http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog en will@cambridgebrewingcompany.com Copyright 2012 2012-04-27T19:53:30+00:00 http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/sake-beer.-banryu-ichi-2012/ http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/sake-beer.-banryu-ichi-2012/#When:19:53:30Z Our guest collaborator Todd Bellomy of Boston Sake holds forth on this year's expression of Banryu Ichi.This What’s Brewing blog post is by our good friend and co-conspirator Todd Bellomy, sake expert, sake brewer, founder of www.BostonSake.com, and all-around awesome guy. Cheers! I try to be a constant evangelist for the enjoyment of Sake. It is an easy job given that Sake is a very delicious beverage; however, working in the craft beer industry I tend to communicate Sake flavors and attributes through a beer-colored lens. Sake is in essence a beer: it is made from grain; it undergoes starch conversion to sugar; and it contains no sulfites or additives common in wine. In this country however, because of its larger bottle and high ABV%, Sake has historically been lumped in with wine and distributed through wine wholesalers. In the last 20 years, this fact increasingly does not hold true. The craft beer industry commonly has beers above 15% ABV and beer now comes in a wide variety of bottle types and sizes. Craft beers have even branched out to encompass a broad spectrum of flavors incorporating spices, barrel aging, fruits, herbs and vegetables. Even with this explosion of innovation and increasing market share for craft beers, Sake remains hidden and underdeveloped in the purview of wine merchants. I think that it is time for craft beer drinkers to bring this lost brother of brewing back into the fold. Starting several years ago, Will Meyers (Brewmaster at Cambridge Brewing Company) and I began playing with the idea of blending the traditions of beer and Sake. As a beer guy Will found that he liked the flavors that he was discovering in the Sake that I shared with him; they were also flavors that had been unexplored in the increasingly complex craft beer world. We tried several different methods to achieve a hybrid beer:       -combining beer wort (unfermented beer) with a Sake starter made from rice, koji and Sake yeast       -brewing a high rice content beer and fermenting with Sake yeast only       -blending finished beer with finished Sake In the end we decided on using the first method, which not only organically combined both beer and Sake brewing, but also allowed us to do something that no other beer brewpub had done – make a full batch of Sake. This year’s batch is our second, and we not only improved on the process, but were able (with help) to make more Sake. Adding this additional Sake pushed the beer’s flavors further into the Sake realm. Firing up several 20 gallon home-brew kettles we proceeded to use a long weekend to steam almost 300 lbs of Sake brewing rice. Thankfully the mild winter this year kept us from freezing too badly (unlike last year!). Positioned on the sunny patio of the CBC, it was quite pleasant at times. What an interesting sight we must have been for the patrons of the CBC that weekend: five guys working outside all day, steaming rice, taking photos, tackling endless cleaning chores, and drinking a bit of Sake along the way. The resulting moromi (Sake mash) almost filled our little 500 liter tank that lives in a corner of the brewery – there was some worry on the last day that it wouldn’t all fit! Also luckily for us, the brewery is largely uninsulated and maintains the colder temperatures need for Sake fermentation allowing us to make some pretty tasty Sake. After several weeks our batch was at the height of fermentation with yeast health high and alcohol levels around 16% ABV. At this time we took the whole mash containing Sake, rice, koji, and plenty of yeast and pumped it over into a beer tank. To this tank we added 225 gallons of an unusual beer wort made with malted barley, rice, and brown rice syrup. This to me is the magic of our Sake/beer hybrid – the Sake yeast is strong in the Sake mash, but starting to succumb to the high levels of alcohol and getting tired. Adding the beer wort drops the alcohol levels down significantly and the yeast is re-invigorated to ferment the entire tank. The resulting hybrid is a true combination of Sake and beer brewing traditions. This unique drinking experience is only possible with the gracious help and patience of friends and family who support this crazy experiment. If you happen to be in Boston this spring, head over to the Cambridge Brewing Company to try a glass of Banryu Ichi 2012 and judge for yourself