Booth: Enegren Brewing Co.

Really looking forward to trying this one. I love a good schwarzbier!

 

Chris,

First off, I love you and your brewery's attitude - brew what you want to drink and avoid the "silly trends".

So, a couple of questions:

1) When you told your (former, I'm assuming) distributor to go fornicate themselves when told to "knockoff it off with the German lagers', how did you maintain your sales and/or expand your marketing?

2) Where can I get some of those snazzy overalls (and are the pens included?)...???

 

Can you get into the chocolate wheat vs chocolate malt decision, or what is advantageous about using the wheat?

 

Excellent lager, do you export to Colorado.

 

In your video you talked about the importance of brewhouse design.
What differentiates a lager brewhouse design compared to those mostly brewing ales?

 

Stylistically, what are the differences between Schwartzbier and Euro Dark Lager? Or Dunkels?

 

Why call this a black lager and not a schwartzbier?

 

Is this smoked or does the type of malt used give this beer the smokey flavors?

 

Can we get Edgar and Energren back east for the next in person Beer Advocate fest in Boston?

 

How much you bench?

 

Time to glass has always been a hurdle for emerging breweries focusing on traditional lagers. How long do you typically lager your beers?

 

Chris & John - I'm sorry I missed your Zehn Fest this weekend. When is Enegren's Oktoberfest and what do you have planned for the fest?

 

Do you guys barrel age any of your beers? If so what barrels and styles?

 

I'll take this one for Chris.
So it's actually kind the same distributor, though that company was just last year bought out by another, so same crew, new name. Basically, that was it. We said that wasn't going to happen, and they were disappointed and possibly thought we wouldn't be around much longer, but then that GM of the company was fired and they brought in another then downsized their portfolio (which we tried to be part of those breweries being let loose) the new GM knew we had great beer regardless of what we did and basically threw a ton of faith our way. Then we became one of their best accounts. It's actually a really great retribution story in our relationship with that distributor. Kinda almost a bad news bears, mighty ducks kinda thing.

Overalls- carhartt.com

 

Not yet

 

Chris would have to get much deeper into this, but the main differences are our ability to step mash and decoction mash. We can change temperatures immediately when mashing in that helps to extract more flavor from a simple grain bill. And decoction, as he said on the video, does this even more.

 

A Euro Dark Lager can really be anything. Czech Dark Lagers and Schwarzbiers are very similar. However a Dunkel and a Schwarzbier are very different. A Dunkel flavor profile should have a lot of maltiness with maybe a bit of sweetness, more of a Dark ruby color where a schwarzbier is more about that roasty, Dark chocolate/coffee flavor. Usually dryer than a Dunkel also. And BLACK.

 

When rebranding and marketing we have to choose what is going to get the public to understand the beers more. If we say "Black Lager" the lay person who knows they like Dark beers are more likely to pick this up. Writing Schwarzbier really only grabs the very in tune craft crowd. Whis was a decision we made 5 years ago, but now I think it's time to switch it to Schwarzbier.

 

Not smoked. You can just get a bit of smokiness from the malts used.

 

Hahahaha. I can probably only get up roughly 325 now a days. These old joints are rustin up!

 

The least amount of time from mash to glass is 45 days. That's typically 4-6 weeks lagering. Though we do lager some others 7/8 weeks.

 

September 25th! And 26th but Sunday will be smaller. 2 amazing German Zeitgeist bands plus a 7 piece brass band, ferris wheel, petting zoo, local vendors. German food, stein hoisting, Hammerzeit, BEER! Lots of freaking beer!

 

Sounds fantastic. Making hotel reservations tonight! Thanks for the reply. Prost!