Batch 600

In case you missed our tappening last week, Batch 600 is now filling tulips at Franklin's. This copper colored ale is decked out with toasty malt, fruit and caramelized sugars. At 8.5% ABV it has some warmth to it and should age very well, so expect some bottles in the store soon and take one home to lay down.

Cheers,
Mike Roy

All is well

There's been a lot of worry and gossip about our situation at the brewery due to the power outage caused by the storm. As of this time there's no need for concern as we got through the 40+ hour outage without losing any beer.

That is all.

Cheers,
Mike

Power Outage

Just a heads up to everyone out there last night's storm has caused the restaurant to lose power. We'll be closed in the meantime until we can get electricity back on. Follow us on facebook/twitter as we'll be sure to update our re-opening as soon as we know.

In beer related news, look for an upcoming post on the latest batch 600 tasting notes.

Cheers,
Mike Roy

Brewery Update 6-23-12

Just a quick update on what's going on in the brewery as I'm filtering Blonde today- we've tapped our new double I.P.A., DJ IPA Kool, a 8.0% Rye Double I.P.A.. It's got a big malt body along with spicy rye notes from 33% usage in the grist and dry hopped with Sorachi Ace hops. We'll also be tapping our Hefeweizen within the next few days so look for this summer thirst quencher soon.
Cheers,
Mike Roy

Batch 600, brewed and put to bed

Well its done, another landmark, batch 600 is brewed and in the fermenter, now we wait. The grist hopper smelled great as it was topped with smoked cherry wood smoked malt, very reminiscent of slow smoked barbeque. We mashed this in and more great malt aromas came forth from a grist bill including Maris Otter,Biscuit,Crystal and Cherry wood smoked malt.

Hopped with a blend of Cascade,Columbus and Liberty hops to provide some balancing bitterness, but let's not be mistaken this is intended to me a malt forward beer. In addition we added two interesting sugar sources, the first a dark Belgian candi syrup and the second maple syrup from Littleton, NH.

Lastly this was the last batch of beer that intern Mike Matis helped brew as he's moving to FL and on to bigger and better things. Many thanks to Mike for his time and help in the brewery over the last few months.

Updates to follow on batch 600 including tasting notes, I know,but someone has to do it.

599 batches of beer in the tanks

While every batch of beer brewed here at Franklin's is a milestone in it own way,this summer's batch of Hefeweizen had the honor of being batch 599. That's right, we're one away from 600, a slightly more auspicious milestone than 597 or 598 and especially 599. But wait, 599, our recent batch of Hefeweizen had something going for it on its own, well if you're into numerology. It was brewed on June 6 and used 666.6 pounds of malt, that's 6-6 for the date and another four "6s" for the malt. Does this mean its going to be a devilishly good beer? Perhaps, but I hope it will have nothing to do with these silly little coincidences. I've never been superstitious when it comes to numbers of that nature, but I thought it was interesting enough to share.

More importantly its time to tease the upcoming batch 600, which will be brewed next week. Here's a short list of a few of the interesting ingredients going into it.

Cherry wood Smoked Malt

Dark Candi Syrup

Maple Syrup


Pondering on those for  a while and I will check back in again next week.

Cheers,
Mike Roy

What a weekend.

Franklin's was at Beer Advocate's 2012 American Craft Beer Fest this past weekend pouring beer and pimping out rubber chickens. For those of you who didn't make the trek it was a stellar lineup of breweries and beers for the East Coast's best beer festival. Many thanks to James Moriarty, Head Brewer at the up and coming Henniker Brewing Company for his help at our booth along with David Rosenbaum and Mike Hogan of Brew Free or Die.

Cheers,
Mike Roy

Memorial Day Weekend Update

     Now that graduation is behind us its time to start looking towards the upcoming season of summer beers. Specifically wheat beers as we'll be tapping our Belgian-style wit beer Witty Twitty today, brewing Hefeweizen in the next week or so and tapping our 2012 edition of 97 Pound Weakling, a 10+ % ABV wheat wine for those out there that enjoy a wheat beer with some chew.
     Look for some new bottle releases in the store soon as we'll have some Petite Fleur and Mic Czech available for take home. Have a great and safe holiday weekend.
Cheers,
Mike Roy 

This week in the brewery

As we're gearing up for graduation weekend we have some exciting things going on in the brewery. On Tuesday we brewed a new stout recipe, Antilles, a tropical stout ( high gravity sweet stout). We loaded over 1000 pounds of malt into the mash tun starting with Maris Otter, then loading it with two varieties of caramel malt,oats,flaked wheat and a special addition of an undisclosed specialty malt.It should come in over 7% with a nice roasted barley character, fruity yeast esters and malt sweetness.