if Sake can sit side by side with beer and leave wine on the shelf. If you are a beer brewer going to the Craft Brewer’s Conference in San Diego this year, you can also try this unique beverage along with 2 other beers and some Sake. We are presenting our experiences in a lecture about Sake/Beer Hybridization on Friday at the conference. Cheers to sake, beer, and innovation! ~Todd Bellomy Boston Sake (all except last photo courtesy of our friend Mike Johnson at www.festpics.com) 2012-04-27T19:53:30+00:00 http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/what-a-long-strange-trip-its-been/ http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/what-a-long-strange-trip-its-been/#When:19:17:10Z A few days ago I left my post at CBC. In case you don’t know me I’m Chris. I’ve been GM at CBC since 2004.  It was a bitter sweet breakup to be sure. I actually began as a ponytailed Berklee kid working the door way back in 2000. Being in the right place at the right time I ‘accidentally’ had an 8 year career as a restaurant manager. Even though my only management experience at that point was trying to get a few stoned jazz musicians to all show up at the same place at approx. the same time for a rehearsal. Against his better judgment, CBC Founder Phil Bannatyne saw ‘something’ in me and gave me shot. The opportunity came up rather suddenly to say the least. And after I took the gig, the old bar manager Huey looked at me and said “Are you ready for the train that’s about to run you over?” That next year I got my ass kicked around and handed to me seven ways from Sunday. But, boy did I learn. Trial by fire. Quite a detour from my original plans in music to say the least. Thankfully, my musical dreams never died. In fact I’ve been trying to get back to music for about 7 years. I’ve attempted to escape CBC several times. And just when I think I’m out…they pull me back in. In fact the first time I quit back in 2001 the GM at the time said to me “You’ll be back. They All Come Back.” And damn was she right! I tried again in 2008. And then Boom…I’m back in the driver’s seat within 10 months. Third time’s a charm. But you know what? I wouldn’t trade my time at CBC for anything. Anything. I feel like I grew up at CBC. (Questionable Statement, I know…) I cut my ponytail off while at CBC. (Big deal for a Berklee Nerd) And I got my first grey hairs shortly after taking the gig (and then proceeded to lose a lot them!) I had many, many late nights that I’ll never ever remember and plenty of great ones that I always will…bar stool rodeo anyone? I cut my teeth as a manager and quickly realized how complicated and sensitive people really are. Geeze, I thought jazz musicians were tough. Try working with Chefs and Brewmasters… And I realized what a pain in the ass customers can be. I can say that now right? JK. JK. The pains in the ass are the exception. The rest of you are awesome. If you’re a CBC regular you know what I’m talking about. You’re part of the family. You ‘get’ CBC. You’re part of the cause. You dig the one of kind vibe. There can only be one CBC. Man, there are so many amazing things about CBC. I’m getting choked up just thinking about the memories. But most importantly of all…I met my beautiful fiancé Betsy at CBC. (You can visit her at the Bar on Thursday nights to find out when my next gig is;-) I also met one of my all time best friends at CBC. In fact, he’ll be officiating our wedding in December. I had my (life changing) theatre debut because of CBC and because of said best friend. I formed two bands from gigs at CBC. I’ve met and worked with a truly outstanding and original staff. You may not know this, but CBC has probably the most talented staff around. I’m not necessarily talking just hospitality talent either. Over the years we’ve had no less than 2 lawyers, 2 architects, a gazillion musicians of ALL styles and abilities. Painters, graphic designers, writers, actors, performers, hair stylists, dentists and doctors. We’ve had theatre directors, psychologists, programmers, electricians, special needs teachers, grade school teachers, even a principal. There have been 2 acupuncturists, multiple entrepreneurs, plenty of home brewers, a handful of restaurant lifers, plenty of democrats, not too many republicans and at least one crazy libertarian (ahem). And everything else you can imagine. I am proud and truly honored to have been part of CBC and hopefully to have left an indelible mark on the company…forever! Phil Bannatyne: From the bottom of my heart – Thank You! Thank you for taking a chance on me (twice). Thank you for your incredible generosity. Thank You for your patience and support. And thank you for