Carton Brewing (May/June 2018)

@kthoag sorry to be confusing man i was referring to this picture above your post and the words on it as if you were making a joke about the amount of words on the can and what those words say in the interest of a straight record. , maybe next time i'll add the for clarity.

 

what do we need to know?

 

from what I gathered: which brewhouse that the currently available beers were brewed at.

 

every can says

 

People were commenting that beers that were once brewed at your place but are now brewed at Two Roads taste different/not as good. Someone mentioned whether it was ramping up amounts or passing off the recipe or if it was just faulty perception that beers like IDIPA taste different now.

 

that is a dangerous discussion to enter for any brewer, people like to believe what they think in general but especially in interest specific forums, but hey i am me so i will try:
(this will be long and no where near all the thoughts)

you never know what a person tasting 2 batches of a beer ate both days, drank both days, if both were purchased within the same time frame from canning, transported straight home once vs during a day of sunny shopping the other and so on and so on.
in the long run it doesn't really matter, whether you had a "lupulin threshold shift" between first round and second a year later or not. what matters is your perception and if you have decided it is less interesting to you that's gotta be ok for me.

we made a little beer at carton to test recipes and see what people thought, so if you had the carton batches you had them close to brew date, close to brewery, and when they were not widely available.then we made tons at 2 roads to spread them far and wide and take some pressure off at carton, they did this number 1 priority perfectly.

taste is subjective and whether people like to acknowledge it or not you can never taste something for the first time again. so someone liking the "carton" better than the "2 road" is fine, but the math the qa qc and the tasting panels say that the beer i wanted to make at 2 roads is the beer in the cans coming out of 2 roads

at this point it helps if you know carton wasn't started to be a creator of whales, carton was started because my cousin and i couldn't get a sixtel of jersey beer to drink in our part of jersey (remember we were the 13th brewery in nj, now there are 90 or so) and to be true to that we strive to make both whatever excites us, as well as making the beers we wanna drink, everyday beers with the structure for drinking a sixtels worth, beers for after work on tuesday as much others for at a share. the conceit being that having lived our entire lives within 5 miles of our brewery (as well as our families all the way back to great-great-grandparents) that if it works for us it will work for enough of our community to support a small brewery that does weird and normal alike.

the beers we make at 2 roads are exactly the beers i want to produce at 2 roads understanding that their intention is to be "fridge beers" at 2 roads we can make exactly those, keep them cheap while letting us not displace our experimental nature in our own house or forget to make them because i had an idea.
2 roads is an amazing brewery some day i may make crazy stuff there too but this project was so that while i chase notions like "what if we use green coffee beans in place of 60 minute hop addition for bittering"
the 2 roads are beers that any guy that likes good beer but doesn't want to sweat getting to the brewery can grab at a store, any day after work and drink any other day after work. not all craft beer need force you to consider whether or not to spend 5 bucks on a can or if you need to buy the week it came out and drink the next and so on.
if they lack the luster of my other stuff then they are perfect, these are work horse beers for workhouse beer drinkers. good fresh shelf stable drinking beers made in big enough quantities to keep them from getting too special or expensive, but still move in a reasonable time frame. them not blowing your hair back means they are right.
now that we have more capacity in NJ we are brewing some variations on those beers in smaller scales because we can and it is fun and you will see those out there, and it will always say on the can what is what and where is where.
essentially for my community beers like reg coffee and sundae, swishr epitome gorp, mctw and so on are fun, exciting, and interesting and we are proud of that, but most of our neighbors want a better beer that moves through store shelves safely at a decent price that is reliably interesting more than exciting. all the feedback above suggests to me they nail it , and for that i thank each of you.

please ask for any clarity if i was confusing this was a lot of thoughts in a lot of directions

 

its cool instagram posts are blocked at work. I like reading about the ideas you have and how you turn them into a real beer.

 

One thing not in dispute is that Carton is cranking out a lot of different low ABV beers this summer. In fact, I’m enjoying a Sit Down Son on the beach in Rehoboth right now.

 

ok so the front of the can says:
lact-oat
india inspired
late hopped
imperial
pale ale
w/ pinapple chutney

then the side lists yeast, malts, hops, water, and adjuncts

 

6 on tap the other day below 5%. Soo nice in the hot weather.

 

This is super refreshing. It's tough to drink more than 2 oat and lactose filled 8.5% DIPAs outside during the summer. Not to say ending a night around a fire, splitting a cold 10% stout isn't also a good time.

 

dare i suggest one leaning toward a basil, cilantro, pineapple curry, dried out flavor profile inspired by the cuisine of some of the hottest weather on earth? see what i did there?