Episode 27
The Pumpkin Episode: Harvest Time at the Brewery
Let's ditch Gary and talk about pumpkins! Bobby Fleshman and Allison McCoy-Fleshman discuss the chaos of brewing beer during harvest time. Sometimes you have to drop everything to get 250 gallons of apple cider. Sometimes you reveal this year's pumpkin special. It happens.
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TIMELINE
00:00 Where's Gary?
00:43 Seasonal Changes and Oktoberfest
02:18 Apple Cider Production
07:15 Cherry Cider and Gluten-Free Options
18:35 Pumpkin Beer: Spice vs. Real Pumpkin
24:22 Harvesting Hops and Conclusion
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CREDITS
Hosts:
Music by Sarah Lynn Huss
Recorded & Produced by David Kalsow
Brought to you by McFleshman's Brewing Co
Transcript
Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Hi, everyone.
Speaker:This is another episode of Respecting the Beer.
Speaker:I am not Gary Arndt, who is sleeping in today, and so I am going to take over for him.
Speaker:I am Allison McCoy, and with me, as always, is the infamously amazing Bobby Lindale Fleshman.
Speaker:That's right, folks.
Speaker:Middle name Lindale.
Speaker:Fun story on that one.
Bobby Fleshman:Two middle names.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Two middle names.
Bobby Fleshman:Hi, Bobby.
Bobby Fleshman:Actually, that's not really a fun story.
Bobby Fleshman:His parents middle names were Lynn and Dale, and they combined them.
Bobby Fleshman:That's right.
Bobby Fleshman:Cool anyway, so I am gonna pretend to be host today and ask Bobby a bunch of questions.
Bobby Fleshman:In this gorgeous weather season outside it's crisp fall weather starting and it's a wonderful harvest time.
Bobby Fleshman:So we thought it'd be really fun to talk about how harvest is a time of year that changes our daily rituals when it comes to the brewery.
Bobby Fleshman:We have a whole bunch of new ingredients coming in and just hectic nature things happen around harvest time.
Bobby Fleshman:Bobby,
Bobby Fleshman:Right, well first off we're releasing Oktoberfest, we've been releasing Oktoberfest the last few weeks, and that's probably the biggest seasonal we do.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: What's rediculous about Oktoberfest is that we start brewing that in like, May?
Bobby Fleshman:Or June?
Bobby Fleshman:Cause it has to lager, so it's like 6 weeks of lagering.
Bobby Fleshman:Right.
Bobby Fleshman:And if we had infinite space to store it.
Bobby Fleshman:we'd start in March.
Bobby Fleshman:That's where how it's traditionally done.
Bobby Fleshman:but we're limited on the professional scale.
Bobby Fleshman:But Yeah, we releasing a ton of that.
Bobby Fleshman:It's 20 percent of our entire annual production.
Bobby Fleshman:So, it, it really shuts us down.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Folks love Oktoberfest.
Bobby Fleshman:And when you say shut us down though, basically you mean that, that, that there's just beer sitting in the tanks, and so we can't make other beer in those
Bobby Fleshman:It means It log
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: doesn't mean that we like lock the doors.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, it's Oktoberfest time, lock the doors.
Bobby Fleshman:opposite.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:but, but we also make a Fest beer, which is like a more modern example of Oktoberfest, like you'll find in Munich.
Bobby Fleshman:So, both of those beers are, popular.
Bobby Fleshman:They, they're, they signal the beginning of fall, when they're released.
Bobby Fleshman:And as soon as we get tank space, We start thinking about what to make next.
Bobby Fleshman:I mean, We've been thinking about that for quite a while, but we're forced to think about such things as cider, We make our own cider, apple cider.
Bobby Fleshman:And Thay's Orchard in Luxembourg is our primary source for apples.
Bobby Fleshman:They do all the pressing.
Bobby Fleshman:We
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Jim and Judy Tay are amazing.
Bobby Fleshman:we've been friends with them for several years now.
Bobby Fleshman:It's really, It's like a six apple blend that we do with, with them.
Bobby Fleshman:apples are ready when they're ready.
Bobby Fleshman:And we can't really wait on that, so we have to start fermenting those as soon as they are pressed.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: So you're just making this boring.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm going to jump in.