letting me use the word sucks and other mild profanity in my promotional CBC emails and blog posts (against Cara’s better judgment). I love You, Man! And thank you CBC! For all the memories and all the experience. For the family, the crew, the regulars, the fun times and the restaurant drama too. For the local, natural, creative and delicious grub. For the cause. For the world class and wonderfully buzz inducing brews (I just drink for the taste though of course). For the hard knocks lessons, for the opportunities, the friends, the hangovers, the crazy ‘in the weeds’ nights and all that you are CBC. Thank You! What a strange trip indeed… ~CP P.S I couldn’t finish my final blog post without welcoming the lovely Ms. Laura Peters to the job. CBC is in good hands with you Laura. Thanks for always having my back as AGM and being infinitely more on top of shit than I am. Good Luck (But you don’t really need it.) P.P.S. And of course, goodbye to my comrades on the management team – Chef Dave and Brewmaster Will. I’ll miss the meetings, the LOL Cats, the random conversations. I’ll miss the events, the brainstorming, the cause, and even the day to day B.S. I’ll miss the arguments, stepping on each other’s toes and the egos banging into each other. But mostly I’ll miss the free food and beer;-) Good Luck Guys! 2012-04-11T19:17:10+00:00 http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/i-have-a-pickle-mentor/ http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/i-have-a-pickle-mentor/#When:20:04:08Z A few years back, “Stew the Pickle Guy” and I dined on the patio of Charlies Kitchen.  We were talking cucumbers, of course, and the beer was flowing.  I won’t soon forget the day, a Monday- clear, sunny and beautiful.  Stew ate twin lobster rolls (what a deal!).  I had the hot dog (duh!).  My son sat silently soaking in the spectacle before him.  Perhaps he was in awe, held speechless in the presence of the great pickle lord, Stew Golomb, aka Mr. MoonBrine himself, or perhaps he was just really quiet because he was like 4-5 months old…I don’t know, hard to say.  I do know however, that this was the moment Stew and I struck up a friendship.  We formed a bond.  We realized were not weird for loving pickles.  We were ready to share the fruits of our vegetables with the world.  We would brew pickles at a brewery and then we would drink beer! What’s the big deal with a fermented cucumber?  That’s tough to say.  Some people like pickles and then there are those that love them.  I just know this, if you like pickles, even mildly, you need to try a MoonBrine Pickle.  People just don’t do what MoonBrine does these days.  These pickles take time to craft, and for most that’s just too much time. Stew makes all natural, 100% fermented pickles.  He uses nothing more than water, salt, spices and garlic, a touch of vinegar and time.  After a couple weeks they are ready.  Stew then hand packs them (he never cans them) and throws them in the fridge, they have a lab certified shelf life of 6 months.  He used to brew them here at CBC coming over from JP in the wee hours of the morning, all the while teaching me the craft.  He has since moved to Portland, Oregon with his family and set up shop.  The west coast has been good for Stew’s spirit and he is fermenting away like a mad man.  I just got 200 pounds of hot pickles from him and we are frying them up here for our new Spring menu.  You can always find him online at http://www.moonbrine.com.  He is starting to get a bunch of cool press and, of course, in a great food town like Portland he will soon be taking over the world.  Here at CBC, we still serve a half sour pickle with our burgers.  We make them here at the restaurant- about 50 pounds a week.  Stew taught me how to make the half sour.  I think they’re pretty good.  I admit they lack that certain “MoonBrine magic” and are perhaps a bit upstaged on this menu with their older, more developed relatives in the fryer, but it’s cool.  Stew’s a pretty awesome guy so I don’t mind.  Good luck Vlasic and Claussen….dorks. 2012-03-25T20:04:08+00:00 http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/the-advantages-of-low-mileage-beer/ http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/the-advantages-of-low-mileage-beer/#When:18:47:29Z Much has been said these days about the advantages of eating local.  Supporting local farms, enrolling in a CSA, seeking out local fisherman and sourcing local meats are all the rage.  The reasons for doing so are numerous.  Chief among them are the increased freshness of local foodstuffs due to shorter transit time, the decrease in CO2 emissions from transportation and the increase in the financial viability of farming closer to population centers.  