I can not express the joy that brewing beer brings. But there was always something missing-a place to hang out with the guys and the ability to serve a bunch of beers on tap. It's takenan incredible amount of hard work, but we're finally there. Let me take you on a tour.
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On the left, you can see the brewery. It's a 3-tier gravity-fed system with 15.5 Gallon convertedkegs. We typically make 10 gallons of beer at a time. On the right is our lagering fridge where we lager up to 15 gallons at a time. We typically give each beer three months total which,for those who didn't pass third grade math, means we can make 4 lager beers a year. These are typicallyvery special seasonal offerings including our Octoberfest and Doppelbock.
One of the basic rooms above is the fermentation room. Originally, we built it to do all of ourfermentation, but since he basement swings anywhere from 60 to 70+ degrees, we weren't happy withthat option. Now, the room is used for bottle conditioning, diacetyl rests, general storage, and seasonalfermentation. It is fairly well insulated, and the plastic sheathing keeps the dust from the floor joists at a minimum
Lots of hops! They're kept in the freezer of the lagering fridge.
Above, is the cold room. Next to the Brewery, this is the heart of the pub operation. It is approx 4'x8'and insulated with fiberglass in the framing and covered with foam insulation. It is kept cold with a standard window air conditioner that I bypassed the internal thermostat on and replaced with the typical analog controller.
We ferment our ales and lagers in this 53'F room. As you can see,we have NO TROUBLE fermenting ales at this cold temperature. Pictured is WY1056, WY1272, and in the one gallon starter jug, WLP008.
We also store our kegs and grain in the cold room. Lots of beer and barley waiting to be beer.
Sacks of grain. Mmmm Rye... Denny would be proud
Above, you can see the kegging setup. The 50 # CO2 tank (in the back corner) inside the room pushes our beer through shanks in the wall (those silver thingies going through the wood). It is a balanced system; meaning we don't carbonate and dispense at different pressures. The red hose is for CO2 and the cleartubing is our beer lines.
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On the left, are our 8 taps, faucets, gum cutters, beer nipples, ports for porter, gateways for ambrosia, or whatever you want to call them. On the right, one of the prized possessions ofthe pub- our very own lighted Guinness sign (Thanks Jeff). The outside concrete walls were painted green, the insidewalls are covered in a white-washed faux wood paneling, and the trim is done in a brilliant orange.It's like being wrapped in the Irish flag.
In this picture, you can see the actual bar. Right now, there are 8 beers on tap at once (4 shown in this old picture). We havethe ability to put 9 faucets through the wall. Half of our ribbons are on display (the other half at Josh's house). A Scottish broad swordrests above the taps.
The remaining pics below show the rest of the pub. Scottish and Irish photos and flags adorn the walls. Empty bags of malt and strings of hops remind us of our brewing. The tribute to St Andrews along with antique clubs honor the sport of Golf and its roots in Scotland.
In the front left is my co-brewer, Josh. In the back row we have three gents from the CT Valley Hop Dogs