We tapped some reserve kegs of Blasphemous,our 8.1 % sour brown ale, so get this while it lasts.

Lastly a little update for some customers who have asked about bottles, we still have a handful of Anacostia Ale and 10th Anniversary Ale bottles left in the General Store, so first come first serve.


Cheers,
Mike

Why Rye, why?

This week presented itself with a number of obstacles and challenges. Beyond a few mechanical issues that we overcame the biggest issue came on Tuesday trying to brew a new double I.P.A. with 33% Rye malt. Yeah, that's not a typo, its just the insanity that brewers sometimes take on when trying to push the boundaries of their brew houses. For those of you who don't know Rye lacks a husk, which makes this grain very difficult (read" gummy and slow) to work with. Normally our beers take about 1-2 hours to lauter (transfer wort from mash tun to kettle) but this particular brew topped out at 4 hours and 47 minutes. No worries however since the only thing damaged in this experiment was my patience at times, the beer itself hopped with Chinook,Columbus and Sorachi Ace is safely fermenting away.

Look for this new this I.P.A. in early June, and I have no doubt it will go down quicker for those who drink it then how it acted in the brew house.

Cheers,
Mike

Hooray new beers!

If the release of our new restaurant menu this week isn't exciting enough we're also tapping three new beers- Petite Fleur & Rubber Chicken's Revenge (currently on tap) and this weekend Mic Czech. A bit of background on these beers:

Petite Fleur is a Belgian ale brewed with flowers and checks in at 5% ABV. Brewed from the second runnings of our 97 Pound Weakling and flavored with Chamomile,Heather and Elderberry flowers as well as Rose hips. Its deep golden in color with a sweet fragrant aroma of Chamomile, light bodied with herbal and floral bitterness that finishes dry.

Rubber Chicken's Revenge is a take on the double red ale (8.1% ABV), or as some see it an amber colored I.P.A.. Starting with the same grist ratio as we make the Rubber Chicken Red with, the malt was increased and its hopped like many of our double India pale ales including being dry hopped twice. It comes at you with an aroma of fresh hops,citrus,tang,dank. The first sip will release an upfront assertive bitterness, packing a large dose of malt and an even larger dose of American citrus hops. It finishes with a feeling of be clobbered by hops and you will feel like you will need to scrape them off your teeth.

Mic Czech is the second go around of our take on the Bohemian Pilsner or Pilsener if you prefer. Made with practically all pilsner malt and a touch of light carapils malt keeps it light golden in color and medium bodied. Going the traditional route its hopped with 100% Czech Saaz giving it a herbal and spicy character. Fermented at cool temperatures and lagered at near freezing temperatures, its been a 7 week process from grain to glass. At 5.8% ABV its on the higher end of the spectrum for the style, but drinks as if it were much lower.

April Showers...

As the saying goes April showers bring May flowers,you can expect something of the sort next week at Franklin's. We'll be tapping our Petite Fleur, Belgian-style ale brewed with a blend of botanical flowers including Chamomile,Heather,Rose Hips and Elderberry flowers. ,Its crisp and dry with some floral/herbal bitterness provided by the flowers. At just 5% it makes for a nice session ale for the upcoming warmer months. Have a great weekend.

Cheers,
Mike

Brewery Update 4-19-12

Monday's Anacostia Watershed Society fundraiser was anice turnout and folks supported it by drinking 50% of our weekly Anacostia Ale sales in one night. Thanks to everyone who came out.

It was another fun week in the brewery as we transferred Blasphemous into wood barrels, one was spiked with Brettanomyces bruxellensis, the other with a Belgian sour blend and about 80 pounds of raspberry puree. I'll update in 3-6 months and let you know how they're doing.


On Wednesday another batch of Blonde was put in the tanks, as the heat rises so does the consumption of our Bombshell.

One last reminder,if you're interested in naming an upcoming Franklin's beer, a stout aged in Heaven Hill whiskey barrels and blended with French roast coffee then submit your beer name on our Facebook page or email me directly.

Cheers,
Mike

Name a Franklin's beer

Want to name an upcoming Franklin's beer? We'll be releasing a Bourbon-Coffee Stout and you get to name it. Submit your beer name here by commenting on this thread (or on our Facebook page), we'll take the best names and vote a winner. The winner will get a Franklin's prize pack.

Brewery Update 4-12-12

In the brewery this week, we're tapping Tripel Bliss today (Thursday April 12), expect this 9% ABV beer to be on tap for the next 4-5 weeks (let's hope).