Couldn’t and shouldn’t the same be said for beer? The fact is, beer is heavy!  Beer weighs about 8 lbs per gallon and roughly 92% of that is water. Now I know many breweries will go on and on about the specialness of their water and to a degree that may be true.  The fact is, almost all brewers can adjust their water to have the mineral content most advantageous to a particular style of beer.  So that raises the question, should we really be drinking so many beers from faraway places? Roughly 10% of beer consumed in the US is imported.  That amounts to about 20 Million barrels of beer (one barrel = 31 US gallons) annually.  If we assume that the average distance travelled by this beer is about as far away as Europe a few quick calculations can give us a sense of the environmental impact of transporting this beer.  Another point to consider is that with packaged beer, that is beer in bottles packed in four six packs per case, about half the weight of that beer is in the packaging.  Pretty much all beer imported from overseas is transported on cargo ships.  Cargo ships burn an extremely dirty type of fuel called bunker oil.  You can fit about 1200 cases of packaged beer into one 40 foot container.  Twenty million barrels of beer would then take up about 225,000 containers.  Each transoceanic freighter can carry about 10,000 containers so that amount of beer would take 22.5 ships to transport.  If each ship uses about 255,000 gallons of high sulfur and particulate bunker oil per trip, that is 5.8 million gallons of fuel burned.  At 26 pounds of CO2 per gallon that amounts to an extraordinary 150 million pounds of CO2 released into the atmosphere to import the beer. That’s the environmental price of imported beer.  What about the impact of beer produce domestically but moved great distances across this country?  What if we only consider the craft beer segment?  Craft beer accounts for about 5% of the beer consumed in the US, or 10 million barrels.  For simplicity‘s sake, let’s assume that 20% of that is produced on the West Coast and consumed on the East Coast.  Beer is typically transported long distances by truck. Using the same space and weight estimates from above it would require 22,500 truck trips averaging 6 miles per gallon of diesel fuel.  At approximately 3000 miles coast to coast that would be about 11.2 million gallons of diesel which converts to 248 million pounds of CO2, an amount comparatively 10 times worse than the container ships.  Simply stated, that 12 ounce bottle of West Coast I.P.A. took about 3 ounces of diesel to get to you on the East Coast.  And that was simply the 20% coming this way, the other 80% is traveling as well! Unlike when the craft beer movement started, today’s brewers have at their disposal the technology to brew any style of beer they choose.  The wealth of brewing information that has been generated over the last 25 years is unprecedented and accessible to our brewers, and is generously shared among them.  There really is no reason a particular beer or style can’t be brewed by a local brewery.  And, according to the Brewers Association, the average American lives within 10 miles of a brewery. So, the next time you are at your local liquor store or favorite bar or restaurant, consider the “beer miles” in your glass.  We all like to try the next best thing and I’m not curmudgeonly enough to suggest you shouldn’t.  But when it comes to regular purchases I think the environment and the detrimental effect of transport time should be an integral part of your decision.  That way your beer is fresh, your local brewery is prosperous, your dollars stay more with your neighbors and yet another supply chain is shortened. Here’s to local, fresh, craft beer! Phil Bannatyne, Owner, Cambridge Brewing Company Thanks and a tip of the hat to brewer, friend and beer writer Horst Dornbusch for the majority of the research used for the figures above! 