Bobby Fleshman:So one of the fun parts about harvest time is that we have no idea.
Bobby Fleshman:I mean, we know about the, the month range and when these apples are going to be ready, but we'll get a text from Judy and she's like, we're pressing the apples this weekend.
Bobby Fleshman:And so we have to scramble and figure out, okay, who's going to drive out there.
Bobby Fleshman:Take the bit.
Bobby Fleshman:We have this large, was it 250
Bobby Fleshman:270.
Bobby Fleshman:We don't, we might get a text from her while we recording.
Bobby Fleshman:Cause we're right.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: I know any day now she's going to be calling us.
Bobby Fleshman:And the worst case scenario she calls us and it's they're pressing on during our logger fest celebration, which is the first weekend in October.
Bobby Fleshman:We always hope it's a little before that, but depending on the season, I mean, we are kind of victims of the harvest.
Bobby Fleshman:We have to, you adapt and go as soon as the, the apples are ready.
Bobby Fleshman:But she'll text us and we have this huge, again, 270 gallon thing.
Bobby Fleshman:We put it in the back of a truck.
Bobby Fleshman:Actually, we borrow Appleton Beer Factory's truck because our truck's too small.
Bobby Fleshman:we take it out there and they fill it up.
Bobby Fleshman:And then driving back, we typically drive back during a Packers game.
Bobby Fleshman:I don't know how it always happens, but we get stuck in traffic with the Packers traffic.
Bobby Fleshman:Driving with 250 gallons of apple juice in your back of your truck is not an easy feat.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh my gosh.
Bobby Fleshman:I've, it's, it's like waves.
Bobby Fleshman:It's like one of those, oh gosh, y'all remember in the eighties, those wave beds where the bed was like the water bed thing.
Bobby Fleshman:That's what it kind of feels like when you're driving the truck, when you've got that much cider in the back.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway, I digress.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, as
Bobby Fleshman:is.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, it's, it's a lot of liquid.
Bobby Fleshman:but as soon as we,
Bobby Fleshman:we get it back, here, we we start fermenting it, adding yeast to it and letting it go.
Bobby Fleshman:And some
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Unless, remember that one time I'm not going to name names, but someone forgot to put the packet of the stabilizer in it and we lost, was it 200 gallons?
Bobby Fleshman:Do you remember that?
Bobby Fleshman:I don't remember that, wild fermented, fermented
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:We have to basically, we basically put some, some compounds in there to stop any bugs that shouldn't be in there from growing and doing any sort of like spontaneous fermentation.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:And that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Bobby Fleshman:This, this is done in, as far as I understand it, winemaking that the, the yeast on the skin of the grape, it contributes it, if not,
Bobby Fleshman:Partially than entirely to the fermentation.
Bobby Fleshman:So I think, I don't think that's entirely abnormal.
Bobby Fleshman:It's not that strange.
Bobby Fleshman:It doesn't end up in a product that's that different than what you're aiming to create.
Bobby Fleshman:Because they consume everything.
Bobby Fleshman:They consume all the
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: But we do like to have control over which yeast we put in.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm hmm.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:The reason we make apple cider to begin with is because we wanted, First of all, we wanted to offer something for people who don't like beer.
Bobby Fleshman:And something for people who can't tolerate gluten.
Bobby Fleshman:Mm hmm.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: We also live in Appleton.
Bobby Fleshman:Appleton.
Bobby Fleshman:And We live in Appleton.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:It's not like, was it kumquats or the cider that, is that even a possibility?
Bobby Fleshman:Well, pear is the best, I think, I think pear and apple are the best to, to make cider with, but I'm not sure beyond that Not jumping ahead too far, but you can make pear cider and you can blend that with honey.
Bobby Fleshman:We'll talk about that in a second
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: That's called a sizer,
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Well you, can yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Even apple cider blended with honey is a sizer, but yeah, it's a subcategory of a subcategory
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: because, yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway but why did we choose cider to begin with?
Bobby Fleshman:Well, it's on brand for us.
Bobby Fleshman:We're trying to do something very English because we're.
Bobby Fleshman:an English pub in a lot of respects when you see what we do here.
