Hi everyone! Long time no updates, I know, but there's been a lot going on here at WrongSide. Back in November, Cameron found himself a job at Three Notch'd Brewing (@ThreeNotchdBeer) here in Charlottesville. He started out working the taproom, but after putting in some off-the-clock time in the brewhouse, is also moving into a quality control position. For now, this means cleaning all the draft lines serving Three Notch'd beer around Charlottesville (and, as of this weekend, Harrisonburg/Waynesboro/Staunton!) and setting up a lab that will eventually handle yeast management and brewing chemistry. Three Notch'd has only been open since September, but is already making a big splash in central Virginia under the guidance of brewmaster Dave Warwick. We're all very excited about the future of Three Notch'd and Cameron's involvement in it. Look for a WrongSide/Three Notch'd collaboration brew sometime this spring!
Sean has been working on some data analysis of recipes in online homebrew databases. He's got some pretty cool visuals put together from the initial data, but lots more remains to be done. This analysis should give us some valuable information about patterns and trends in homebrew recipes all across the country. Stay tuned!
But enough about us, you're here for the beer! Due to many weekend taproom shifts, brewing frequency is down a bit (but recovering). Since the last (embarrassingly old) blog update, we've brewed only a couple of beers: our Belgian dubbel, an amber ale, and a very special 50th batch (more on that shortly). In the pipeline we've got a couple of experimental brews, both in the style of traditional German lagers but brewed with ale yeast. We're doing an ale-style repeat of a maibock that turned out very nicely as a lager last year, and a blonde doppelbock-style ale. Both should deliver malty goodness and (hopefully) lager-like crispness through the use of Kolsch yeast and a cooler-than-normal fermentation. We've also got plans for a series of IPAs later this spring to explore all of the delicious hops we picked up after last year's harvest. And, of course, springtime means mead time for us, as our late-summer ingredient-gathering and meadmaking combine with extensive patience to yield delicious, well-aged effervescent honey goodness. This year's mead was a berry melomel (mead with honey and fruit), with blackberries and blueberries picked fresh locally (well, in Maryland just northwest of DC, but close enough). It weighs in around 14.5% and tastes like way, way less, ensuring that the second annual March Meadness party will be a rousing success.
That's about all we've got going on right now, watch this space for a feature on our 50th batch and the fruits of Sean's number-crunching labors in the next few days.