2012-02-27T18:47:29+00:00 http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/2012-barleywine-festival/ http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/2012-barleywine-festival/#When:22:02:21Z Barleywine Fest is coming up in just 2 weeks! January 26th 2012, 5PM Here it is in a nutshell: Brewmaster Will Meyers has gone deep into the CBC barrel cellar to put together a killer list of Barleywines – a whole bunch of different vintages and expressions of our Blunderbuss Barleywine, Arquebus Barleywine - plus we’ve got a tapas menu by CBC Chef David Drew to pair with ‘em. Will and Dave are still putting together the final touches on the menus. I’ll post the full beer list and tapas menu as soon as I’ve got it. Tables for the evening will be available on a first come, first serve basis – we will not be taking any reservations. So come early and stake out your space. There is NO cover for this event NO tickets needed. The full CBC dinner menu will be available and all of the tapas items will be available a la carte. CBC Annual Barleywine Festival Thursday, January 26th 2012 Taps open at 5PM Cheers, Chris CBC: Fresh Beer, Local Food, Proudly Independent 2012-01-12T22:02:21+00:00 http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/cbc-holiday-hours/ http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/cbc-holiday-hours/#When:21:33:58Z Here’s a heads up on our holiday hours: Sunday, December 18th – CBC will be open for Brunch from 11:00am – 3:00pm. Last Call will Be at 4:00pm. We’ll be closed at night for our CBC staff holiday party (Hey, come on, we’ve gotta have a chance to kick back a few pints too!) Saturday, December 24th – Closed Sunday, December 25th – Closed Saturday, December 31st – Regular Hours – Lunch 11:30am to 4:00pm/Dinner 4:00pm to 11:00pm, last call at bartender’s discretion. Sunday, January 1st – Regular Hours – Brunch 11:00am to 4:00pm/Dinner 4:00pm to 10:00pm We’re cooking up something special for a New Year’s Day Brunch – I’ll keep you posted. 2011-12-07T21:33:58+00:00 http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/bog-blog/ http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/bog-blog/#When:21:09:50Z Where our intrepid brewers go a-foraging for some mystical brewing herbs. Plus, Bog People!BOG BLOG There’s a secret spot just a few miles outside Cambridge. You can’t see it from the winding road, though you can often hear the muffled sound of cars going by, or the voices of the lycra-clad bicyclists pedaling through. Even if you could see it clearly from the road, it’s still not a spot you’d likely be willing to descend into. It’s swampy and wet and full of brush and bushes and way too much skunk cabbage. Almost impassable. The thing about bogs, though, is that once you pull on your Wellies and start mucking about, you find that they’re very cool places. Space opens up and you can make out walkable, drier areas (or at least spots where one doesn’t sink deeper than the tops of one’s Wellies).* * Please note that none of these pictures are actually of my bog, they’re just assorted pictures from other bogs which I’ve appropriated. I wouldn’t want to give away its secret location, you know? Not only is bog a fun word to say, people have been doing fun and weird things in bogs for a long time. Take, for example, bog snorkelling. This is a strange pastime taken up by strange people which involves digging a watery trench in a muddy peat bog, and then swimming the length of it, often competitively. Note that no bog snorkelling in my little bog has taken place to my knowledge.       A more macabre experience can be had in one’s bog, if one if sufficiently unlucky enough to come across a bog body. These are naturally preserved human corpses, found in sphagnum bogs in Northern Europe. Their skin and internal organs are naturally preserved due to acidic water, cold temperatures, and lack of oxygen. The bones, frightfully, are sometimes dissolved leaving a perfectly preserved, if somewhat leathery, dead person.   I’m quite thankful that I have yet to turn up any bog people. No sphagnum in my bog. Whew! Back to the bog, though, and if you’ve persisted in reading what is to date my strangest blog post we’ll finally get to the part about beer! With some perspective and imagination, you can put yourself in the Wellies of brewers hundreds, even thousands of years ago. It was in wetlands throughout the Northern Hemisphere that brewers would, when not snorkeling or engaging in human sacrifice and aquatic burial practices, forage for herbs to use in the production of beer. This is long before the hop plant became the dominant herb used in beer brewing. Beer was flavored with a wide variety of plants which not only complemented the flavors of malted grains and perhaps covered up wild fermentation characteristics, but these herbs were known medicinally as being bacteriostatic. In other words, they’d help keep the beer from spoiling. Herbs such as Myrica gale(sweet gale), Ledum palustre(wild lavender), and Achillea millefolium (yarrow) made up a commonly-used mixture known as gruit which was used to add the above-mentioned bitterness and flavor and “keeping power” to beer. They were found in the woods, by the roadside, and quite commonly in wetland areas. Myrica gale in particular, hence its more common name of bog myrtle. Which brings us back into my little