Bobby Fleshman:So it felt really on brand and it checked those other boxes.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: also live in Appleton,
Bobby Fleshman:live in Appleton.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: is actually named after Samuel Appleton, not having to do with anything apples, which is funny because there's some really good orchards all around, Taze Orchards being one of them, that make delicious apples, or I guess grow delicious
Bobby Fleshman:What did we learn?
Bobby Fleshman:We, we learned from Gary's podcast.
Bobby Fleshman:Now, now this is fun.
Bobby Fleshman:It's a meta.
Bobby Fleshman:We're going to reference each other.
Bobby Fleshman:Gary has a podcast called Everything Everywhere.
Bobby Fleshman:Daily.
Bobby Fleshman:and it's 10 minutes snippets.
Bobby Fleshman:And recently He was talking about the origin of some old, terminology for food.
Bobby Fleshman:or modern terminology for food.
Bobby Fleshman:And anyway, fruit was all called apples at some point.
Bobby Fleshman:All fruits were apples.
Bobby Fleshman:So only in the last whatever it was, a hundred years, did they start to break off and call fruit by their individual names,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: I'm very happy to live in Appleton, as opposed to Fruit-ton.
Bobby Fleshman:That doesn't sound as fun.
Bobby Fleshman:ha ha ha
Bobby Fleshman:Well talking about Appleton, we're also known for like Door County cherries.
Bobby Fleshman:In this area, in this area of the state.
Bobby Fleshman:And a place in town called Cherry Land's Best makes some of the best products from cherries at this time of, of year.
Bobby Fleshman:we take Mount Morenci cherry and blend that back with the cider, and that's become its own sort of thing.
Bobby Fleshman:So we're gonna have to keep that on all the time.
Bobby Fleshman:It seems people really love that one.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: I think the other nice thing about having, the cherry cider, the, English cider which, oh, we should talk about Ursina.
Bobby Fleshman:We'll do that in a second.
Bobby Fleshman:The, the nice thing is having a gluten free option because so many folks these days have, you know, limitations on what they can consume.
Bobby Fleshman:And beer is gloriously gluten filled.
Bobby Fleshman:Rich.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: and so,
Bobby Fleshman:Pizza and beer, that's a great gluten
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Just gluten fest.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway, so it's really nice to have those, those options for folks.
Bobby Fleshman:So our English cider is named a Bursina cider.
Bobby Fleshman:It's a core, it's a dry cider.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: so what makes it a dry cider.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, that, that comes down to, so when you're making ciders or wines, you often let them ferment to completion, and then you come back and you, you do what's called back sweetening, and you can do that a couple of different ways.
Bobby Fleshman:You can add sugar to that.
Bobby Fleshman:Let's see that sugar source could be honey.
Bobby Fleshman:That sugar source could be sucrose.
Bobby Fleshman:Or some kind of dextrose, which is corn sugar or you can add apple juice that's been pasteurized.
Bobby Fleshman:And the reason it's important that it's pasteurized is because you don't want to kickstart fermentation for this with the sweet stuff that you just put in there.
Bobby Fleshman:So that's another thing you can do, and you can make a, what's called a syrup.
Bobby Fleshman:sweet cider.
Bobby Fleshman:There's other ways to do it.
Bobby Fleshman:You can arrest fermentation.
Bobby Fleshman:You can, you can stop it from fermenting to begin with.
Bobby Fleshman:That may not be the preferred method by some people.
Bobby Fleshman:I don't, I don't choose that method usually.
Bobby Fleshman:But yeah, that I think you're looking for that balance of sweet to tartness because apples bring a lot of they bring some tannins with them.
Bobby Fleshman:and Definitely a high level of acidity.
Bobby Fleshman:They can be the same pH anyway.
Bobby Fleshman:Not, not to necessarily relate pH to acidity, but they can have the same level of acidity that your sour beers do.
Bobby Fleshman:like even in Belgium.
Bobby Fleshman:You're, you're panning through your phone.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: I am.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm looking up the, the history of Burcina artists in Appleton.
Bobby Fleshman:So we named our English cider Burcina's cider, and that's the dry one.
Bobby Fleshman:And then the sweet one is Horace's cider.
Bobby Fleshman:So those names come from Horace and Burcina artists who are actually, they married in secret as slaves and were freed during the Civil War.
Bobby Fleshman:And then they made their way.
Bobby Fleshman:After they were freed from slavery into Appleton and that's where they settled.
