After months of installing, calibrating, and troubleshooting our new equipment, we finally have the various components of our expansion dialed in. We’ve done several runs now with everything in place and though we’ll continue to make adjustments as we go along, we’re excited to get into a rhythm and focus on doing what we do best: making great malt.
Here are some of the final pieces of the puzzle to get us to where we are today.
To celebrate this week’s bottle release of the latest seasonal from Asheville’s own Hi-Wire Brewing, we’ve got a quick Q&A with Hi-Wire’s head brewer Luke Holgate. Uprisin’ Hefeweizen was brewed a couple weeks ago using our Appalachian Wheat Malt and it’s a damn good beer. Kick back with an Uprisin’ and enjoy!
When did you start brewing? What was the first beer you ever brewed, and how did it turn out?
» Read more about: Meet the Brewer: Luke Holgate of Hi-Wire Brewing »
We’re starting a new series on the Kiln Blog: Meet the Brewer. The Meet the Brewer posts will introduce you to some of the special people that make what we do possible. They’re the ones crafting delicious brews out of our malt.
Though Fonta Flora Brewery in Morganton just opened last fall, they’ve quickly made a name for themselves with their unique, locally-focused craft beer. Head brewer Todd Boera has made a wide range of beers that you just can’t find anywhere else: a dandelion brett saison,
» Read more about: Meet the Brewer: Todd Boera of Fonta Flora »
You may have noticed last week that a few of the Riverbend maltsters showed up in an article on NPR about Asheville’s booming craft beer industry. Just how did we end up in the right place at the right time? Well, we were very lucky to spend the day hanging out during brew day with one of our newest neighbors: Sierra Nevada.
Brew Day with Sierra Nevada
We were all pretty excited when Sierra Nevada invited us to come over to their new brewery in Mills River to help brew the Asheville Brewers Alliance collaboration beer.
“Lotta talking, lotta drinking….lotta talking about drinking.” – Brian Simpson’s Craft Brewers Conference Recap.
That quote from Brian pretty much summed up what I was expecting when I first filled out my application for CBC 2014. I knew a few of my maltster friends would be there for our presentation as well as a large contingent of brewers from North Carolina. Beyond that, I had no idea what the week had in store for me.
Brent is taking a break from our busy production schedule and heading out to Denver this week to speak at the 2014 Craft Brewers Conference. CBC is a week-long event attended by some 9,000+ brewing industry professionals and it’s jam-packed with seminars, meetings, tastings, demos, and events. Brent will be doing a presentation with the Craft Maltsters Guild at the Craft Malt Sensory Workshop, Thursday at 9am. While in Denver, the board of the Craft Maltsters Guild will be meeting to organize the various arms of the newly-formed non-profit and help plan out the future of the organization.
» Read more about: Headed to the Craft Brewers Conference! »
Although we’re waiting on a few more pieces of the expansion project to arrive (thanks to January’s awful weather), the basic framework of our new system is in place and we’re making more malt more efficiently than ever before. Here are a few of the components that have helped us increase our capacity.
Bucket Elevator
One of our three bucket elevators is in place and it is rocking! We’re able to load two tons of grain into a steep tank in less than an hour.
There comes a time in most every business owner’s journey when they have to decide: are we going to really commit and take this thing to the next level? For us, the answer was yes.
We knew from the beginning that for this operation to be successful we’d have to scale our production. We’ve already made a lot of progress, from the early 500 pound batches up to our current runs of 1250-1400 lbs.
Preparation for our first round of plantings in Western North Carolina began several months ago at our roundtable discussion with the NC State Cooperative Extension and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Henderson County. These early meetings introduced us to two farmers, Jason Davis and Tony Hill, who were willing to experiment with growing malting barley in the mountains. Our initial meetings included a review of the 2012 Official Variety Trial (OVT) results from North Carolina and Virginia.
Looking for a way to sample homegrown ales and lagers from across North Carolina?
Join us at the Thirsty Monk in downtown Asheville this Friday (April 26th) for NC Beer Month where we’ll be co-hosting our first tap takeover. This event offers an incredible opportunity to sample a variety of beer styles made with Riverbend’s products. Some of these will even be new to us! A little backstory is provided below to whet your appetite.