Metro DC Brewery Discussion Thread

I've heard it's one of two places, with Beltway being the primary one

 

Flagship Brewing in Staten Island is the other one. It's impressive that they can develop their recipes in their kitchen, and figure out how to do it on the massive system that Beltway has. They obviously have a system down.

 

Scaling up is never something easy or to be taken for granted. You get different efficiency, yeast performs differently in different sizes and shapes of fermenters, etc.

I'd always rather have the original brewers be doing the tweaking than dictating it to others

 

Which is the problem with Beltway, I believe. They don't let you be involved in the brew at all. They do it 100%. I find it all really exciting for Aslin. Brewers have a dream of owning their own place and brewing stuff that people love. They are a nano brewery and I am sure they have far exceeded even their most wild projections.

 

Got these hop contracts mannnnnnn

 

According to the owners, Grimm does all their own brewing, they dont contract brew at beltway

 

This is true, but Grimm is still very hands-on during their brewing process, as detailed in this thread: Grimm in California?. Obviously not the same as having your own place (which hopefully they will soon!), but it's not like they are just handing over a recipe without any other oversight.

 

They're doing a damb good job at it, too. Had 6 various IPAs of their recently and they were all killer.

 

Bottles - sours and stouts - go all over in limited amounts via Shelton Brothers. IPA cans are NY only.

 

The stars must have aligned: I did not have to wait in a line or come early to grab a growler fill of Aslin's release today.

INB4 Small Town climbs to BA Top250.

 

Aslin vs Trillium vs Treehouse:

I've had all three and I think Aslin is a much different beast than Tril/TH. Aslin's beers seem to have much more wheat/oats/etc and are generally thicker.. MoK is almost like a hop forward pale stout or something... very deserving of the milkshake label. Trillium's beers are lighter and tend to use wheat and not a lot of oats, if any. They use caramel malts more in the 20L range, whereas Treehouse is more 60ish and tend to have slightly more malty beers and thicker beers with very tightly dialed in hop combos that deliver the juice bomb taste. IMHO.

 

A different beast as a good thing?

I agree with your assessment. All are excellent IPAs imo

 

So I had Green, Julius, Alter Ego, Haze, Double Orange Starfish, Astro Zombie & State Street. I thought the Green was the best out of all of them, but honestly, Double Orange Starfish was 2nd best and the best thing that Aslin has made IMO. It was phenomenal. Would like to try more Trillium, but State Street was damn juicy and very drinkable. Job well done Aslin, because they can definitely hold their own against Tree House & Trillium.

 

Yeah, definitely. I like that it's not just a straight up clone of other NEIPAs. As long as it tastes like I just stuck my face into a hop bag I'm usually a big fan.

 

Green is so amazing! I don't know why Julius gets all the love honestly. Awesome to hear Double Starfish was that good. Sad to have missed it. As for Trillium, I don't find their beers as similar to Aslin's as I do Tree House's. Less haze, more bitterness, etc. Still awesome though.

 

Some of Trillium's double dry hopped beers remind me of Aslin, though they tend to have more bitterness and a less smooth mouthfeel, almost gritty even.

 

As always, @jacewg has got it. Just having consumers ready to buy more of your product doesn't mean you're ready to expand. Having more fermenters doesn't automatically help either. What are the odds they have the hop contracts in place to scale up production/expand? Given the hop market right now, that's unlikely.

Also, making more of a particular beer in a larger tank, or cranking our more beers in many tanks with the same number of hours in a day is extremely difficult to do. Look at vaunted Trillium's expansion. Many may not want to hear this, but the quality of a number of their staple beers dropped significantly when they tried to scale up on their Canton system. They have since rebounded, but it took them time.

I wish Aslin all the best and I'll try to score some of their stuff when I can, but if they go too big too soon then the quality will suffer and many of you reading this will bail on them the second that happens and move onto the next hot thing. They need to tread lightly.

 

What is with all the concern trolling about Aslin expansion? Nobody is suggesting they expand immediately to a 30,000bbl brewhouse. We're just talking about small, natural expansion here. Their capacity right now is minuscule, and like most new breweries I'm sure they hoped that they would be successful and could use that success to expand. I don't think that's unreasonable at all, and as long as Aslin manages it properly and stays within the limits of what they're comfortable with, they should be fine. And since they've already ordered additional tanks for August, supposedly, I'm guessing they've determined that expanding is the right move.

 

Some of this topic is clearly brand management. Maybe they will expand a bit as they've said, but it's not the craziest thing in the world if someone with an outstanding product decides they would like to keep things small and toned down.