Jack's Abby Brewing

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Regarding possibly brewing a beer called Grumponius Union, someone asked in the other thread;

Eric, can we get a Talk Beer shout out on the label?

Also, any idea if you plan on distributing to any new states soon, particularly NH?
 
Kiwi Rising comes out in November. We brew it as soon as we get our hands on our allotment of New Zealand hops.


Thanks, wasnt sure if it was in regular rotation as you guys just recently srated getting dirsto'd in this area. Thanks for doing the AMA! So cool to see all the industry insiders and brewers that participate in these things.
 
This month we increased our capacity by about 40% so we are in a position that we are considering a new state. No set plans yet.
Maine! Let it be Maine!

Seriously though, between you guys and Bissel Bros, a certain brewery in Freeport would probably start shitting their pants.
 
Or you can expand in a current state (NYCNYCNYC)

My brothers and I grew up in Westchester, most of our family is still there, and I lived in the city for several years, and yet those are the parts of NY we are not in yet. We constantly have our eye on NYC, it is a matter of capacity. If we are going to go into a market we want to be able meet demand and not constantly run out of stock. Unfortunately, it is not going to be possible in the near future, but it is a priority for us.
 
My brothers and I grew up in Westchester and I lived in the city for several years, and yet those are the parts of NY we are not in yet. We constantly have our eye on NYC, it is a matter of capacity. If we are going to go into a market we want to be able meet demand and not constantly run out of stock. Unfortunately, it is not going to be possible in the near future, but it is a priority for us.

So you're telling me the Mass Rising I bought at DeCicco's the other day may be horribly out of date? Womp womp
 
So you're telling me the Mass Rising I bought at DeCicco's the other day may be horribly out of date? Womp womp

Brewster is in our distribution. We do the entire state except for Long Island, Westchester and NYC.

Though in NY it is legal for package stores to re-distribute beer so we have found that some locations in our distribution zone are bringing beer into Westchester. If you find our beer outside our distribution zone it is likely still fresh, but is probably marked up a second time at retail.
 
How do you brew with peanut butter? PB2? Any plans to brew more things with peanut butter/send those things out to distribution?
 
How do you brew with peanut butter? PB2? Any plans to brew more things with peanut butter/send those things out to distribution?

We attempted with PB2 but it did not add the desired flavor so we added straight all natural peanut butter to the barrels. We do not have any plans for when we will use peanut butter again, but we will at some point.
 
Will Berliner Brau see distribution or will it be like Sour Time Lager and brewery release only? You guys wanna come party at my place in Western Mass, seeing as Cameron won't?
 
Will Berliner Brau see distribution or will it be like Sour Time Lager and brewery release only? You guys wanna come party at my place in Western Mass, seeing as Cameron won't?

Berliner Braun is a beer that we designed to be aged in boubon barrels. We released a small amount of the unaged version, which was brewery only. For the barrel aged version we added tart cherries and it will be ready around May. This version will be distributed.
 
hoponius union was the first hoppy lager i ever had, why do you think a lot of craft breweries don't tackle lagers in general? did it take you guys a while to come up with something that was up to your standards for that style?
 
Being out of distro, I haven't had many of your beers. Though the few I've had (a couple framinghammer variations) have been fantastic. Keep up the good work. Look forward to trying more offerings in the near future.
 
hoponius union was the first hoppy lager i ever had, why do you think a lot of craft breweries don't tackle lagers in general? did it take you guys a while to come up with something that was up to your standards for that style?

I think that there are two main reasons that most breweries do not tackle lagers.

1) Infrastructure: Since lagers take twice as long to make as ales we need two tanks for every one that an ale brewery would need. If we switched to all ales tomorrow we could double our output without changing anything else. This has reverberations throughout the business, as more tanks require more space, more cooling capacity, longer turnaround after paying for ingredients before you have beer you can sell. If you are not making a cheap adjunct lager there is a ton of economical motivation to brew ales.

2) Preconceptions of lagers: There is an incredible educational factor that we have to deal with when selling our beer. A typical new visitor to the brewery will tell us "I don't like lagers." The american drinker has been trained that "lager" means light fizzy flavorless beer(not that there is anything wrong with that), and its a challenge to educate consumers about the beers we are brewing.

As how we came up with our styles, the biggest advantage of the lager brewing process is the ability to start with a blank slate. Most ale strains create very unique flavor characteristics and your forced to then plan your beer around it. It becomes very easy to highlight flavors when using a lager fermentation. We find that hop, malt, spice etc flavors come through cleaner and crisper and are more representative out their distinctive flavors and aromas.

This means that as long as know our ingredients we can have a very good idea of the end result. We do not do any test batches, we go straight from idea to full production.
 
You guys are one of the few breweries that, as far as I can tell, don't make any bad beer. So keep that up! My actual question is what made you decide to do only lagers? It's pretty different, are there any particular challenges in making those hoppy lagers?

Early in planning the brewery my brothers and I sat down and came up with a list of styles of beer we wanted to brew, and a lot of them happened to be lagers. This was driven by preference and because we felt there was a serious lack of unique craft lagers. We always knew that we shouldn't try to compete directly with the American macro lager or German import lager and planned to make these flagships uniquely American.

We originally had plans to brew ales in addition to our flagship lagers, but when we opened, we quickly realized that it would be nearly impossible keeping two yeast strains viable when we were brewing only one time a week initially. Even with only our lager yeast strain we still wanted to offer a very hoppy beer. We rolled the dice and brewed an IPL, Hoponius Union, and since the day it was released it was our best seller. We realized at that point that we had to completely erase all our preconceived notions about what lager brewing was and it was time to rethink how we could move forward brewing unique lager variations.
 
