October Update

My oh my does time fly.  It is time for the October monthly update!

What's brewing?

As fall approaches, or is upon us, so does my favorite season for seasonal beers.  Of all the seasonal beers out there it is hard to beat a spiced pumpkin ale.  A great spiced pumpkin ale to me is heavy on the pumpkin, light on the spiced, and just right on the ale.  Clemente recently told me that pumpkin doesn't really have a lot of flavor and that most people associate the pumpkin pie spices with the flavor of pumpkin.  My response? 'Nonsense, I'll just add TWO pumpkins!'

I have tried making several variations of spiced pumpkin ales, but none have lived up to the first one I made two years ago.  So this time around, I planned to replicate the all-grain version of that extract recipe.  I prefer a nice ale that is not overwhelmed by the spices.  There should be a nice aroma that invokes all the nostalgia you could ever hope for and then fades to the background so you can enjoy the flavors of the beer. Last year I tried several variations of pumpkin ales using the spices from the ChaiPA, but all of those were too overwhelming. So this time I went back to a minimal blend of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg.  We'll see how it turns out, just in time for Halloween!

What's new with Otium?

The braintrust has begun bi-weekly Skype meetings. Right now we are in the information gathering stage to best make a decision on the location of the brewery.  Right now MA, NJ, and NY are all viable options.  We have done some market research that has been very informative and are now looking into the different legal implications of opening in each state.  Every state has very different laws about how much you can make, where you can sell it, and what you can sell inside the brewery.  Because we are going to start out as a very small brewery, these small differences can have a large impact on whether or not the brewery is successful.  It is very important that all the necessary information is gathered before an educated decision can be made about where the brewery ends up.

Stay tuned for the next update and keep drinking craft beer. You deserve it.