Bobby Fleshman:There's no known pictures of Bursina, but there is a really great write up of Horace and some pictures from the Appleton Historical Society.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah,
Bobby Fleshman:It occurs to me as we're
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Slavery, well, left slavery, and became free in Appleton,
Bobby Fleshman:And it was, it was Gwen Sargent's idea that we follow this, she owns the bike shop next to us and she also is active in the historical Society.
Bobby Fleshman:So it, I, I don't know if it was her or my idea or Allison's that we wanted to honor Black heritage with our ciders.
Bobby Fleshman:So That's where these names came from.
Bobby Fleshman:In fact, the Cherry Cider doesn't have a name per se yet, so we may need to put our
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: That's a great idea.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Ooh, naming
Bobby Fleshman:Mm hmm.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Naming ciders and
Bobby Fleshman:beers.
Bobby Fleshman:So there's going to be a lot of historical figures we can look to, I'm sure.
Bobby Fleshman:once we open up the books.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: So yeah, I just wanted to give a shout out.
Bobby Fleshman:yay Appleton Historical Society.
Bobby Fleshman:What else comes out?
Bobby Fleshman:in Harvest time,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: lots of things.
Bobby Fleshman:Well grapes, believe it or not, they grow grapes even, even within almost the city limits, honestly, of Appleton and we're friends with.
Bobby Fleshman:Eric and Sharon, I want to say?
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: You better get
Bobby Fleshman:that right...
Bobby Fleshman:I better get that right she will be.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Not that she would, she's probably a lovely person.
Bobby Fleshman:I
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:A lot of names I, by the way.
Bobby Fleshman:I sell beer.
Bobby Fleshman:So I meet like thousands of people a year and I had a terrible memory,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Oh, that's a good side story.
Bobby Fleshman:This is so when Gary's not here, we're just going to keep wandering.
Bobby Fleshman:If you have met Bobby and he doesn't remember your name, he is very sorry.
Bobby Fleshman:He, this, this is going to go really extreme.
Bobby Fleshman:You were in a head on collision when you were 17 and you had your kind of skull crushed in a little bit.
Bobby Fleshman:You shouldn't be alive, but you are.
Bobby Fleshman:And I'm thankful for it.
Bobby Fleshman:Cause you're amazing.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyone ever seen Robot Chicken?
Bobby Fleshman:I like we're on an episode of Robot Chicken right now.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: But anyway so he, it names are one of the things that he's actually not very good at.
Bobby Fleshman:So he, after he'll meet you, he'll immediately like put your name in his phone and then he has this really long list of all the people he's met and he's getting better at it.
Bobby Fleshman:But I'm so proud cause he tries so hard.
Bobby Fleshman:He knows who you are if you've met him, he just doesn't necessarily remember your name.
Bobby Fleshman:he Apart from my face blindness, or whatever this is, I wanted to say that Eric and Sharon grow marquette grapes in Appleton they grow edelweiss, which are white wine grapes in Appleton.
Bobby Fleshman:And we became friends with them a few years ago through a collaboration at the Appleton beer factory.
Bobby Fleshman:It's been 10 years now, and I, circled back to their grapes once in a while.
Bobby Fleshman:every year actually.
Bobby Fleshman:And we, we ferment them out.
Bobby Fleshman:We haven't yet released them as a wine on their own, but what we do is we make a wine that we then blend with one of our beers that's really popular.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: When you blend a wine and a beer, what fancy name is that
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, that's a good question.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm not sure there is a name for
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: A beer, what's a braggot?
Bobby Fleshman:A bragget is when you, when you are blending, mead and beer.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:So that's a good, I think wine and beer is so new as far as the blending game
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Google might just say, just don't.
Bobby Fleshman:The AI will make something up.
Bobby Fleshman:It'll hallucinate an answer for you.
Bobby Fleshman:but yeah, so we, blend that back in with our Brute IPA, which is called Ultima, and if you guys don't know what a Brute is, a Brute is a, It's basically a pale ale.
Bobby Fleshman:We call it an IPA, but it's not nearly as bitter as you would expect.
Bobby Fleshman:And what you do is you ferment it completely out.
Bobby Fleshman:And you do that by way of using enzymes that break down all the sugars so that yeast can consume all the sweetness out of it.