We're transferring Petite Fleur today from the lager tank to its serving tank. The sooner we deplete our Dubbel inventory it will tap. Hopefully that looks like the next couple of weeks.

Yesterday intern Mike Matis and I brewed another batch of Private I.P.A. and dry hopped the upcoming Rubber Chicken's Revenge with Columbus and Simcoe. It will be dry hopped again shortly and will tap when we kick our Belgeastie Boys.

We'll also be working on our Bourbon-Coffee-Vanilla stout project shortly as we'll move it from the Heaven Hill whiskey barrels into the lagering tank for blending.

That is all.

Cheers,
Mike Roy

Rubber Chicken's Revenge

This past Monday we fired up the brewing system to make a bit of Franklin's history,to brew the first Franklin's beer with a direct ancestory from another Franklin's beer. Rubber Chicken Red is one of our staple year around offerings, a easy drinking red ale with a nice malty body with notes of caramel and toasted malt, but until now its been childless. Well its now expecting, in a few weeks it will be the proud parent of a new offering, Rubber Chicken's Revenge. A double red ale, its grist bill is a scaled up version of Rubber Chicken Red but yielding a ABV over 8% and its hopped with excessive amounts of Warrior, Columbus and Simcoe. Expect this child of a beer to proudly come into the world.

Update to follow soon.

Anacostia Ale

The river that spawned a beer, not the first time in history a waterway has influenced brewing. Historically breweries (as many industries) located themselves along rivers to have easy accessibility to water for their day to day uses. Obviously today with water and waste systems in many municipalities its easier to locate a brewery away from your natural resources. That doesn't mean that these natural resources are any less important and we recognize that. Here locally in the D.C. Metro we're very thankful to organizations like the Anacostia Watershed Society.

In the spirit of these efforts we here at Franklin's decided to partner up with AWS and spread the word, by brewing Anacostia Ale in hopes of bringing more attention to protecting and restoring our natural resources is an important issue.

Anacostia Ale is an amber colored ale that starts out with an assertive upfront bitterness that leads into a toasty malt body with a crisp dryness. Very sessionable at just over 5% ABV this ale is brewed with a large percentage of German Munich malts and hopped with Vanguard. Re-pitching yeast from our 10th Anniversary Ale and fermenting cool to help keep this beer clean and minimize fruity esters.

Drink the beer, save the river...or better yet get involved, learn how through the link above.

10th Anniversary Ale

Wow, ten years! Even though I've only been here the last two years of Franklin's first decade in the brewing industry, I'm extremely happy to be a part of this celebration. Ten years is a great feat for any business and obviously it would have never happened if it wasn't for the loyal friends of Franklin's who grace our front doors on a regular basis. Many people were surprised when I announced that our 10th Anniversary Ale was not some exotic alcohol bomb of a beer. A pale ale may not seem exciting to some, but I felt it was the perfect way to acknowledge what Franklin's is and what we represent. Our roots began with a general store and then snowballed into a brew pub, something that no one could have predicted would happen twenty years ago, let alone become a success and undoubtedly a keystone of the Hyattsville community. Pale ales are meant to be solid easier drinking ales for a wide variety of palates and I feel that sums who many of our supporters are. The difference with this pale ale is that we made it unique, just like a brew pub with a general store attached. This is not an American nor an English pale ale, its a true hybrid, just like we are.

The grist bill started with Weyermann Pilsner and Munich malts,honey malt and biscuit malt. Combining German Tettnang and American Cascade at a equal ration and making hop additions at 90,30 and 0 minutes to provide about 25 IBUs in a 5.3% ABV beer. We used a unique blend of two ale yeasts including a European strain that mellowed the beer out by minimizing the amount of fruity esters, leaving behind a clean beer. After fermentation we dry hopped it with Tettnang and Cascade to complete the circle. Left unfiltered of course despite a lowly flocculant yeast left this beer with a haze from the first to last glass of this batch. The aroma was a combination of earthy spiciness and piney citrus. Medium bodied with touches of bread, sweet malt and balanced by a firm hop bitterness and medium dry finish made this beer an extremely session-able pale ale. Here's to everyone who helped get us here and to another ten years of success.

The Brewery Blog Challenge

Let's face it, I've had trouble keeping up with this blog for the last few months and frankly its unacceptable. So I have come up with a way to help me avoid procrastination and stay on top of things, a consequence. I'm issuing a blog challenge to anyone who calls me out publicly if I fail to post anything for more than seven days. The first person to post a comment on my last blog entry calling me out for not posting wins a $50 gift certificate to Franklin's.


Cheers,
Mike