Update: I had Chris at Oakshire fact check my article. I was taking down a lot of information on Saturday and was pretty sure I got something wrong. Looks like the only major corrections were the size of the various fermenters (fixed below) and the information about Hindsight ESB. The Bitter is definitely not returning as the spring seasonal, but may reappear at a later time.
Saturday afternoon I continued my Birthday weekend by visiting the Oakshire Brewery with my wife. First, I want to say that if you haven’t been out to Oakshire recently, you should make some time to do so. When I first visited last June, the entire brewing operation was stuffed into what is now the front room of the brewery. The back room, which held just a cooler on my initial visit, is now home to three 15bbl fermenters, four 30bbl fermenters, three 80bbl fermenters and an assortment of bright tanks. The rapidly expanding barrel aging program has been moved out of the brewery and to a storage building across the street.
The front room is now home to the tasting area, the 15bbl brewing system, a couple picnic tables and Jeff’s original homebrew system. Why picnic tables? Well, on Saturdays from 12-4pm, Devour Mobile Sandwiches sets up shop in the Oakshire parking lot. You can grab some grub from Devour and bring it inside to eat while sampling beer. While we were there, everyone was raving about Devour’s cauliflower soup, which contains sausage that is made with Oakshire’s Watershed IPA.
As for the tasting area, it has expanded like the rest of the brewery. Oakshire had seven brews on tap when we visited; Watershed IPA, Oakshire Amber, Overcast Espresso Stout, Ill-Tempered Gnome, Smokin’ Bagpipes, Frog’s Wort Pale (a beer brewed specially for Cornucopia) and 2 Wheeler IPA; the prototype for an upcoming certified organic Red Ale. During our visit, Jeff Althouse was busy milling around doing brewery things. At one point, he popped out of the back room with a pitcher of the brewery’s Red Nugget fresh hopped ale, giving us an eighth beer to sample. The brewery also has it’s on site sale permit now, so pints, growlers and bottles can all be purchased.
Most of our time at the brewery was spent with Jeff’s wife Eriel. She played hostess, tour guide and historian during our visit. She showed us the antique grinder that is used to process the coffee beans for Overcast and explained the 13+ hour drip-brewing process that is used to collect the 5 gallons of espresso that is added to each batch. She also talked about future brewery upgrades, including a grain silo that will allow the brewery to transition from ordering malts by the pallet to ordering them by the truckload.
Eriel was able to answer several questions I had about the brewery’s upcoming releases. One of the next beers to be released will be the Collaboration Ale they are making for the KLCC Brewfest in February; a Belgian Style Cascadian Dark Rye Ale (and a mouthful). Shortly after that, Hindsight ESB will be back as the ‘10 spring seasonal. The summer spot is still up in the air; possibly a return of Line Dry Rye, maybe something new. Spring and summer seasonals are still on the chalkboard. I was told that a Black IPA will also make it’s way to release in the near future. Oh, and there is the organic Red I mentioned earlier. Looks like a damn busy first half of the year.
The only disappointment of the afternoon was forgetting the camera at home. No biggie though, I’m sure I’ll be back soon. I got a growler filled with Smokin’ Bagpipes while we were there, so I’m sure I’ll be making a return trip in a week or two to get it refilled.
I want to say thanks to Jeff, Eriel and everyone else at Oakshire for helping contribute to a great Birthday. Keep up the great work guys.
Cheers!
Kevin