Bobby Fleshman:And that makes a really nice palette to blend with wine.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Is the Brut IPA.
Bobby Fleshman:So that's, it.
Bobby Fleshman:so we make a, what we call Ultima as our base.
Bobby Fleshman:And then we add the Marquette wine to it and we have a Ultima Rosé And then we'll add the Edelweiss grapes to it and make what's called our
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: add Edelweiss grapes to it and make what's called our ultimate block.
Bobby Fleshman:and they're like, Oh, maybe.
Bobby Fleshman:And then they taste it and they're like, Oh my God, this is amazing.
Bobby Fleshman:And in addition, they don't believe it's an IPA
Bobby Fleshman:Right!
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Because they've been told they won't like IPAs because they don't like
Bobby Fleshman:Side track here, Ultima experienced a huge, huge wave of success about six or seven years ago.
Bobby Fleshman:It was to be the one that would take over all of beer.
Bobby Fleshman:And it happened.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: again because we've only opened six years ago.
Bobby Fleshman:So not six or seven.
Bobby Fleshman:Our beer
Bobby Fleshman:no, I, I mean, the Brut.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: yeah, the Brute
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, maybe I, sorry, I meant to say Brut.
Bobby Fleshman:yeah, no,
Bobby Fleshman:Ultima has always done
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: are Brutes.
Bobby Fleshman:Not all Brutes are Ultimas.
Bobby Fleshman:Whales and mammals.
Bobby Fleshman:So
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: We need Gary back.
Bobby Fleshman:So man, I can't even stay focused.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: the cat's away, the mice will play.
Bobby Fleshman:I have totally lost my train of thought.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: found something interesting.
Bobby Fleshman:What happens when you combine the best of beer and wine?
Bobby Fleshman:Well, you get a Vierre.
Bobby Fleshman:Ooh, so apparent, the mix between wine and beer is the new drink, says traveltomorrow.
Bobby Fleshman:While she's looking that up, I wanted to make sure
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Vierre.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh, this is 2022.
Bobby Fleshman:Okay, this is recent.
Bobby Fleshman:I wanted to say shaking, shaking rock vineyard.
Bobby Fleshman:That's the name of Eric and Sharon's new winery And soon to be tap room.
Bobby Fleshman:so they get advertisement right now.
Bobby Fleshman:They're going to open there on the northwest corner, of Appleton and they will have a full, I think their, their goal is to have spirits and wine and beer and cider and mead.
Bobby Fleshman:So they're, yeah, they're, they're doing a great thing out there.
Bobby Fleshman:It's a beautiful barn.
Bobby Fleshman:that they're turning into a tap
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Okay, I'm gonna pretend to be Gary now.
Bobby Fleshman:Alright, Bobby.
Bobby Fleshman:So, you get so you get these grapes.
Bobby Fleshman:You get them from the orchard.
Bobby Fleshman:Wait, they don't come from an orchard.
Bobby Fleshman:They come from a vineyard.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway.
Bobby Fleshman:And I've been to some fancy country in which I have done whatever vineyard picking of grapes.
Bobby Fleshman:Again, I'm pretending to be Gary.
Bobby Fleshman:What,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: What what then do you, do the grapes just show up and you just put them in the beer?
Bobby Fleshman:What, how, what's the
Bobby Fleshman:them in the beer?
Bobby Fleshman:What, how, what's the process?
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Do you like stomp on them in like
Bobby Fleshman:stomp on them Like, a, you
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Lucy and Ethel way, I guess Ethel was there
Bobby Fleshman:You look at those photos over time.
Bobby Fleshman:I think I, I can't speak to what's going on, but I imagine that they're just relying entirely on the yeast that's on the skin of those grapes.
Bobby Fleshman:So you get a grape and you see that powder on top, that's just loaded with yeast.
Bobby Fleshman:So it will dominate the eco, cult monoculture, or whatever.
Bobby Fleshman:That's what you call.
Bobby Fleshman:What's the right word?
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway, the ecosystem of those grapes.
Bobby Fleshman:And it'll take off, it'll start fermenting all on its own.
Bobby Fleshman:So people jump in and they'll take their shoes off, which looks really gross, but I'm sure if they're cleaning their feet, blah, blah, blah.
Bobby Fleshman:That's how they did it then.
