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I moved to Roanoke in 1992. Just before then, they shut down a brewpub in downtown Roanoke (Blue Muse, I think). In 1992 - 1993, there was another place set up all the equipment but never got the legal papers and they shut down before ever selling any of their beer. Since then, nada…
So, after all of these years, we finally have a brewpub in Roanoke!
Awful Arthur’s (Towers location) purchased the adjacent storefront and converted it into a brewery. (The awning to the right in this picture.)
The sign on the window sez:
As I understand it, yesterday (Monday, 6 October 2008) was the first tapping of their first beer, a Belgian wit. Here is my pint sitting on the bar with the brew kettle in the background:
Yes, that’s a frozen pint glass. We’ll have to work on that bad habit…
In the works are an American pale ale (APA), and Indian pale ale (IPA), an extra special bitter (ESB), some kind of lager (sorry - poor memory) and a few others. The APA should be on tap tomorrow. They need to dry hop the IPA, so that may be a bit longer…
The beers are currently being brewed by a consultant out of South Carolina. (He was familiar with this particular equipment in its previous life at a brewpub in Illinois and before that in UC Davis, California.) The brewer of the future is Sean. (I didn’t catch his last name.) He’s been a homebrewer for years, yet has never once made it to our homebrew club meetings! Shocking, I know!!
He wasn’t too sure about posing for my picture, but oh well…
Here is some of their equipment…
Brew kettle: Bitter wort manifold:
Brewery control panel: Hot liquor tank/mash tun
The fermenters are in the storefront of the expansion area (in other words you can see them from the sidewalk).
Here is one fermenter in the process of lagering. You can clearly see the glycol (coolant) path - the ice formed on the outside of the glycol jacket kinda gives it away…
I’m surprised that they don’t insulate the fermenters. Seems like a waste of energy. (Not terribly "green", huh?)
If I remember correctly, the fermenter to the right of the one shown above has the IPA. Either way, it is undergoing vigorous fermentation at the moment. This is the blowoff tube to allow excess foam and CO2 to escape without contaminating the batch by leaving it open to airborne baddies…
They have eight serving tanks in a walk-in cooler. Here are two of them:
I’m looking forward to actually having a "local". What I’m not sure is how I’ll fit this in with my efforts to try lots of different beers (see my "trophies") and to make (and drink) my own homebrew. All of that drinking runs counter to my efforts to keep from returning to my previous porcine state…
I like beer…
We were sad to have missed last night’s gathering. Can’t wait to try their beers and see how they do! You’re right though, they could stand to be more green. ;)
Comment by Carrie & Justin — 7 October 08 @ 2:00 pm
Looks like a nice setup. It looks like it blows away the old equipment and open fermentors they are using at Roanoke Railhouse……
Comment by Chuck — 7 October 08 @ 3:07 pm
Oh yeah, to Chuck’s comment, no comparison. The consultant’s name was Ben. Those are Grundy ™ serving tanks. Not what I would prefer; they are the bargain basement of their type. But these look like they are in pretty good shape. I’ve seen worse!
Comment by Patrick — 7 October 08 @ 6:18 pm