An Ode to Foam

Beer foam has always been a bit of a mystery to us. In fact it was one of the major attributes drawing the ancients to fall in love with this flavorful beverage and has been prized ever since. Foam can tell you many things about the beverage you are about to drink. It can tell you if your glass is clean while enhancing the flavor and aroma of your beer but the truth about is we really don't know much about where it comes from or how it is formed.

Small nucleation sites of foam can form where microscopic rough patches created by dirt and scratches and can help determine a poor glass cleanin regimen by the pubster. However, sometimes these nucleation sites are created on purpose to form the perfect foam or "head" at the top of your suds. Many breweries place their logo lazer etched into the bottom of their glassware to create these bublle factories.

With extra hop forward beers foam has an especially dramatic effect on the beer. No only does the additional hops play an important roller help head and head retention attributes, hop bittering compounds preferentially migrate to the head of your beer. As a result of these electrical and chemical compounds the head is usually quite a bit more bitter than the beer itself.

So how much is enough?  Industry standard is about an inch of foam on top of be beer. The British tend to disagree and to maximize the amount of beer in their glass Brits ask for flat beer all the way to the rim of the glass. Different beers call for different amounts foam. As a result to the Briton's habits English ales have less carbonation and demand less foam. Belgian beers with their high carbonation have much more foam and German ales tend to vary based on the style of beer.

The proper poor to get the right amount of head. In order to get the proper head from your beer one must like with the proper technique. To do this, pour the beer directly down the middle of the glass into a straight-up glass. Looting the beer down the side of the glass is an insult to you and the brewmaster. This will result in an over gassy brew with little aroma and a disgraceful head that quickly disappears. A wild pour is necessary to creat that creamy head that will last until the last drop lacing the glass and the beer empties out. It is also helpful to bottled beer to release excess carbonation that can cover up hop aoma and fills you up quickly not allowing you to drink more. So pour and let the beer settle properly before adding the next bit. This may take awhile but will give you an experience that is well worth the wait. There are pubs in Europe that this ritual may take up to 15 minutes and if the beer shows up to soon the patron could get weary about what might be wrong with their drink.

So next to drink pour your beer remember... pour responsibly and don't fear the foam.

Just a little update on the times

One thing I never realized when starting this adventure was how I needed to be an expert in everything. When I first sought out to start the brewery I learned everything I could about beer. Makes sense doesn't it. I started brewing more reason more books and of course drinking more beer. What I didn't realize however was all the future questions I needed to answer. What is voltage of that? What is flow rate of your water source? What type of refrigerant are you using? I have been forced to become a jack of all trades but a master of none (except of course for beer). It's been great and exciting. And I am fortunate to learn all these things because in the future when something breaks and it will I should have no excuse but to know how to use it. This is just a bit of a warning for all of you who decide to go out on an adventure don't just think about the task at hand but all of the additional factors that go into accomplishing that task. I guess this is just a bit of life lesson for all us on anything we set out to do. Anyway now for the update:

The building part of everything is going by rather quickly and should be done within the next month or so and we are starting the outside work in about 2 weeks and should be done shortly thereafter. My equipment is set to be installed next week and should have our first water run done in about 3 weeks! My permits are hopefully right around the corner and I can almost smell the sweet wort being boiled in my new brewhouse. Nonetheless I there are still plenty of unknowns making it too hard to predict when we will be pouring that first cold one but I should know more when we get the permitting out of the way. For now hang tight and keep on checking on us. Cheers. Have a good weekend y'all.

The begining...Kind of

So, I decided to start a micro brewery about 2 years ago.  Created this blog to tell my story about 2 years ago.  This is my first post.  Let me catch you up on all the exciting details.

I have been brewing beer since I was 16 years old when I purchased a homebrew kit for my father for Christmas one year.  He didn't know it at the time but the present was really for me.  I have been brewing beer ever since he has been drinking my beer ever since.  As it turns out beer making is more cleaning dishes than it is actual beer making.  Something my father was never fond of and something I put up with so I can make my own beer.  I took a bit of a hiatus during my college years but here is where I developed my palate.  After college I worked construction for a number of years and hated almost every minute of it but began to brew again and again and again.  I say almost every minute of it because sometimes I was allowed to sneak off and go surfing during the middle of the day oh yeah I am a big surfer and avid outdoorsmen.  Not happy about where I was going with life I decided that my only option was to start a microbrewery.  During all of this I married the love of my life two beautiful boys and moved to my favorite place on earth Santa Barbara Califonia.  Hence why this is my first post.

Once I decided to start the micro brewery I put together a business plan and offering memorandum and sent it out to everyone I knew who had two pennies to rub together and after about 6 months received all the money I needed to start.  Dragged my brother and cousin down with me and began looking for a place to call our brewery in Santa Barbara California. I grew up coming up to Santa Barbara every chance I got.  I have two cousins that lived up here which were more like my brothers and we always wanted to surf and hang out together.  Since you can't surf in Pasadena we resulted to going north which was more than fine for me.  Falling in love with Santa Barbara is not hard to do as most of you you have been here know and with its rich history and wine/food centric atmosphere it seemed like the best place to raise a family and start a microbrewery.

I have always like BEER.  I am not talking about flavored beer or beer infused with kumquats or beer that is particularly "wine-ish" I am talking about BEER.  I like to drink heavy full flavored beers and that is where I name derives from.  Pure Order Brewing Company gets its name from the ancient German Rienhietsgebot which literally translation is "Purity Order."  Along with other restriction on the production of beer the Rienheitsgebot limits the ingredients of your beer to Hops, Malt, Yeast, and Water.  This is how we will provide the world with BEER.  Our beer will be made with the finest ingredients and to these standards of the Rienietsgebot.  The goal is to build our recipes with the ancient tradition but modern day tastes.

Now back to the timeline.  After I received all the funds I started looking for a building.  Completely overestimating the industrial real estate market in Santa Barbara we finally found a place a year and a half later.  However the place we found is perfect.  It is a bit on the small side but has a couple empty lots next to it where we will have a tasting garden as well as our very own hop yard for seasonal brews.

This takes us into the present day.  We are currently in full construction mode making some modifications to the building to better suit our needs.  All the equipment has been ordered and should arrive early next month.  We are currently waiting for both our TTB application to come through and our ABC application.  We could get our TTB application any day now and our ABC in a month or so.  Things are looking a lot better these days then when we were looking for places we are moving forward and making progress every day.

I hope you have enjoyed the first post I am sorry I haven't been able to give the full story and you are stuck with this Reader's digest version but I promise I will be better from here on out.  Especially now that there is more to talk about rather than the boring real estate side of things.  Thanks for reading.  Stay in touch.

If you have any question or would like more information please contact me @ info@pureorderbrewing.com

Cheers!