Mother's Brewing - Update - Brewhouse Information and Beer Profiles

Recently, I had a rare opportunity to take a peek behind the doors of Mother’s Brewing Company, slated to open this spring.  Jeremy Wicks, the Director of Sales and Marketing, gave an intimate tour of the brewery to a dozen or so local beer fans, and I slipped in with them.

What those on the tour saw was an incomplete brewery with a lot of promise.  The brewery will open with a 30 barrel (bbl) brew house, which means they will make the equivalent of 60 kegs in a single batch.  They’ll have a potential annual production of 5,000 bbls to start (10,000 of those standard-kegs).  They will have several large aging tanks for their big batches, but they’ve also recently received an additional four 30 bbl aging tanks so they can make some very special beers without inhibiting their production schedule.

They’ve done an excellent job of utilizing anything they could from the old Butternut building, including reusing anything they can, scrapping anything metal they can’t, and not removing anything which may come in handy sometime soon.  They even have plans to utilize the pneumatic tubes which the old bread factory used to transport factory. 

Of course, anyone who just wants to drink their beer isn’t worried about all of that.  They are wondering what kind of beers will be produced, and when will they be available?

To start this spring (yes, as in a few months from now), Mother’s will brew three beers in constant production which will be available immediately.  While they have not finalized any recipe of the three featured beers, they do have a very clear picture of what they would like these three beers to be to local beer fans. 

The first of these three, which was sampled at the tour, is an American blonde ale named “Towhead.”  It’s a lighter fare that was described to us as a mixture of a German kolsch and a wheat beer.  The version we tried was very light and refreshing, and it’s easy to drink. 

The second offering is a bit darker, but we sampled four versions, each with a different yeast, so I can’t definitively describe it.  It is named “Three Blind Mice,” and, depending on what yeast they choose, will either showcase some very roasty notes or will fall more along the lines of a nice malty Belgian Dubbel.  Either way, it will be very tasty, and you should look forward to having it readily available in town. 

The third of the three flagship beers will be “Li’l Helper” IPA. (Get it, “Mother’s Li’l Helper”?)  While there was none of this to sample at the tour, I have confidence the hop-heads will love it.  How do I know, you ask?  Because the reason they didn’t have any for us to try was because they drank it all themselves.  If that’s not a testimonial, I don’t know what would be.

The brewery will also produce seasonal beers, including a summer offering which will follow close on the heels of their opening.  They mentioned the summer beer at the tour, but I’m not confident enough to publish any information on it, as it still seems their idea of it is still forming. 

Of course, every craft brewery must have their “one-offs,” which are more creatures of love and fancy than of profit.  These will be beers which are a little experimental or special in some way, and will only produced in a single shot, or produced rarely.  They have plans to produce some beers which aspire to be big an flavor, body, and alcohol. 

While we were sampling, we were able to ask some questions of the three prime movers of Mother’s Brewing, Jeff the Owner, Brian the Brewmaster, and Jeremy, whom I’ve already mentioned is over Marketing.  The conversation was great, and so was the beer.  As a follow up, I also had a chance to carry on brief conversations with each of them separately.  I’ll start posting the information from my conversations with these three “Mother’s Boys” very soon.  Right now, though, I’m afraid I have to run.