secret spot, my own private bog. It’s here, on property owned by a good friend, that I’ve reclaimed some of the wetlands that’ve been overrun by invasive species and instead planted some indigenous herbs suitable for brewing. Sweet gale (aka Bog myrtle), Labrador tea, wild rosemary, and on the drier spots some yarrow and a few heather plants. When I first strolled, er, mucked my way through the bog, I found it was overrun with Symplocarpus foetidus. Boy is that skunk cabbage aptly named. I’m not taking responsibility for that stuff. Stinky. While this private bog won’t produce quite enough of these and other herbs to make CBC completely self-sufficient in the production of herbs for our gruit beers (like Weekapaug Gruit and our famous Heather Ale), they go a long way. The rest I still need to forage for elsewhere or purchase from herb suppliers around the U.S. This past summer I was paid a visit by Lina Winge, a photojournalist from Norway who wanted to shoot at CBC. When I told her that we were headed not into the brewery that day, but out into a bog to pick leaves, she happily agreed to come along. My kind of girl. Accompanied by her beau, Barrett, and former CBC Lead Brewster Megan Parisi, we booted up and then waded and wobbled our way off the road and into the bog, hopping from toadstool to toadstool until we reached the small clearing where the sweet gale/bog myrtle plants were. They’d done magnificently, bushing out and growing to four or five feet tall. You should have seen the small, scraggly things when, two years earlier, I’d pulled them from their little one-gallon buckets of dirt and plonked them into the bog. I’m so proud of them! Many hours and only a few blisters later we had bucket after bucket of fresh sweet gale, but this mild herb really shines only after it’s been dried. It can be characterized as having a mild spiciness with an underlying eucalyptus note, not dissimilar to that of bayberry (to which it is a cousin, I believe). Upon our return to CBC and a brief lunch, we set about figuring out how to dry it all. We came up with - a very large cardboard box. Several head scratches later we also came up with a few square meters of nylon mesh, some packing tape, and a box fan. It’s amazing what you can accomplish with the simplest of ingredients. Blowing the fan into one end of the box, which was rotated multiple times over two days, gave us sufficient airflow to dry the leaves and avoid them getting moldy. All told, four people toiling for the better part of a day in a muddy bog yielded barely over two pounds of dried sweet gale. It also yielded a significant perspective into the efforts required by brewers in past centuries, and hopefully dear reader will further your appreciation as well. Once gathered, the herbs are added to the boiling wort in the brewkettle, much like any hop addition to contribute bitterness, flavor, and aroma to the finished beer. Sometime this winter we’ll be brewing our next batch of Weekapaug Gruit, which will utilize all of this sweet gale plus Labrador tea, wild licorice and marshmallow, sweet flag, and yarrow. In the summertime, after yet another foraging trip, we’ll brew and release our award-winning Heather Ale. These beers will be available on draft at CBC and in 22oz bottles around Massachusetts in 2012 as a part of our new CBC Bottling Project (ah, there’s a good topic for another blog entry!). Thanks for reading. Cheers! ~Will 2011-12-07T21:09:50+00:00 http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/preserving-the-local-flavor/ http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/preserving-the-local-flavor/#When:00:24:18Z This week, I asked my Sous Chef Nick Gardner to check in with the latest news of the kitchen.  It takes a mean engine to turn the wheels here at CBC and I got a badass diesel back there.  I certainly can’t do it alone and Nick helps lead the charge day in and day out: It’s an exciting time for food in New England, and the CBC kitchen is no exception.  All of the fun flavors of fall and winter are upon us and that means more delicious food for all of you who visit the CBC.  Along with all of the expected additions of local squashes, dark braising greens and hearty fare to the menu, there is also the added bonus of our recent jarring program. Typically, winter is a time for things to hide away for a few months of hibernation only to be revealed in the spring.  However, here at the CBC we’ve been carefully storing away all sorts of local fruit and vegetables all summer from some of our favorite farms.  Pickles, preserves, jams and jellies, all have been made with love and appreciation for the hard work our farmers have put into growing these delicious gems.  