I recently found myself in Ashland, OR at Standing Stone Brewing Co. getting mashed in on a special brew before the sun even came up (and prior to caffeine unfortunately). I had been talking with head brewer Larry Chase about doing a collaboration brew for quite some time and we were finally able to make it happen earlier this month. Larry was interested in doing a one-off brew using our newish Goldpils Vienna malt as the base and jazzing it up with some Caracrystal Wheat for colour and some Bonlander for a malty punch (recipe posted soon). This 10BBL brew was going to be a split batch with 3BBLs getting “dryhopped” with cacao nibs and the remaining 7BBLs getting traditionally dry hopped with, well, hops. The smaller batch will be served at the 9th Annual Oregon Chocolate Festival as well as at the pub with the remaining heavily dry hopped session beer. Standing Stone is all about sustainability and have a farm outside of town where they are raising chickens, swine, goats and veggies; they are also setting themselves up to butcher their own chickens though they currently just use the eggs. If you happen to be in southern Oregon next month stop by the brewery to try both batches!
