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.
Once we built up some inventory in the malt house, we turned our attention to developing all grain homebrew kits for the holidays!
HOMEGROWN PALE ALE
This kit blends our freshest, artisan malt with a classic West Coast hop schedule to create a nicely balanced ale. Our Pale and Heritage Malts account for 99% of the grain, with just a pinch of Chocolate Malt added for color adjustment. IBU’s are equally balanced between early and late additions to create a beer with just the right amount of bitterness and plenty of aroma.
My Sunday began MUCH earlier than I care to talk about….up and out the door by about 7AM! Why the early wake up call? I was scheduled to take part in a roundtable discussion at the Sustainable Agriculture Conference in Greenville, S.C. This discussion featured our friends from the NC State Organic Grains program in addition to Jennifer Lapidus from Carolina Ground, L3C and a representative from Organic Valley Cooperative. We touched on the basics of grain farming in the Carolinas as well as some of the emerging markets for these products.
Wow! Hard to believe we’ve been malting for over a year at this point. Over the past 12 months we’ve encountered all of the typical “start up” problems, cost overruns, permitting headaches, inefficient supply chain issues, etc. all of which contributed to a roller coaster ride. Aaah, but now we’ve hit the sweet spot.
Now, you are probably asking yourself, what is the “sweet spot” for a malt house? Well, it has a lot to do with climate control.
Catawba Valley Brewing! Todd and his staff took our malt in a new direction last week by developing a German Gose recipe with 100% Riverbend products. This style dates back to the 1700’s and is a classic summer sipper for Germans. While somewhat similar to a Berliner Weisse this style commonly incorporates salt and coriander in the boil for an interesting finish.
Brewing this style takes patience….it begins with a sour mash that allows naturally occurring bacteria on the grain to rapidly multiple over a 24 hour period.
In order to handle the recent influx of orders, we’ve recently hired Craig Weitzel as assistant maltster. Some of you may already know this gentlemen as a member of the Bruisin Ales team here in Asheville. His interview and subsequent job offer stem from a casual conversation at the shop and within a few short days he was helping us rake the malt!
Craig hails from the west coast beer mecca of San Diego and has a fairly exhaustive knowledge of America’s craft beers and a true passion for the industry.
So this is pretty special…a few weeks before AVL Beer Week we got an email from Matt at New Belgium requesting a tour of our humble establishment during their stay. Naturally, we obliged. On paper, our two businesses are a great fit…both committed to sustainability and maintaining a high quality of life for their employees. We just weren’t expecting our meet and greet to occur so soon after their big announcement.
It worked out beautifully.