Bobby Fleshman:We don't do it that way now.
Bobby Fleshman:And what we do now is we have a hydraulic press.
Bobby Fleshman:So we'll bring the grapes in.
Bobby Fleshman:They've been de stemmed.
Bobby Fleshman:They've been crushed.
Bobby Fleshman:So they've already, the juice is already being leaking out.
Bobby Fleshman:So we just want to get it all out.
Bobby Fleshman:So we'll throw it in this, this, 25 gallon container.
Bobby Fleshman:And behind it is a bladder.
Bobby Fleshman:That's what it is, a water bladder.
Bobby Fleshman:You fill up with water and it presses hydraulically all the juice out of the grapes.
Bobby Fleshman:We collect that, throw it into a fermenter, and then add our yeast of choice.
Bobby Fleshman:we'll let that ferment out and at the end of the day we'll adjust the sweetness and the acidity profile.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm learning a lot about all the, the, the spectrum of acids that are involved in winemaking.
Bobby Fleshman:I think it helps me, It helps me learn how to make better sour beers and maybe beer in general.
Bobby Fleshman:We're thinking about how winemakers actually do a lot of their work on the tail end, on the, picking which barrel and then adjusting for all of those, those factors.
Bobby Fleshman:acidity and sweetness.
Bobby Fleshman:So yeah, we just let nature do its thing.
Bobby Fleshman:We have Cabernet barrels and Merlot barrels from Napa that we we ferment inside
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: of, Now is the next round of grapes, are they going to be white grapes or purple
Bobby Fleshman:They were, well, first of all, it was, we've,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: grapes.
Bobby Fleshman:I guess they're
Bobby Fleshman:that's, well, they look purple.
Bobby Fleshman:So when we have a blue bell that we do as well.
Bobby Fleshman:It's very purple, but table wine.
Bobby Fleshman:And then, so anyway, we already have our white.
Bobby Fleshman:The edelweiss arrived to us two weeks ago.
Bobby Fleshman:They've already fermented out.
Bobby Fleshman:So now we're.
Bobby Fleshman:We're starting to think about adjusting those they're really, it's really hazy, by the way.
Bobby Fleshman:It's really hazy.
Bobby Fleshman:So we're adding
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: supposed to be?
Bobby Fleshman:is an enzyme that breaks down pectin.
Bobby Fleshman:Pectin is what gives almost any fruit with a skin its integrity, but it manifests in a hazy end product.
Bobby Fleshman:You don't care about that.
Bobby Fleshman:And In fact, you add it to jellies, oftentimes it gives it some body at huge levels.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Speaking of I'm gonna take us into another topic.
Bobby Fleshman:So, we're talking about harvests and just all the different kinds of ingredients that come our way and how we adapt quickly to brew whatever it is while those ingredients are as fresh as can be.
Bobby Fleshman:And we are getting into the season.
Bobby Fleshman:I swung by the coffee shop this morning and in my hand is a pumpkin spice latte because it's that time of year.
Bobby Fleshman:And so we always get inquiries and people are excited about the pumpkin
Bobby Fleshman:The pumpkin beer will never die.
Bobby Fleshman:It, seems like every year people it's, this is the last
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: it needs, I, I, No comment.
Bobby Fleshman:Anyway, but this is the, the pumpkin harvesting time.
Bobby Fleshman:And so the problem is, is that when pumpkins are ready to harvest, we would have had to brew the beer three or four weeks ago.
Bobby Fleshman:And so it's pumpkin beer should really be coming out like in December or in, you know, late November, because the pumpkins are really kind of ready in October pumpkin season time.
Bobby Fleshman:But there's one of the things we wanted to share on this podcast is there's really kind of two types of pumpkin beers.
Bobby Fleshman:There's pumpkin spiced beer, and then there's actual pumpkin beer.
Bobby Fleshman:Bobby, can you explain the differences,
Bobby Fleshman:Right, I think it's fairly self explanatory, but when you're doing a pumpkin beer, you're using the the, the flesh of a pumpkin.
Bobby Fleshman:I like to use Cinderella pumpkin.
Bobby Fleshman:and In and of
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: For those that don't know, those are the really, the, the big fat ones that are squashed in the middle that are just crap for Jack-O-lantern
Bobby Fleshman:yeah, the hole in the middle.
