomme with Hopocalypse DIPA.
Ocooch with Dire Straits 2012 Barleywine.
Classico Goat Cheese with Drake’s Amber.
Windemere Cheese (known as the Bacon of cheeses) with Moscow’s Burning Smoked Imperial Stout.

 

 

 

ALSO on Monday: We again participated in the Annual Barclay’s Pub Battle of the Bays with our 1500 and Hopocalypse battling it out in taste duals with foes from the other side of the Bay. For the second year in a row we emerged the big winners. 1500 won the American Pale Ale category; Hopocalypse won the double IPA category; the East Bay took the most votes over the West Bay; and we took home the most votes overall, along with this sweet trophy to adorn the Barrel House.

 

 

 

Brewer Alex with our guest of honor

Wednesday: Our Sau & Brau Part Deux, whole hog pig roast was for the second year in a row a huge success. Our friends at Chop Bar in Oakland showed up early to start the two whole pigs roasting away, and come 6pm most folks were waiting just outside the Barrel House for their pig and beer fix.

Gabbi was excited to tap the special Drakonic firkin.

 

 

 

This year we had the added bonus of over 22 beers on tap (up from 6-7 beers from the first year) for attendees including both the Hopocalypse DIPA,  Hopocalypse Black Label TIPA, our Barrel-Aged Festival Award winner Brette Davis Eyes, The Good Sh*t Barleywine blend, a specialty firkin of Drakonic Imperial Stout with Blue Bottle Espresso and TCHO chocolate nibs added to name a few. We also had our Barrel House decked out with plenty of room for folks to hang out, drink up and pig out. Another cool addition this year was the inclusion of the piano and drum duo “Bangin’ and Clangin‘” who provided just the right tunes to go with the high spirits of the night. Really really can’t wait to do this night again next year.

The Full Meal. Om Nom Nom.

Everyone was lovin' it. Great folks, great pig, great beer.

Jacob and Kirby from Bangin' and Clangin' are awesome.

Drake's Brewer Chris Dunstan, Triple Rock Head Brewer (and former Drake's Brewer) Jeff Kimpe, and Buffalo Bill's Head Brewer (and former Drake's Brewer) Mike Manty.

Thursday: Somehow we ended up all over the Bay Area on this night. Folks enjoyed some barrel-aged beers alongside tasty spirits at Bloodhound in SOMA in San Francisco. Brewer Alex joined a host of other Bay Area brewers at the Cal Academy of Sciences for their SF Beer Week Nightlife which brought out over 2600 people (whoa). On this side of the bay, Head Brewer Brian did our meet the brewer segment at Beer Revolution, and was joined by owners John Martin and Roy Kirkorian as well as our sales rep Dow with a hefty list of cool beers including a few barrel-aged beauties. Finally, we joined our brother breweries Triple Rock and Jupiter at the first ever East Bay BrewFest at Pyramid in Berkeley for a night of East Bay craft beer love.

 

Lots of people came out to get a rare taste of the Jack & Jolly.

Friday: The Return of Jack & Jolly, our Jack Daniels Barrel-aged Jolly Rodger, for another round. Three kegs only were tapped simultaneously at 6pm in three different locations throughout the Bay Area including our own Drake’s Barrel House, The Page Bar in SF, and Iron Springs Brewery in Fairfax. This year’s version was our 2009 Jolly Rodger Imperial Brown Ale aged in Jack Daniels barrels- malty and smooth with flavors of mild smoke, tobacco and a hint of tang from the sour mash whiskey engrained in the barrel. Complex and completely satisfying.

Also on Friday, we were once again entered into a beer battle at Barclay’s Pub in Oakland for their IPA challenge. We faced off against other Bay Area hoppy offerings in a blind-tasting, and again, we took the top prize. You like us, you really like us. Thanks!

Brian hung out and tried some Poppy Jasper from El Toro Brewing Co out of Morgan Hill, CA.

Saturday: While we grilled and chilled here at the Barrel House with Bourbon Bros. BBQ and Fists of Flour pizza, Brian headed south to meet some folks in the South Bay for the 3rd annual Meet the Brewer event at the Tied House/Hermitage. We don’t make it down to the South Bay too often yet, so it was cool to see a bunch of new faces and brewers. Added plus, the 5 food trucks at the brewery were dang tasty.

 

 

 

Drake's, Triple Rock and Jupiter set up together for Celebrator.

 

 

Sunday: As no highlight reel of SF Beer Week would be complete without mentioning the closing event, we must applaud the folks at Trumer Brauerei and Celebrator Beer News for once again pulling off a closing fest that exceeded expectations all around. Road weary and beer soaked from the week, we pulled into Trumer on Sunday afternoon, but it did not take long for us to perk up. A great line-up of Bay Area brewers came out once again with some incredible beers to send off SF Beer Week right. Also, those beer donuts were just incredible (with Trumer Pils cream inside… mmm).

Yeah...

