Entries by Brent Manning

BUSY SUNDAY IN THE UPSTATE

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.  

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CIRCLE ‘ROUND THE SUN…

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.  

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WHO GOSE THERE?

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.  

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THERE’S A NEW MALTSTER IN TOWN…

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.  

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NEW BELGIUM VISITS RIVERBEND!

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.  

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GETTING OUR DUCTS IN A ROW…

Over the past few weeks we’ve been hard at work making some much needed improvements at the malt house. The main focus (as always) has been the kiln. This little room has caused many a sleepless night for us, as there is no “textbook” method of designing, building, and operating these things at our scale. Our first design/build worked well, but didn’t give us the capacity we need to meet demand (or turn a profit!).

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BEER RELEASE UPDATE – MARCH 2012

As any musician will tell you, there is a sweet spot where you are “in the pocket” and things just start to click……I think we are getting there!  We’ve been actively producing malt just about everyday this year and the orders are starting to pile up.  We’ve also got several great beers heading out to the market with our malt in them.  Check it out…

Pisgah Brewing Company (Black Mountain) – Riverbend Brown available in growlers,

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WARREN WILSON TOUR

Last week we gave a tour to a group of students from Warren Wilson College.  The students were part of an ethnobotany class taught by Jay Bost.  This was a new audience for us, but it gave us a great opportunity to focus on some of the sustainability aspects of our work that are often omitted during a typical tour.  We started with a brief overview of the commodity markets that control the price of grain and transitioned into the “day in the life” of a maltster routine that Brian and I have been perfecting over the past several months.  

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MALT RAKE 2.0 – GETTING MEDIEVAL!

As with most things in life, everyday brings a new set of challenges in the malt house.  One of the major issues we’ve been dealing with is grain raking.  Specifically, how to accomplish this task without breaking our backs.  As the batch sizes got bigger over the first few months, we quickly realized that our first malt rake had a tendency to float to the top of the bed after just a few feet of travel leaving the germinating barley relatively undisturbed.  

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ROAD TRIP: ORGANIC COMMODITY CONFERENCE

A few weeks ago, I headed down to the Organic Commodity Conference held in Rocky Mount, NC, that was arranged by our friends at the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA).  This event offers a chance for farmers, scientists, policy makers, and end users to get to know one another.  It also provides a great opportunity for someone with little to no farming background (like myself) to really get a feel for the market pitfalls,

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