Now, after months of resting, it’s time to break them out.  Look for these unique treats on our cheese boards, charcuterie displays, and even on our increasingly popular Beerunch menu.  Patience is a virtue, and Chef Drew is ready to reward those who’ve been waiting anxiously as we have fun with these fun and tasty treats. 2011-11-23T00:24:18+00:00 http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/the-great-pumpkin-festival-2011.-whew/ http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/the-great-pumpkin-festival-2011.-whew/#When:20:02:34Z Thanks to everyone who braved the bizarre October weather and attended the 4th Annual Great Pumpkin Festival! We poured 42 pumpkin beers (including the Great Pumpkin) over 3 different bars to a packed but well-behaved crowd of characters. Hundreds of amazing costumes (though some were a little wet) showed the effort and excitement of our revelers. Nearly 800 bratwursts were grilled on the patio kitchen, not to mention all the killer grilled beer-brined chicken sandwiches w/pumpkin hot sauce (my personal favorite). Inside the restaurant, Chef Dave kept the beautiful plates coming with Pumpkin Hushpuppies, Buckwheat Pumpkin Ale Spaetzle, Braised Pork Belly, and Fried Pumpkin Pie. Beers from all over the country were enjoyed, with Seattle’s pumpkin-powerhouse Elysian showcasing three unique beers, Scandinavia representing with Norway’s Nogne-O and their first pumpkin ale, and perennial favorites like locals Martha’s Exchange PumpkinWeizen, Watch City‘s Pie-Eyed, and Wormtown‘s Pumpkin Ale. From farther afield we were super-psyched to have offered Stone‘s collaboration pumpkin beer which nobody could pronounce (their first pumpkin beer ever!), our friends from Iron Hill with Punktoberfest and Ichabod, and Avery‘s Rumpkin which was over-the-top awesome in true Avery fashion. The limited releases like Sixpoint‘s Autumnation, Jolly Pumpkin‘s La Parcela, and Silver City‘s Punk Rauchen were all hits, with Allagash‘s Ghouleschip (tapped promptly at 8pm) being the last beer tapped before the appearance of the Great Pumpkin. The spectacle of the Great Pumpkin Processional was truly something to behold! Just before 10pm the lights dimmed and the sounds of party music were replaced by the eerie quiet of Gregorian chanting. A robed apparition appeared at the CBC brewkettle, and conjured forth a supernatural fog which drew the crowd (nearly) silent. Then, just as the bell tolled ten o’clock and the room was filled with an effluvial haze, the Order of the Monks of the Great Pumpkin appeared, in brown robes and pumpkin heads. The leader of the group rang his bell – a spooky call to worship – and he was followed by three more monks who led the Great Pumpkin itself in a procession through the restaurant, out the front door, and across the beer garden which was itself enveloped in fog. To the whoops of our costumed attendees the Great Pumpkin was ceremoniously tapped by these monks, and beery goodness flowed forth into cups passed out and shared by all of our rapturous and somewhat bewildered guests. This year’s Great Pumpkin tipped the scales at nearly 310 pounds**, and it was a beautiful sight to behold. It took nearly an hour to drain it completely, despite the tap being open on a full pour the entire time. By the end of the night the vast majority of our guest beers were gone, our guests had departed, and the CBC staff, exhausted after a ridiculously long day, cleaned up and readied CBC for Beerunch service Sunday morning. Of course, we’ll be finding little bits of beer tickets and hay and pumpkin seeds for some time, but we’re mostly back to order. We have odds and ends of some remaining guest beers, which we’ll be pouring on a special guest tap through the week. Starting with Stone’s La Citrueille Celeste de Citricado (see, I told you it was unpronounceable), followed by a little Smuttynose Pumpkin, and on to beers like Elysian’s Coche de Medianoche (an awesome Mexican-spiced pumpkin ale) and Kurbitinus dunklehefeweizenbock, Dogfish Head Punkin, and others. Stay tuned or just come in for a less-crowded glass or two. Thanks for attending CBC’s 4th Annual Great Pumpkin Festival! Thanks for supporting great craft beer from all over, local food and local farmers, and local nonprofits as well (we raised $2,180.00 for the Kendall Community Group!). We want to hear your feedback, comments positively gushing and constructively critical, anything that might help us make next year’s event even bigger and even better. Drop us a line via email (http://cambridgebrewing.com/about/contact/ ) or post words of praise on our Facebook page (we love praise!). We’ll see you all again soooooon! Thanks and Cheers, Will, Phil, Chris, Laura, Dave, and the entire Team CBC! ** An appropriately HUGE thank you to our friend Woody Lancaster of Topsfield, MA, who once again outdid himself and grew for us the biggest and most beautiful Great Pumpkin we’d ever seen - and subsequently filled with beer! Thanks, Woody!   