Let's talk freshness for a bit.

No doubt you've heard that breweries must maintain the utmost in cleanliness.  It is essential in keeping the hundreds of thousands of microbes that are freely floating around and on us from getting into the fermenting beer (you did know you're covered with them, right?).  These critters can wreak havoc on a beer; creating off flavors and aromas ranging from vinegar to bad cheese.  This is why we sanitize just about every surface that comes into contact with unfermented wort or beer.

Notice we said sanitize and not sterilize.  It's virtually impossible from a practical and fiscal standpoint to sterilize, say, a fermenter or a bottling line.  But you can sanitize it quite easily.  The difference being that there is some acceptable level of contamination when sanitizing and none when you sterilize.  What's acceptable contamination?  Well, for us its eliminating a vast number of critters that we know will harm the beer.  That is, killing the bugs, either by chemical cleaning or heat, down to a level that they will not be able to cause any damage.

The beer itself does, in fact, get sterilized by the boiling process but once it exits the kettle the best we can hope for is that our sanitizers have, well, sanitized the pipes, hoses, and tanks that the beer will go into.

What does this have to do with freshness?  Well, everything.  Our beer is intended to be consumed relatively soon after we package it; usually within 3-4 months for bottled beer and around 5-6 months for kegged beer when treated properly; the reason being that we don't add preservatives nor do we pasteurize the beer once it's packaged.  One, because adding preservatives is just wrong to us and, two, all pasteurizing does is to heat up the beer to a point where the microbes are killed but, hey, so is the flavor.  So that leaves us with one natural way of preserving beer (keeping the microbes from winning), one that's been used for millennia to keep things fresh; cold temps.  The cold inhibits growth of microbes and even the occasional yeast cell that gets through filtration.  It's why they can still find a 15,000 year old frozen Mammoth that looks like it died last week.

So, say for example you decide to buy a case of our beer but there's no space in the fridge.  Easy, you think, I'll just keep it in the garage or in the pantry until I can find space.  But there never is space because you know that things like mayonnaise, and milk and lettuce will go bad if they're kept out, but beer's tough, right?  So the beer waits, and waits, for months, until friends come over.  Then it just doesn't taste right, a little sour maybe.  Or, worse, one of the bottles explodes and your pantry is a mess. 

The microbes win and subsequently you're pissed that the beer you bought 10 months ago sucks.  So, we'll ask you; would you eat ten month old bread?  How about 6 month old eggs?  Of course not, so why would do the same with beer?  It's just as perishable as those things but it's not perceived that way. Our beer is fresh and flavorful; it's made from only four natural ingredients, no additives, and to get the most out of it it needs to be treated as the other fresh items in your fridge.

And you say, "well, I've kept [insert Macro-brew Name Here] in the garage for months and it tasted the same."

Uh, yeah...  Think about it.

One of the great benefits of handling the dispatch column of the brewsletter is the regular occurrence of the low news cycle as it pertains to Grill & Tap specific events.  We are by design a familiar northern outpost (only with kick-ass late night drink specials and air-conditioning), and we share much of our hard news with the mothership, most of which is covered for you in the main portions of this weekly.  This generally means there will be a high occurrence of digressive ramblings in this corner.  The ideal product is a sliver of PG-13 infotainment pertinent to local and global current events, and of course, beer.

Some weeks, however, the ramblings flow easier than others; and when I find the Wednesday morning deadline looming like a war zeppelin, I sometimes ponder the words of the ever-mortal (at least in appearance) Keith Richards, who replied once, when asked about his process, as if it were plain knowledge, "You don't create. You just receive, and transmit." Not very comforting words if you're suffering from writer's block, and as such, I've always suspected the quote was taken out of context and he was instead alluding to his now legendary semi-annual Swiss blood transfusions (Swiss blood is apparently as pure as their timepieces).

Perhaps it's the recent rain but my reception is spotty at best this week; so in lieu of a proposing something less than a half-brewed idea, allow me to assure that you can look forward to more in-depth brain static in the weeks to come.  In the meantime, St. Paddy's Day is next Wednesday, and we'll be opening at 7am with $3.50 Peaks pints as well as shot specials all day long and free T-shirts to the first 40 customers!