Bobby Fleshman:if at all, is like a baseball size.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Yeah, it looks like a patty pan.
Bobby Fleshman:It's like squished all down and it looks like you just smashed the pumpkin in the center.
Bobby Fleshman:That's great.
Bobby Fleshman:for making pies with.
Bobby Fleshman:I mean, number one, I think it's just the amount of flesh you're working with.
Bobby Fleshman:But what, what, and number two, I think the quality, but, number, but what we do is we'll take those, we'll quarter them up or chop them up into cubes four inch on edge ish, and then we'll throw them into an oven.
Bobby Fleshman:So this is how you get flavor from pumpkin.
Bobby Fleshman:pumpkin in and of itself is pretty flavorless.
Bobby Fleshman:So if you were to puree that, throw it into a mash, with your grain as you're making beer, you're not going to get a lot out of it except a bunch of starch.
Bobby Fleshman:may be leaking into your.
Bobby Fleshman:Mash, which doesn't go anywhere.
Bobby Fleshman:So what you'll do is you'll you'll throw it in an oven, and you'll generate what are called Maillard byproducts, Maillard products.
Bobby Fleshman:You're cooking.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: So we, so this is for a pumpkin beer where we've actually fermented the sugars from the pumpkin.
Bobby Fleshman:As opposed to pumpkin spice, where you take a beer and you just add the spices that make you think of
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, you'll ultimately, once you do this breakdown, you, you smash it up, and you throw it in the mash with the rest.
Bobby Fleshman:of your grain And believe it or not, you can turn an otherwise yellow beer into an orange one.
Bobby Fleshman:Just simply by Using pumpkin flesh.
Bobby Fleshman:It's beautiful.
Bobby Fleshman:We do want.
Bobby Fleshman:It's a lot of a lot of work to get there, but
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: hashtag beta carotene.
Bobby Fleshman:It totally works.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: so one of the things about this is that so our recipe was named originally pain in the ass pumpkin because to do a pumpkin beer.
Bobby Fleshman:What we would do is we would cut up this pumpkin and we took over Appleton Beer Factory's ovens for like three days.
Bobby Fleshman:It was a long time, it
Bobby Fleshman:No, we would take over their kitchen for four hours in the morning time.
Bobby Fleshman:And we would yeah, we would have the flesh finished by the time we were ready to mash in.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: So anyway, so one of the fun things about the pumpkin beer is that you can really get a good sense of pumpkin flavor as opposed to the pumpkin spice.
Bobby Fleshman:Bobby, what about pumpkin spice?
Bobby Fleshman:First of all, I want to finish the our own pumpkin recipe, we'll we'll take the seeds too we'll toast those and throw those into the mash.
Bobby Fleshman:There's multiple levels to this, but pumpkin spice is just what it sounds like.
Bobby Fleshman:It's, it's where you create a beer that looks orange.
Bobby Fleshman:It has maybe a little toastiness It makes you think of fall, but then you're adding those same spices you would for a good pie recipe.
Bobby Fleshman:And so it's very suggestive and there's lots of, examples of this in the culinary world.
Bobby Fleshman:Where you do things that suggest other things and your mind fills in the blanks.
Bobby Fleshman:So there's two styles of that
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: I appreciate a pumpkin ale.
Bobby Fleshman:The pumpkin spice...
Bobby Fleshman:It can be done, fine.
Bobby Fleshman:But anyway, we don't quite know which one we'll have yet.
Bobby Fleshman:We don't Yeah, that's true.
Bobby Fleshman:We may have a couple.
Bobby Fleshman:On the timing of our pumpkin beer, we're not able to have it ready at the beginning of, I would say September, because the pumpkins themselves aren't available until about that time.
Bobby Fleshman:If at the earliest.
Bobby Fleshman:So we'll take them and we'll be releasing our, our pumpkin ales at the end of October.
Bobby Fleshman:That gives us enough time to, to pull that off, which is perfect, right?
Bobby Fleshman:Because you want to get Halloween and you want to carry yourself all the way through Thanksgiving.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: That reminds me.
Bobby Fleshman:We would do a beer mixture where we would take the pumpkin ale and we would mix it with the Porter.
Bobby Fleshman:I believe in it was called Ichabod crane.
