Motorworks Brewing in Bradenton, FL., have just launched their wild beer program in style by lining the back of lead brewer Jose Martinez’s 1984 El Camino Conquista with a food grade FDA-compliant liner and turning it into a 3 1/2BBL coolship which happens to match the size of their pilot brewery. This beer, which was ‘inoculated’ with airborne microflora in Bradenton, is a wicked clever way for a gearhead-centric brewery to make a splash.
Head Brewer Bob Haa tells me “the brew is simple with 62% Briess Pilsen, 38% Briess White Wheat and 2# wheat flour with a 13.9 starting Plato (a bit high) with 9 IBU from Hallertau Mittelfrueh. Knocking out into the El Camino bed we did not have to chill the wort, it was stable at 140F when filled. At that point, we pushed the car and parked it under an old Live Oak tree in our beer garden. After 7 hours, the wort was 60F and we pumped it back into our “Stinky” fermenter where it currently resides.” Gadzooks but this is a labor of love.
This beer was brewed on January 14, 2018, during a Florida ‘cold snap’ where that night’s temperatures hovered around 40F—for those of you up north that’s the equivalent of minus 20F in Minneapolis (and I can say that from my time living and brewing in FL.—Bob Haa was my R&D brewer). Though this beer is going to reside in a barrel for about a year and will be in serious demand and short supply I do look forward to trying it!
Photo courtesy of Motorworks Brewing.
Photo courtesy of Motorworks Brewing.
Photo courtesy of Motorworks Brewing.
You can see more on the new hip coolship and check out Motorworks Brewing here: http://motorworksbrewing.com/coolship-brew-launches-wild-beer-program/
And if you’d like to see another small-batch-labor-of-love beer check out my blog from 2013 on lautering in a log here: https://www.brewingwithbriess.com/blog/the-ale-apothecary/