2011-10-31T20:02:34+00:00 http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/top-10-most-frequently-asked-questions-about-pumpkin-fest-2011/ http://cambridgebrewing.com/blog/details/top-10-most-frequently-asked-questions-about-pumpkin-fest-2011/#When:20:48:03Z 1. When is The CBC Great Pumpkin Ale Festival? What time does it start? Wow. I can’t believe it’s P-Fest time already! This year The CBC Great Pumpkin Ale Festival is on Saturday, October 29th. Doors open at 1:00pm. Last call is at about 12:30am. We kick your butt out around 1:00am (gently, but assertively…). People will be coming and going all day. You do not need to be here at 1pm. 2. How much is to Pumpkin Fest? Admission is $10 – payable in cash ONLY (Credit cards will be accepted inside for beer and food) 3. What do I get for my 10 bucks? You get admission to THE original New England Area Pumpkin Fest, the Biggest & Best Pumpkin Festival around and of course the most badass Halloween event in the Boston area. You also of course get a special edition Festival Glass which you will use throughout the evening to sample some, many or all of the 40 pumpkin ales we will have on tap.  You also get the ‘festival guide’ detailing the 40 pumpkin brews. And a portion of proceeds will also go to Kendall Community Group (KCG). The KCG was founded in 1987 by corporations in the Kendall Square area as a way to support the three major youth service agencies in the Area IV neighborhood, namely the Community Art Center, the Margaret Fuller Neighborhood House, and Tutoring Plus. Think about: Halloween Shenanigans and Halloween Debauchery is actually GOOD for the community! 4. Are there advanced tickets available? How do I get tickets? There are NO advanced sales available. Admission is $10 at the door. We are opening 3 hours earlier this year to help cut back on the initial long line to get in. Doors open at 1:00pm. 5. I’ve been hearing about this “pumpkin festival” for the last few years. What the heck is it? Basically we take our restaurant and turn it into a Halloween Spectacle and a Pumpkin Ale extravaganza. We decorate the hell out of the place, set up a beer garden on our patio, a dozen or so pouring stations in our rear dining room, another 15+ beers on the main bar – 40 Pumpkin Brews in all, from far and near – pumpkin pub fare in the main dining room and “Oktoberfesty” fare on the patio. And of course hundreds of freaky beer fans decked out in their Halloween best. It is quite a scene indeed! 6. Do I have to wear a costume? You do not need to wear a costume to party at Pumpkin Fest 2011. However, we can’t guarantee that you won’t be teased, harassed, mocked or other wise shunned ; - ) 7. Will there be food available? Yes. There will be limited seating available in our main dining room where we will be serving pumpkin inspired pub friendly (and local and all natural, too!) fare. Check out the menu here. Outside on our patio we will have a double wide grill serving “Oktoberfesty” fare. Check out the menu here. 8. Can I bring my kids? This is a 21+ event. However children will be allowed in from 1:00pm to 5:00pm as long as they are accompanied by a parent or guardian. After 5:00 it’s 21+. 9. I’ve heard about how popular Pumpkin Festival is – Will I have to wait half an hour to get a beer? Absolutely not. We will have 3 different bars – The main bar, the beer garden and the rear dining room pouring stations. Drink tickets will be used to purchase all beers, beverages and grill fare. Tickets eliminate bar tenders counting money, making change, etc. this really speeds up the process. So you wait very little to get a beer. Drink tickets can be purchased at one of the 2 tickets stands where there is typically a very short & fast moving line. Our mission is to get a beer in YOUR hand as fast as possible. We will have literally like 12 or 13 bar tenders on that night – normally we have 1 or 2 tops. 10. Should I bring cash or can I use my card? You should bring $10 in CASH for admission – admission is cash only.  After that, you’ll need drink tickets to get your brews. There will be two ticket stations. 1 will be taking cards. Cards will also be accepted for table service in our main dining room. 11. Will you be serving bud, bud light or bud pumpkin? You’re uninvited ; - ) Next question… 2011-10-20T20:48:03+00:00