And so it ended with a bang and not a whimper, and after a brief Presidents’ Day of rest (for most of us… Alex and Chris still brewed all day yesterday), we are back to business. In fact, today we did a big tank move in which a 60 bbl bright tank and a 60 bbl fermenter headed over to the new cellar via crane.

Also, Sacramento folks, if this post made you jealous, no worries, Sac Beer Week kicks off Thursday, and we will have events all week with some of our northern neighbors. Cheers.

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Posted in Barrel House, beer, Beer Fests, Brewers, Brewery, craft beer, Drake's Brewing, Drake's Staff, Event, food and beer pairing, Jolly Rodger, San Francisco Beer Week, Sau and Brau, SF Beer Week, SFBW | 1 Comment »

Brewing Sales Rep Doug’s Belgian Golden Strong Ale- B.D. Golden Peril

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

We’re guessing at least a few of you out there have met Doug Ashcraft. As an avid homebrewer and certified BJCP judge, Doug has been a staple of the Bay Area beer and homebrewing for a long long time.

Well, in late November, we were lucky enough to bring Doug into the Drake’s fray as our sales rep for the North Bay and Sacramento, and his knowledge of the area’s beer scene and well-honed palette have definitely helped us bring up our game.

Still, even as Doug now traverses from Sacramento to Santa Rosa and back to San Leandro on a normal basis, he still finds the time to get his own brewing in. A few weeks ago, Doug dropped off a couple bottles of his Belgian Golden Strong ale at the brewery for Brian and the rest of the brewers to try, and needless to say, it was a resounding hit.

Sooo… We decided to make some more.

Brian worked with Doug to scale up the recipe for our tanks, and this past Saturday they mounted the brew deck and made it happen.

According to Brian and Doug the beer, the B.D. Golden Peril as they call it, will be hugely effervescent champagne-like ale with touches of spice and peach esters from its Belgian golden strong yeast strain hailing from Brasserie d’ Achouffe in the heart of the Belgian Ardennes. Noble hops, Saaz and German Spalt, will accent the beer with a spicy, earthy character, and the finish will be dry with a pleasantly, lingering floral undertones. Golden, aromatic, delicious, and as the name suggests, perilous at an expected 9% ABV.

Brian already has a few barrels set aside for some of this batch for aging, but the limited release of the young version will be making an appearance likely by the end of this glorious beer month. Can’t wait to try it. Cheers.

Grabbing a post, grain out glass of Hopocalypse.

Hand's lookin' much better. Stir that mash!

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It’s Official- Drake’s is Good Food

Monday, January 16th, 2012

The Second Annual Good Food Awards was held this past weekend, and we are very happy to announce that our Drakonic Imperial Stout took top Craft Beer honors alongside just a handful of other beers. Our malty beast held it’s own against hundreds of other craft beer entries from around the country, and now it must be forever acknowledged that Drakonic is definitely Good Food.

On Friday, Brian and Alex attended the Good Food Awards ceremony at the San Francisco Ferry Building to officially accept our award amongst some of the best artisan food producers, distillers and brewers around as well as a gaggle of foodie luminaries.

Then on Saturday during the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market, Gabbi and Jeremy poured samples of Drakonic to the public in the Good Food Awards Marketplace which highlighted the winners from the previous night. The Ferry Building was buzzing with folks wanting to try the winning foods and drinks, and if anyone left that day not full, satisfied and ready for a nap, we’d be seriously surprised.

Here are our pictures from our Good Food weekend. It was delicious.


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Posted in beer, Beer Fests, Brewery, cooking, Event, Good Food Awards | 1 Comment »

Barrel-Aged Beer Festival: Drake’s Contenders

Friday, November 11th, 2011
All that time, days and nights, methodically sniffing, sipping, blending and reblending out of our nearly 160 barrels, has paid off. Brian has pulled together one helluva arsenal of Barrel-Aged Contenders for the West Coast Barrel-Aged Festival tomorrow in Hayward. This is gonna be a freakin’ killer day for beer. From Drake’s alone, you have selections ranging from Amber/Imperial Stout blends to sour IPA in Syrah barrels to Collab Baltic Porter/Imperial Stout beauties to Belgian Blondes that have spent 18 months in merlot barrels.
Check the line-up:
  • Sir Francis Dre’s IPA (a.k.a. B.W.A.)-  8% ABV, IPA aged in a Syrah barrel 3+ years. — Straight outta San Leandro, Drake’s West Coast hip-hoppy IPA was chillin’ in a Syrah barrel for a couple of years to let the oak & wine characters express themselves in this beer.
  • Brette Davis Eyes- 6% Belgian Blonde aged in a Merlot barrel with Brett 1.5 years –She’ll definitely please your taste and smell with a nice tart & zesty zing.
  • Total Recall 7.5% Imperial stout and Amber blend aged in the same port barrel 2 years –Recognizing that we’ve blended these two beers after aging them seperately in the past, it sounded like a good idea to bypass the two-process theory and see what would happen in a single barrel.
  • Port of Call 8.0% Imperial stout and Amber beers aged seperate barrels 50% stout aged in a Bourbon barrel w/Brett (new beer introduced each pull) 50% Amber aged in a port barrel (one time fill) 2+ years
  • Melina 6.5% Amber in a Port barrel. 2 years –We blended for Port of Call, but this one sort of grew on us, so we wanted to include it as well to show one side of the story.
  • H.R. Balticle (High Water Brewing & Drake’s Brewing) 50% High Water Aphotic Baltic Porter aged in a Bourbon barrel 50% Drake’s Imperial Stout aged in a Port barrel w/brett and blackberries. — No reaching around for each of these ones seperately, these 2 beers are conveniently together in one glass.

