Tag Archive for: homebrew

homebrew kits

Introducing Riverbend homebrew kits! We’ve developed an American-style rye pale ale recipe kit that showcases the range of our hand-made, floor-malted, artisan malts. The grain bill is a combination of our Pale and Heritage regionally grown barley malts, combined with a pound and a half of our Carolina Rye malt (the same stuff that went into the New Belgium Hop Kitchen RyePA) and a couple ounces of our specially-roasted chocolate malt. We’ve selected some popular American hop varieties (Bravo, Amarillo, and Cascade) to go in the kit, as well as a pack of Safale US-05, the well-known “Chico” strain of American ale yeast.

This fall, we’ll be launching a web store to sell this kit, and plan to release a series of all-grain homebrew kits over the coming year. Before we launch the web store, however, we’d like to offer our core fan base the first opportunity to pick up a kit.

The kit retails for $44.95 plus tax. The kit will come pre-crushed for your convenience. Please contact homebrew@riverbendmalt.com to place your order. Local homebrewers can arrange to pickup their kit at our production facility. Otherwise, we will set up shipping for out-of-towners.

As a bonus, we’ll offer everyone who places an order by Oct. 31st a coupon for 10% off their next homebrew kit purchase through the Riverbend web store!

We hope everyone is as excited as we are to see Riverbend malt in the hands of homebrewers!

Once we built up some inventory in the malt house, we turned our attention to developing all grain homebrew kits for the holidays!

homebrew kit

Our first batch of homebrew kits!

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.

ROLLING STONE HEFEWEIZEN

This kit features our Appalachian Red Wheat Malt.  This malt utilizes an heirloom variety of wheat dubbed “Turkey Red”, which has been grown in the South for hundreds of years!  The grain bill is topped off with our experimental Pilsner malt and a bit Heritage Malt to create a light bodied beer with complex malt character.  Subtle bitterness is provided by 2 additions of Hallertauer hops.

HOMEBREW KIT CONTENTS (5 GALLON BATCH SIZE)

All of the grain (with the exception of the Chocolate Malt) is malted by hand and uses North Carolina grown, organic barley and wheat.  All of the malt and hops included in our kits are shipped in nitrogen-purged, vaccum-sealed bags to maintain optimal freshness and flavor.  All of the grain has been milled to our specifications.  Each kit also includes a dry yeast packet (Danstar Munich Wheat or Safale 05), so you have everything you need to brew!

Vaccum sealing the freshly milled malt.

COST

$39.95 (plus NC Sales Tax, shipping, and handling costs)

PAYMENT METHODS

Cash, Check, or Credit Card

PLACE AN ORDER:

brent@riverbendmalt.com

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.  In short, the market potential is tremendous as NC/SC are net importers of grain from around the globe!

After the conference, I met a buddy for lunch at The Trappe Door, just down the street from the conference site.  This place was an incredible find!  Great belgian beer selection featuring  the appropriate glassware…always a plus for me!  The food was also well done, although I’ll stick ketchup for my fries (although the array of flavored mayonnaises were interesting).  Be sure to check these guys out the next time you are in town.

My third, and final stop was Grape and Grains for a “Meet the Maltster” event.  The owners, Ken and his wife Jennelle, operate SC’s only licensed brewery/winery/homebrew shop and are big fans of our malt.  I brought in one of my favorite recipes for the event, a beer I call “Bottomland Brown”, which features our Carolina Rye, Heritage Malt, and sorghum molasses.

Soon after my arrival, the place filled up with interested homebrewers, aspiring professionals (Will and Meredith from Brewery85 and Don from Quest Brewing), and some yeast researchers from Clemson University.  Plenty of beers were offered up for tasting and comment..some pretty incredible stuff all around!  Here is a partial list…

Ginger Cream Ale, Dr. Pepper Stout, Belgian Dark Strong, Belgian Golden Strong, Imperial ESB, Oak Aged Barleywine, local hard cider, and a wild yeast IPA.

busy Sunday

A vial of yeast slurry harvested from a local nectarine.

The yeast for that IPA was harvested from a nectarine grove (?) in SC and gave the beer a really interesting tart cherry flavor.  Not brett driven or bacteria driven, but very approachable.  So much so that we decided to use the same strain to ferment 5 gallons of our Bottomland Brown.  We used a standard Northwest Ale yeast strain for the other 5 gallons.  This should make for an exciting East Coast vs. West Coast comparison in a few weeks!

Many thanks to Ken and Jennelle for hosting me for the afternoon.  Stay tuned for details on the release date for Bottomland Brown.

Wow!! what a warm welcome from the Asheville beer scene. We entered our “Appalachian Pale Ale” in this year’s Just Brew It! Homebrew Event, sponsored by Just Economics. It garnered rave reviews from the judges and attendees. This beer was produced using 85% locally grown and malted barley and hops, provided by Echoview Farms. In keeping with the warmer weather, our APA was designed as an “All Day IPA” with a floral, slightly citrusy hop aroma and flavor without sacrificing mouthfeel or body.

Big NewsIn preparing for this event, we had humble expectations based on the strong homebrewing culture in Western North Carolina. Given the strong field of entries, we were honored to be one of only 5 entries to be brewed commercially!! We were selected by Green Man Brewing Company for a full production run that we hope will happen in early Fall 2011. We also received an “Honorable Mention” from Highland Brewing Company and look forward to working with them on a brew in their new pilot-scale system.

Overall, this event was a strong vote of confidence for Riverbend Malt House and our quest to make a truly local beer. Stay tuned for more big news on the Green Man release!