The Brewing Journey Continues…
Last year, a few of the engineers at Inertia decided to start brewing their own beer. As you might imagine, the concept of having our very own Inertia beer on site was pretty well received. There’s been some solid progress lately, so we thought it would be a good time for an IE+B update! If you want to learn how this brewing bonanza began check out our 1st post linked here.
The last time we checked in with the IE + B, they had recently released a sweet stout. Following the sweet stout, IE+B brewed a black IPA. Word on the street (ok…word around the office) was that this might have been their best beer to date.
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive. “This is probably the best example of a black IPA I have ever had, it’s really really good” said someone. “Sophisticated” said another person. “Of all the beers we tried tonight, I would say it was my favourite.” said someone else. “Let me know if you brew it again, I’d buy a few off you”, and “I had 2 of them last night and they were really good!. These were just a few comments bouncing around the office soon after the release.
In terms of their approach, IE+B realized that while the black IPA as a style has fallen somewhat out of popularity, it made for a great beer to enjoy in the late fall, as temperatures started to drop. With this particular beer, they aimed to minimize the roasted notes that are typically associated with dark beers, as these flavours would be at odds with some of the juicier hops that they were planning to use.
A Few Pics From Some Behind The Scenes Brewing Magic…
A Rich Dark Beer On A Cold Winters Day
As a follow up to the Black IPA, IE+B revisited the sweet stout, figuring that there’s nothing better than a rich dark beer on a cold winter day. The brewers had updates to the recipe planned, specifically to improve head-retention, as well as to do a bourbon-soaked vanilla bean variant of this beer. This batch was also the first beer to be brewed on the new brewing system at Inertia! With the increasing popularity of the beers, IE+B now has a 10 gallon system to better keep up with demand.
On brew day, a pair of vanilla beans were placed to soak in a small amount of bourbon, allowing the flavours to be pulled out of the vanilla while the yeast fermented away the sugars in the beer. Once the krausen had dropped, the jar of bourbon and vanilla beans got pitched in to allow the flavours to develop. Of course, having recently doubled capacity, only 1 of the 2 carboys received the vanilla addition, allowing this variant to be compared to the original side-by-side.’
Wait, that’s not all! The latest addition to the Inertia office is a KEGERATOR! (yes I’m yelling). Rather than having to go through the time-consuming process of bottling beer, IE+B is now available on draught. Now if only we knew somebody who could design us some tap handles ; )