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Barrel-Aging Inventory Time
What’s next from our barrels?

Monday, October 31st, 2011

Let us tell you a story about Drake’s and its barrels.

Back in 2007, former Drake’s brewer and current Triple Rock Head Brewer Rodger Davis got his hands on a handful of barrels- just about six or so to start- and filled them with beer. At the time Rodger used the project simply to experiment with different flavors and elements that he could extract from the barrels into the beer without much of a long-distance plan.

Since then, Brian Thorson has taken over the Drake’s barrel program and continued much in the same experimenting vein adding all sorts of different beers into the variety of barrels that we got our hands on.

The six barrels have now grown to over 153 barrels, and with the Drake’s Barrel House we now have 3 to 5 regular taps dedicated to barrel-aged beer.

So, last week Brian and Gabbi went to work to smell, sip and note every beer from every barrel trying to figure out which were ready to roll, which needed more time and which needed blending, topped off or laced with souring bacteria or other flavor additions.

Their endgame? To lay down a map of what’s coming up next- One in which our fans can always expect have a couple of the styles that have proven most popular as well as a few curve balls just to keep people on their toes.

So, what special things may you get next from the Drake’s barrels?

Well, going into the winter months you can expect plenty of “winter warmers” from barleywines to bourbon barrel-aged selections.

Also, as you enjoy the 2011 Jolly Rodger (coming Nov. 9) over the next month or two, you may just get a chance to try our ’09 and ’10 Jolly’s that have spent the last year or two hanging out in barrels.

An ’09, ’10, ’11 Jolly Rodger all together at one time for a tasting? Maybe… just maybe… if you’re good.

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Posted in Barrel House, beer, Brewers, Brewery, Drake's Staff, Seasonal | No Comments »

Behind-the-Scenes at Drake’s: Filling New Barrels

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

Got some new barrels in at the brewery on Monday, and yesterday Brian got started filling them with beer. The barrels, an assortment of red wine barrels from Blacksmith Cellars in Alameda including Cabernet Franc, Sangiovese and Cabernet Sauvignon will give a great variety of flavors to our beers, and a couple of them, Brian says, will be taken in the sour beer direction.

For this batch of barrels, Brian decided to keep things lighter to balance our already good stock of imperial stout and barleywine filled barrels. Our Hefeweizen, Belgian blonde and the new Pink Boots Saison went into these barrels, and hopefully they will yield some light, fruitier style barrel-aged beers when they are ready.

Excited to try the beers? Great! See ya at the Barrel House in two years. Cheers.


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Our Weekend- Oaktoberfest, Parktoberfest, Sausages and Suds and GABF

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

It’s a little quiet round the brewery today, but sorta that quiet before the storm sorta way… there’s a lot happenin’ this weekend.

Several of our brewers left yesterday for the Great American Beer Festival ready to chill with brewers and beer geeks from across the country and basically have a helluva, beer-soaked weekend. They took six official beers for judging including:

  • 1500 American Pale Ale
  • Drakonic Imperial Stout
  • Drake’s IPA
  • Denogginizer Imperial IPA
  • Aroma Coma IPA
  • Barrel House Sour (aka the Amy “Beer in Wine” House, though we call it the “Amy” beer)- A Belgian Blonde sour beer aged in Chardonnay barrels.

Alex also hand-bottled an exclusive taste (just a couple bottles) of her Pink Boots Scholarship Saison for the Pink Boots National Meeting being held Friday of the festival, where she is one of the key speakers (nice job, Alex). Got to taste this beer earlier this week and it is pretty much exactly how she describes it: a classic Saison with a California hop edge. This beer comes out on draft in mid-October here in the Bay Area, and trust me, it should be on your list of beers to try before it’s gone.

Between the competitions, the hangouts, the Brewer’s dinners, meetings and tastings our brewers have a ton of beer in store for them this weekend, but those of us still in the Bay Area will be slinging some Drake’s beers for our home crowd too.

On Saturday, you will find us at two Oktoberfests in the East Bay: Oaktoberfest in the Dimond District in Oakland from 11-6pm and Parktoberfest at the Lafayette Park Hotel from 1-5pm. Then on Sunday our beer (along with live music and lots of meat) will be at the annual Sausages and Suds Festival from 10-6pm in downtown San Leandro.

So here’s to an epic beer weekend. Wish us luck, Monday’s gonna be fun.

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