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