Collaboration Brew Day- January 26, 2013

Today is an exciting day.  Not only is it my 2nd day at the brewery but Adirondack is doing a collaboration brew with Olde Saratoga Brewery in Saratoga Springs, NY.  This collaboration beer was featured at the Saratoga Beer Week in Saratoga Springs, NY in February.  Collaborations brews have become increasingly popular in the last decade or so.  It seems that every year, you see more and more of them on the shelves.

In case you are unfamiliar with a collaboration brew, what it usually means is that each brewery brews part of the brew and then the beer is blended to create a unique beer.  It can also mean that two or more brewers get together at one of their breweries to brew a beer.  Each brewer contributing to the unique collaboration.

For this collaboration between our two breweries, Olde Saratoga Brewery brewed and aged an imperial porter.  This beer had been aging for over a year in whiskey barrels.  Adirondack contributed a sour cherry porter to the beer.  This was the brew that was taking place today.

Master brewer Paul McErlan from Olde Saratoga was on hand for the brew.  Additionally, there were several staff members on hand from the Post Star who were writing an article about this collaboration beer.  You can read the article here: http://tiny.cc/klbhuw.  This was the main focus of the day and I was happy to be briefly interviewed by the folks at the Post Star (though I'm not featured in the article).

My big responsibility for the day was helping to force carbonate kegs for the next days Festival of Barrels.  Normally, by the time that beer goes into kegs it has already been carbonated.  However, when you have beer that has been aging it tends to lose carbonation.  Therefore we did what is known as force carbonation.  Basically this means that we "forced" CO₂ into the beer.  In order to make sure that the CO₂ gets into the beer, you have to shake the kegs.  Each keg when it is full of beer weighs about 150 pounds.  Needless to say this is not the easiest task.  At least once an hour I would go into the cooler where the beer was being stored, take the kegs, and roll them up and down a small incline.  Additionally I would shake them and flip them upside down and shake them again.  By the end of the day my arms and back were tired.

These are the kegs that I helped force carbonate

Another view of the kegs I helped force carbonate

We had also recently received a shipment of used kegs that had belonged to another brewery which had unfortunately gone out of business.  A sad but realistic reminder that nothing is certain in this business.  It is very common for breweries to buy equipment from other breweries that are going out of business or upgrading and replacing equipment.

These new-to-use kegs needed to be washed, checked to ensure that there were no issues, and any old stickers or markings removed or covered up with our own logo.  Since we had purchased hundreds of these kegs, this was a big job which took up a great deal of my time.  When I wasn't cleaning kegs or shaking them to force carbonate the beer, I did get the opportunity to help fill kegs for an order that was going out.

Our keg washer

Kegs being washed

Kegs that have been scrubbed down, waiting to be loaded onto the keg washer

Clean, sanitized kegs ready to be filled with beer

I was filling kegs on a two-line filler, which meant that two kegs could be filled at one time.  Filling kegs is a pretty easy.  You attach the coupler to the keg valve located on top of the keg.  This has a ball valve that is pushed down when the coupler is engaged.  This allows beer and CO₂ to flow into the keg.  The  CO₂ valve is open for a second to push out any remaining oxygen that might be in the keg.  This is then closed so that just a small amount of CO₂ is coming out of the keg.  The valve to allow beer to flow is slowly opened until it is opened completely.  That is it.  Once the keg is full, which you can tell when beer begins to flow out of the CO₂ valve.  Shut off the beer flow valve and the CO₂ valve and disengage the coupler.  You've got a full keg!