Holiday Ale release and thoughts from SD Beer Week

Our Holiday Ale is now available on tap and in bottles. A 30% Rye Ale with a quaffable spiced malt flavor - this one weighs in at 7.2% abv and 65 IBU; come on in and enjoy your Holiday!

While we have you here, we just wanted to share a few images and thoughts on San Diego Beer Week. For those who were not aware, we headed down south for a few days of fun and beer in one of America's best beer cities. We were lucky enough to talk the Toronado SD in to hosting us for the opening act of Big Wednesday - Special thanks to Ian and Big Daddy for having us!


Our Beer List at The Toronado SD (click to enlarge)


Kyle and Beale hanging with Big Daddy (and an especially expensive bottle of beer)


We had a chance to pour some of our beers and meet some super nice folks - thanks to everyone that attended. After us came Allagash - and Head Brewer Rob Todd. Turns out that small world expression is really true - Rob's Mother grew up in Old Kernville; when the lake flooded the family up and left - years later two breweries with roots in Kernville meet in San Diego.

Another big thanks to O'Brien's and Hamilton's for finding homes for a couple of kegs of JO.

After all the fun we had at the Toronado, we couldn't just stop there. On the way home we decided to stop by the Stone World Bistro and join the Stone/Alesmith food and beer tasting. Peter from Alesmith was his usual self - witty and extremely nice. For those of you that did not know, our original brewing equipment was sold to us by Skip, one of the former owners of Alesmith; it then resided in the Alesmith warehouse for an extended period of time while we figured out how to get it up to Kernville. During that period, Peter and the rest of the folks there were very patient with us even though we were taking up valuable space; they were actually really encouraging and helpful during the whole process. My recollection is that we still owe all of them a raft trip on the Kern...

The food and beer pairing was, of course, stellar. You would expect no less from Stone and Alesmith.



The highlight for me was the bacon, chocolat cheesecake paired with Speedway Stout and Stone Imperial Russian Stout. Yep you read that right, bacon - and lots of it. This guy liked it so much that he ended up with a KRBC shirt!

Mmmm... Bacon...


Finally we meandered downstairs for a vertical tasting of Double Bastard - 2001 to present. Everywhere we went we seemed to meet great folks, no exception here.

Beer makes people happy...


Finally a big shout out to our twitter friends - The Art of Beer and the Beer Wench




Can't wait till next year!

Take the Plunge

Alright the time is here for all you hop heads!! The Plunge will be released Tuesday the 10th at 4:00. This year the Plunge is 8.3% ABV Imperial/Double IPA Hoped with very generous amounts of Columbus,Magnum,Amarillo,and Cascade. This was a fun beer to brew and its always a reward to put it on tap!! Cheers

Friday the 13th - Batch #1 release!

It's Official, we are releasing 750 ml bottles of Batch #1 on Friday, November 13th. Batch #1 is our Class V Stout aged in used bourbon barrels from Heaven Hill Distilleries for 8 months. Each bottle was hand filled and bottle conditioned; light on carbonation but heavy on flavor, these beauties can be enjoyed right now or laid down in the cellar for while.

We open the doors at 11:30 am on Friday and will continue to sell throughout the weekend or until we run out - whichever comes first. We only have about 200 bottles, each numbered and signed, so we are limiting purchases to two bottles per person. We also plan on putting some 17 month BBA Stout on tap that weekend. That's right, we said 17 months; so if you are a fan of the BBA Stout, cancel all your plans for the weekend, park the RV out back and enjoy...

KRBC visits Firestone Walker

On the way to the coast we found ourselves in Paso Robles - might as well swing by Firestone and see what's going on. I got a sampler which included some unfiltered Double Barrel Ale, Oaktoberfest, Nectar IPA and, of course, some Union Jack. Rebecca got a glass of Black Xantus - their barrel aged stout and coffee concoction; quite tasty...



After admiring their equipment for a while, we ran across Dustin, their lead brewer. He just got off the early shift and was gracious enough to give us a little tour of the place.



To put is succinctly, we were blown away by the place; not just the set-up, but the people who work there. Dustin not only knows his stuff - their Union Jack has one the IPA category at GABF two years in a row (the most competitive category) - but he was also happy to explain in detail some of the steps they take to ensure the quality of their product as well as some of the challenges they are facing as they grow. Other folks were really friendly as well as we wandered through their work space. I must say, as much as I like a pint of Union Jack, I'm sure I will enjoy it even more now that we got a chance to meet the folks behind the product. Oh, and those couple of bottles of Black Xantus we bought are going to go down smooth as well...

Barley Power

KRBC @ GABF!

Rebecca at our booth!



I know this post is a bit late; we've just been busy catching up after getting back from Denver. To sum it up, we had a blast - wish we could have brought home a medal, but there were many worthy breweries there, so we'll just have to try again next year.

Kyle Serving Beer at GABF???


Rebecca - the Aspiring Brewer???


There were many great parts of the trip; I'll try to throw in some of the highlights.

First of all just seeing all the breweries there was just plain impressive. Here are some of the final stats:
49,000 attendees
3308 beers in the competition
2100 beers being served
495 breweries in the competition
Personally we tried as much beer as we could responsibly consume while still being able to complete a coherent sentence to curious customers of our booth try saying that while drinking!

Thirsty KRBC patrons




Other highlights include a visit to Avery Brewing Company in Boulder where we got a great tour from Peter and tasted some exquisite beers. It was especially interesting to see how they have grown into what they are today - most definitely an informative and enjoyable experience.

Check them out here!

Avery Brewing Co - another great Colorado Brewery


The Barrel Room at Avery


Along with all the great beer at the festival we had many a good beer at the Cheeky Monk, a great Belgian Beer Bar on the way home from the convention center.

Finally we got a chance to meet Norm! George Wendt was there promoting his new book Drinking with George - Haven't read it yet, but I think he knows that of which he writes, and it looks like he is a fan of KRBC!

Pumpkin Ale Ready - Fresh Hop on the Way!

Our Pumpkin Ale is on tap and in bottles. This year we got an early start on one of most popular seasonal brews - made with 160 lbs of real pumpkin! So come on in and grab your bottles, fill you growlers or just sit at the bar and sip on a taste of fall.
4.0% abv


Also we just brewed a batch of fresh hopped ale. Using locally grown Galena, Cascade, Nugget and Chinook from the Keverline Hop farm in the Kern River Valley, this pale ale is going to be a unique treat.
5.8% abv