As we're sure you've all heard by now, we'll be participating in the Homebrew for Hunger event this coming Saturday, November 9, 5-8PM at Fifth Season Gardening. Homebrew for Hunger is an event that started in North Carolina and has now expanded northwards to our fair city. The event works like this: people buy tickets (get yours here) to enjoy beer tastings from local homebrewers and pro brewers (check out this year's lineup here), and proceeds from the ticket sales are donated to a local food bank (for the Charlottesville event, that's Blue Ridge Area Food Bank). Homebrewers get to show off their stuff, you all get to enjoy a variety of great local beers, and this charitable organization get some much-needed help. Everyone wins!
For this weekend's festivities, we'll be showcasing two of
our more seasonally-appropriate beers: our Cygnus X-1 Stout (to be added to our
list of year-round offerings) and a Scottish Wee Heavy that we're calling
Bogwater for now. Descriptions follow
(we've also added these to "Our Brews" section). So please come on out this weekend to support your favorite local homebrewers and help out a good cause!
Cygnus X-1 Stout
A classic American stout. Big, bold, and jet-black (it is, after all, named for a well-studied black hole), this stout is brewed with standard American pale malt, some extra dark crystal malt, heaps of roasted barley and chocolate malt, and some flaked oats to give it an extra-creamy mouthfeel. Bursting with dark caramel, chocolate, and roast notes, this beer is fermented with British ale yeast to leave some hefty malt sweetness behind, balancing both some medium herbal/earthy hop bitterness and the sharper edges of the roasted malt flavor. A perfect beer to sip while you watch the leaves fall, or whenever the mood for a hearty stout strikes! 6.6% ABV, 46 IBU.
Bogwater Wee Heavy
Styled after a traditional Wee Heavy (the strongest of the Scottish ales), Bogwater puts malt flavors front and center. We use imported Scottish Golden Promise barley, dark crystal malt and a bit of smoked malt to round out the grain bill. In our own twist on the Scottish style, we've also added a bit of Muscovado brown sugar for some molasses flavor and to dry out the beer a bit (Wee Heavies can often end up quite thick and sticky). Huge notes of caramel, toffee, toasted bread, and other malty flavors dominate this sublime amber-brown brew, with just a hint of hoppiness to keep it from getting cloying. Fermented cool and clean with Scottish ale yeast, and conditioned for 2 months to help the complex flavors meld together. We think you'll really dig this beer. 10.6% ABV, 24 IBU.