From Vol. 3, No. 6, November 2019
For Josh Chapman at Black Narrows Brewing in Chincoteague Island, Virginia, research that suggested hops employed first for dry hopping could be used again was a “light bulb moment.” Black Narrows has a five-barrel brewing system, and he is constantly aware of how much more proportionally he spends on hops because he buys in small quantities. In addition, “not getting the most out of our ingredients is wasteful both in practice and ethos.”
What resulted was a beer he calls Cruisin’ the J. Chincoteague is a small island, covering only seven square miles, and the story goes that back in day for Friday night fun locals would meet at the town marina, drive down Main Street, hang a right at Beach Road, take it to a roundabout, then head back to the town marina. The route loosely resembled a J, and a tradition called “cruisin’ the J” was born. Chapman figured a low ABV beer seemed perfect for a Friday night on the town.
He outlined the process he uses, and the thinking behind it, in an email. I’ve left it in “brewer code” because I figure subscribers speak the same language.
* Did some back of napkin brewing theory jotting and everything seemed to point to the following: If beer transferred from FV to brite is clean, and then from brite to keg is clean, and then from keg to draft/can is clean, then what’s in the FV should be “clean” as far as ingredient integrity is concerned. Add to that the fact that if contamination/quality degradation were present it’d show most often in the yeast, which I cone to cone pitch. It stood to reason that those dry hops were ripe for stripping more aroma/oils from.
* Figured I’d start with something mixed-ferm/brett so the margin for error was less re finished beer. We do a mosaic dry-hopped mixed culture saison w/ sacch and three brett strains. First run takes about three-ish months, with one month on dry hops at .5#/bbl [note: that’s about 2 grams per liter]. On transfer day, I brewed the same wort, and knocked out directly into the tank on the spent hops/yeast combo. Within two weeks I’d say we had roughly 85%-90% the same beer as the first iteration that took three months. With the amount of trub/hops/yeast/beer I left in the FV, I missed my target OG by about 4 points, because I didn’t take into account that on the hot side that I’d basically be diluting the wort.
* The second hop runnings saison took about a month and ended up needing a dry hopping of .2#/bbl touch up to meet the aromatic/flavor profile of the first beer. Fantastic proof of concept brew and helped dial in how we’d handle the concept from there on.
* Recognizing that both hop and wort targets would be slightly lowered due to both the roughly 30% initial dry hop utilization and the spent beer/yeast in the tank, it made the most sense to take our most hop-forward IPA and brew a pale or session on the seconds.
* Four Mouths (our house IPA) is a combo of 2:1 Mosaic/El Dorado to Hallertau Blanc/Callista. 1#/bbl at whirlpool, then 3.5#/bbl at dry hop. 90/10 English Pale Malt (Murphy & Rude Malthouse, VA)/Flaked Oats. English Ale yeast, roughly 1.056 OG, 6.8% ABV beer.
* On transfer day, knocked out a target 1.042 OG wort, 1#/bbl whirlpool hops (Blanc) into the spent Four Mouths tank. OG became 1.038 after knockout (anticipated per the saison test). Didn’t dry hop at all, and post racking/carb beer had a wonderfully aromatic, soft bitterness. A very cohesive 4.65% pale ale. I didn’t call it a session IPA, because it wasn’t hop forward enough in my opinion to qualify.
* It was the fastest selling beer we’ve ever had. I think the combo of enticing aromatics and ease of drinkability make it incredibly accessible. We’re at the point now where whenever we brew Four Mouths, we know that on racking day we’re brewing Cruisin’ right on top of it, and you’d be stunned by how many folks are always asking when Cruisin’ is coming back, because it’s beating the IPA off the taps.