We’ve been getting a lot of inquiries these past few weeks regarding what’s going on here at the Elizabeth Street Brewery. The short answer is, “not a lot” to be honest. But that would be selling our efforts a bit short.

Since we invested in the 20-gallon tippy dump system and conical fermenter last Summer, we haven’t done much brewing to be frank. In addition to heightened activity at my day job, the system is currently getting a few minor adjustments to help optimize brewing efficiency moving forward so, as a result, I’ve only brewed three times in the past 6 months.

Like most things I’ve tackled in my life, I’ve always said that the growth of the Elizabeth Street Brewery would be a natural progression. Nothing forced. I need to keep reminding myself of this fact when I worry that we’re not as involved in the “beer community” as we were just 12 months ago. I’ve had to make some difficult decisions to start the year with regard to the work around the ESB. I will not be participating in SF Beer Week in 2012. We’re not throwing our annual Super Bowl Extravaganza here at the ESB next month (for the first time in a decade), and I think I’m also going to take a year off from traveling to the Craft Brewer’s Conference. I don’t take any of these decisions lightly.

It’s not all doom and gloom here though and the new brewery wasn’t the only milestone we hit in 2011. We’re an officially licensed business of California and the business plan has undertaken three major adaptations over the past 12 months also. There are a lot of positives ahead for us in 2012 too. When we do have “Molly” back up and running, we are going to brew. We are going to brew some of the best beers we’ve ever brewed. And we’re hoping you’re going to help us. This Spring, I’ve committed to brewing three beers with people that have never brewed before – tackling recipes of their choosing – and really experimenting with styles and advanced brewing. I hope to carry that into the rest of the year; inviting groups of people interested in the brewing process but not sure where to start. We’ve always said we were a “brewery for the people, by the people” – now we’re committed to being exactly that.

The ultimate goal is still the same – and we’ll never waiver in our commitment – to introduce a craft beer establishment to our good friends and neighbors of Noe Valley. Everything we do has that prize in mind… but until then, we’re determined to enjoy every step of the way. This is definitely a case of the journey being just as important and rewarding as the destination.

So, thanks for sticking with us and we can’t wait to get back to brewing and pouring frothy goodness for you over the months ahead. Until then… Cheers!

Richard, Allie, Addison & Quincy.

We’ve been hard at work behind the scenes here at the Elizabeth Street Brewery. We are now an official LLC and have our sellers permit (for merchandise, etc.) and we have a new 20-gallon brewing sculpture built by the good folks at MoreBeer. We have decided to name her “Molly” after my Grandmother. We named the award-winning collaboration beer with 21st Amendment , Imperial Jack, after her husband – my Grandpa – so it seemed only fitting to name the brewery after her. After all, behind every good man is a great woman.

Transporting her solo home from Concord was quite a rush… particularly once I got onto the Bay Bridge. My buddy Chris helped us set her up at her new home at the Elizabeth Street Brewery. I brewed the first batch on Molly on Sunday, July 10 and it was a 15-gallon version of our stout – Daddy’s Chocolate Milk. The grain bill consisted of 38 lbs of grain…

Considering it was our maiden voyage with Molly, I felt the brew went surprisingly smoothly. After I figured out how to stop the pump from cavitating (as shown in the below video) we were really in business…

Clean-up was a snap too. Mainly because of my two little brewing fairies…

I’m looking forward to assembling our large conical fermenter and brewing a pilsner or lager on there (it’s temperature controlled). Until then… back to beer. Looking forward to pouring for you all very soon.

Cheers!
Richard.

Cheers!
Richard.

Feel free to stop by for a taste or two during the 4-hour window this coming Saturday. Can’t wait to see you.

Cheers!
Richard.

I’ll be live-tweeting the brew on our Twitter feed: @ESBAle.

We’ll be grabbing a couple of pints upstairs in the Mezzanine loft when we’re done brewing. Heads up – the Giants host the Phillies on Saturday evening (first pitch at 6:05pm) so the pub promises to be getting pretty busy as the afternoon goes on.

For those new to the 21st Amendment Brewery, you can access directions by clicking HERE.

Cheers! Hope to see you Saturday.

-Richard.

We have bottled our first ever pilsener which tastes good but not great… need to figure out how to tweak for better results. I’ll save some for you regulars, the next time we’re open.

With regard to email: for some reason, none of my outbound emails have been reaching their intended recipients. I am in the process of fixing that, but will resend emails using my personal account because some of you have been awaiting responses for a number of weeks now.

Looking forward to beating this thing and getting back to brewing soon.

See you at the ESB soon I hope… don’t forget, we’re also your home for the NFL once the Fall rolls around. We get every NFL game in the pub throughout the season (Miami Dolphins getting precedence over all other games of course).

Cheers!
Richard.

One of which was this past Saturday. We opened the doors from 11:30am – 3:30pm and tasted 9 different beers (3 of my own, 6 “guests”) so we could compare and contrast styles. I had planned on making a Rye ale but am glad I chose to postpone the brew given the number of people that joined us throughout the day.

So… given the demand (I’m now receiving multiple phone calls and emails each week about open hours) but keeping into account our supply (currently running extremely low), I plan on aggressively brewing in the months of June and July. We’ll be doing new batches of Daddy’s Chocolate Milk, B3 Bomber, and Addison’s Firecracker Red. I also plan on going back to the drawing board with Mummy’s Double Honey (last one took a lot to be desired) and a brand new beer that includes a pound of roasted rye and a generous (but monitored) helping of rosemary. We plan on crowning this one our Summer Rosemary Rye.

This will all lead up to some great open house events later in the Summer…

Apologies for the radio silence here… something I plan on remedying moving forward. For now, I’ll leave you with a short and sweet review by one of our newest “customers”, Dan Markham… check out his cool panoramic pic of our “Beer Garden”.

Cheers!
Richard.

I hadn’t planned on making a pilsener at first, but I was inspired when I visited Fermentation Solutions for the first time. I tend to get 75% of my ingredients locally at SF Brewcraft in San Francisco. The rest of the time, I’ll do one-off trips to More Beer in Concord. However, earlier this week I discovered a brewery supply store just minutes from my office down here in Campbell.

Fermentation Solutions is a family-owned store that manages to pack a lot of equipment and supplies into a relatively small space. Although the grains are primarily pre-packaged and pre-milled (I prefer to build my recipe onsite from scratch), the hop and yeast fridge was impressive and it had everything anyone would need to get started brewing beer at home. It also boasted the best library I’ve seen at a brewery supply store yet. I imagine, given the amount of equipment on display, they get more home winemakers than brewers but I know now that I have a store to stop at in a pinch on my way home if I want to bottle or keg or even flash-brew an ale at the end of the working day.

Looking forward to seeing how this pilsener works out.

Cheers!
RBH