Bobby Fleshman:Oh no, it was public house pint.
Bobby Fleshman:It was the stout,
Bobby Fleshman:stout No, no, because White Horse is our porter.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:White horse Porter.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:and so we would call
Bobby Fleshman:it Ichabod, The Ichabod
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: I forgot we did that.
Bobby Fleshman:But do our, so.
Bobby Fleshman:Are we planning to make a pumpkin thing?
Bobby Fleshman:Alright, so we're going to let the cat out of the bag.
Bobby Fleshman:So Vantage Point is, every year we make Vantage Point our Imperial Stout.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Are we gonna Imperial stout it??
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah, we're going to do, we're going to
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Hot off the presses friends.
Bobby Fleshman:Pumpkin Spice Imperial Stout.
Bobby Fleshman:Now, now we're held to this because now it's on record.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Oh this is the first I'm hearing of this, oh my god, my mouth is watering I'm gonna take a drink of my pumpkin spice latte.
Bobby Fleshman:And then, and then maybe if our brewers are of the right mindset, we'll make them do the other one too.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: ha ha ha that's Bobby speak for if you haven't pissed them off for having to cut up all these pumpkins.
Bobby Fleshman:And did you hear before:
Bobby Fleshman:Gotta get all the surface area and you can't get any color and out of Well, It just seems like that's a good size.
Bobby Fleshman:Yeah.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Okay, other things that we harvest.
Bobby Fleshman:Apparently we harvest hops,
Bobby Fleshman:Hops!
Bobby Fleshman:Is the number one in the beer world.
Bobby Fleshman:It's the number one
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: But we're getting hops throughout the year.
Bobby Fleshman:What's the deal?
Bobby Fleshman:You're right, well, first of all, let's just quickly advertise, we have a harvest deal coming out.
Bobby Fleshman:that we made with fresh hops out of Steve Main's backyard.
Bobby Fleshman:brought us...
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: We love Steve.
Bobby Fleshman:Like 20 pounds of hops and he said, that went into a special release coming up.
Bobby Fleshman:It's an IPA, that actually it's a pale ale.
Bobby Fleshman:And, we use honey to finish it from, I believe, our roof.
Bobby Fleshman:So there's a lot of harvest harvest elements in that beer.
Bobby Fleshman:So we're, we're calling that a harvest ale.
Bobby Fleshman:In modern times, hops are kept cold, and they're kept in, in nitrogen environments.
Bobby Fleshman:So, you can buy hops throughout the year, but there is something you lose.
Bobby Fleshman:There's a volatile as element to hops, and you're going to lose some of those aromatics.
Bobby Fleshman:That's what makes the terpene level and the, and the romance of these harvest deals.
Bobby Fleshman:so amazing.
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Do they, do they taste more grassy?
Bobby Fleshman:They do.
Bobby Fleshman:And they're,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: like
Bobby Fleshman:they're,
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Like it was just there yesterday?
Bobby Fleshman:They're not for everyone because they do definitely taste grassy like fresh lawn.
Bobby Fleshman:They're really high in those terpene levels.
Bobby Fleshman:But the people that like them, love
Bobby Fleshman:Allison McCoy-Fleshman: Go team.
Bobby Fleshman:Cool.
Bobby Fleshman:Okay.
Bobby Fleshman:Well, I guess that ends our discussion on harvesting time and what's really fun is we did it all without Gary and he will be missing.
Bobby Fleshman:He has missed a lot.
Bobby Fleshman:he actually just walked in the door so he'll be here on the next episode.
Bobby Fleshman:But I feel very proud to have been our host this time.
Bobby Fleshman:All right, then that concludes this episode of Respecting the Beer.
Bobby Fleshman:Make sure you subscribe to show to the show.
Bobby Fleshman:I'm reading this thing I'm supposed to read.
Bobby Fleshman:Make sure you subscribe to this show in your favorite podcast player so you'll never miss an episode and feel free to join us on the Facebook group and get updates between episodes and to support the show over on Patreon.
Bobby Fleshman:Links to both of these are in the show notes.
Bobby Fleshman:Until next time, please remember to Respect the Beer.
Bobby Fleshman:Just the right amount of chaos.
Bobby Fleshman:It took everything for me not to say, "Party on Wayne," at the end.
