Reuben's news, information and appreciation thread

Speaking of Reuben's, is there any Gobsmacked bottles left anywhere? Heading up this afternoon and would love to snag a bottle if there are any around.

 

Bottleworks and maybe Brouwers. I don't think they were ever available at the brewery. BW had a good amount of cases when I picked up a bottle on Monday.

 

Gobsmacked and Crikey on tap at the brewery now (4/3). No bottles of Gobs at the brewery, though. This according to their facebook posting.

 

Just stopped in @ Bottleworks after breakfast, looking for a couple bottles of Gobsmacked. All gone. Guy said bottles sold out fast, but it'll be on tap soon (or already is) @ BW, Brouwer's, and Burgundian. Plus Reuben's of course.

 

alright i guess i'll go to reubens today.

 

If this means they will be distributed further east, I'm all for it.

 

And south.

 

So who gets to tell the new kid why he doesn't have a brewery named after him?

 

Referencing the Roots section here:

http://www.reubensbrews.com/about/

 

Just came here to post this. Congrats to Adam and Grace. Welcome to the world, Warren.

 

Thanks for the kind wishes guys. It's been kind of busy the past few days!

Our new space is getting really close. I think we should be brewing there before the end of April, the taproom opening in May. Hopefully it will make it in time for Seattle Beer Week, but it will be tight. When I can get visibility to an exact date I'll let everyone know.

We've been at capacity at our current space for too long. Almost exactly 2 years ago, in May 2013, I started trying to get a larger space. We viewed many spaces, and the ones that we offered on didn't come through for various reasons. We had 3 agreed deals in that time that fell through. It's been a long, hard search but we're almost there.

We'll have an oversized 15BBL in the new brewery - it will have a 20BBL mash tun and hot liquor tank with a 15BBL kettle. This will help us more easily brew higher gravity beers. We'll move the taproom to the new space - which will be able to open every day of the week. We're putting in 24 taps and a pretty cool growler filling system. We've focused on making the taproom space a comfortable, inviting space while still being open to the stainless that signifies a brewery. Outside, we'll be installing a deck. I think it should look really great when it's done.

Keeping the existing brewery is important as we can brew even more different styles - we didn't want to fall into the trap of brewing more beer of fewer styles. We'll be brewing pilot batches and taproom only batches on the 5BBL system, and beers for broader distribution on the 15BBL system.

It will take a few months to fill our board with the beers we want to get to, but examples of beers you can expect to see are Belgian styles such as our Belgian Pale Ale and Belgian IPA (both of which we haven't brewed in about a year), with new beers like a bier de garde and a Belgian Dark Strong in the works. Lagers will also be brewed more - expect to see our California Common back soon, a Marzen was brewed yesterday, and we're working on a few other lager recipes. One of my home-brew recipes I still haven't gotten to brewing commercially is a Baltic Porter, which I can't wait to get in a tank. I've already brewed three test batches of a Berliner Weisse, which will start off our sour program (and which I'm drinking as I write). We've also purchased a couple of puncheons (or mini-foeders) which we'll inoculate. And we've already ordered 30 bourbon barrels which should arrive in May as we expand our barrel program to brew more Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout and expand to other barrel aged brews (BA Breakfast Stout, BA Auld Heritage and others). So lots of fun beers coming.

As for distribution reach, we initially have to focus on getting beer close to home. We've been so, so constrained for the past couple of years we have quite a few customers already patiently waiting for our beer. We signed with Click at the start of this year so once we have beer coming online we should be more easily able to expand our reach - they have associated distributors throughout the northwest. And we're looking forward to it!

Cheers.

 

Awesome! I am so looking forward to it opening. With 24 taps, you can test a lot of interesting stuff on us poor ignorant fools .

 

hey @reubensbrews - loved the Tea Time IIPA I had at the brewery a couple weekends back...is that going to be something you produce more of or was that a one time brew?

 

Hey @cherche - glad you like the Tea Time IPA! That was Thor's creation, and a good one too. We'll have it back again for our Rye Fest in Seattle Beer Week, and then I'm sure we'll do the occasional batch. We're working on building a coffee / tea line of beers - Yirgacheffe Rye, Kenya Cream, Breakfast Stout, and we have some others in the mix. Coffee beers are fun to play with - and now tea too.

 

With this much of an expansion, will the tap room be open more than four days a week? Visiting this summer, and Mon, Tues and Wed might be the days I have available...

 

That sounds fantastic, keep up the good work. Hoping to see some Reuben's brews up in Bellingham!

Cheers!

 

Well maybe he should have put it in bold in the initial post!

J/K thanks.