Were there any established breweries that were especially helpful to you guys when you were in the planning and opening of the brewery?
 
Any breweries, Mass and/ or Nationwide, that you would love to work with in a collaboration?

We have had a great time doing the two collaborations we have done so far, there will certainly be more. We were supposed to do one with DC Brau but we had to cancel at the last minute because of the timing did not work out. We are in the early stages of another collaboration, but not ready to announce anything yet as nothing has been set.
 
Were there any established breweries that were especially helpful to you guys when you were in the planning and opening of the brewery?

We received some level of support from most of the local brewers. The largest issue, which is still ongoing, is getting hops. Most of the local breweries trade hops pretty frequently to help each other out.
 
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Sour Time is coming back, along with new sours. The lighter colored barrels on the right are all red wine barrels. We have several different souring projects going on in them. They were filled this past fall and will not be ready until at least this fall. Over the summer we will be adding fresh fruit to many of the barrels.

On the right are bourbon barrels. Most of them were used for Framinghammer and now have new projects in them. Some of them have our Berliner Braun, a dark sourmash lager, that is aging with tart cherries. This beer will probably be ready around May.
 
Brewster is in our distribution. We do the entire state except for Long Island, Westchester and NYC.

Though in NY it is legal for package stores to re-distribute beer so we have found that some locations in our distribution zone are bringing beer into Westchester. If you find our beer outside our distribution zone it is likely still fresh, but is probably marked up a second time at retail.

i know a few spots on LI that occassionally get some jack's abby. never lasts long. really love your beer. keep up the great work! love the 12oz and bigger bottle options.

edit: also, this is such a great AMA. thanks to whomever thought of this one.
 
When I first was passed a "lager wine" at a bottle share, I cringed. Poured it and took a sip... Amazing. Keep up the good work. I'm a fan of everything I've tried.
I agree so much with this... I remember about a year or so ago getting my first "good" lager handed to me from J.A. at a bottle share my expectation were very low. Then I actually drank the beer and I've beena believer ever since. Love JA and everything they do!
 
Any tips for brewing lagers at home?

Water Profile/Fermenting under pressure/ect ect

Big fan.

The hardest part of brewing lagers at home is keeping a consistent
temperature. You can rig an old refridgerator with a temperature
controller to help minimize this issue.

Water Profile/Fermenting under pressure/ect ect
We don't ferment under pressure and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.
There are some real safety issues and very little upside to this
method.

The water profile really depends on the style of beer you want to
make. Soft water like in Pilzen typically works well for golden lagers
but other great lager brewing cities have varying water profiles. We
still like using Calcium sulfate for our hoppier lagers.
 
jacksabbybrewing

Can't wait till Saturday!! - Is the peanut butter framinghammer listed the PbJ version? Why are all the events around here a complete disappointment when the tap list comes out while yours is the total opposite? I have to start planning my attack.

Join us on Saturday May 17th for an unbelievable total tap takeover with Jack's Abby Brewing from Framingham Massachusetts! The owner/brewer will be at this event so don't miss it! We have the draft list for that day.

Jack's Abby Jabby Brau
Jack's Abby Hoponius Union
Jack's Abby Smoke & Dagger
Jack's Abby Smoke & Dagger Nitro
Jack's Abby Coffee Smoke & Dagger
Jack's Abby Smores & Dagger
Jack's Abby Mass Rising
Jack's Abby Sunny Ridge Pilsner
Jack's Abby Sunny Ridge Pilsner
Jack's Abby Leisure Time
Jack's Abby Saxonator Dopplebock
Jack's Abby Smoked Marzen
Jack's Abby Cascadian Schwarzbier
Jack's Abby Maibock Hurts Like Helles
Jack's Abby Hopstitution - Calyptra
Jack's Abby Session Rye IPL
Jack's Abby Jack's Evil Twin - Evil Twin Collab.
Jack's Abby Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Jack's Abby Coffee Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Jack's Abby Vanilla Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Jack's Abby Cocoa-Nut Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Jack's Abby Chipotle Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Jack's Abby Peanut Butter Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Jack's Abby Barrel Aged Saxonator
Jack's Abby Berliner Braun
Jack's Abby Cherrry Berliner Braun
Jack's Abby Boston Steam Pie
Jack's Abby Chupaca Brau
Jack's Abby Green Goose
Jack's Abby Sunny & Tonic
Jack's Abby 2013 Framinghammer
Firkin1: Hoponius Dry Hopped
 
jacksabbybrewing

Can't wait till Saturday!! - Is the peanut butter framinghammer listed the PbJ version? Why are all the events around here a complete disappointment when the tap list comes out while yours is the total opposite? I have to start planning my attack.

Join us on Saturday May 17th for an unbelievable total tap takeover with Jack's Abby Brewing from Framingham Massachusetts! The owner/brewer will be at this event so don't miss it! We have the draft list for that day.

Jack's Abby Jabby Brau
Jack's Abby Hoponius Union
Jack's Abby Smoke & Dagger
Jack's Abby Smoke & Dagger Nitro
Jack's Abby Coffee Smoke & Dagger
Jack's Abby Smores & Dagger
Jack's Abby Mass Rising
Jack's Abby Sunny Ridge Pilsner
Jack's Abby Sunny Ridge Pilsner
Jack's Abby Leisure Time
Jack's Abby Saxonator Dopplebock
Jack's Abby Smoked Marzen
Jack's Abby Cascadian Schwarzbier
Jack's Abby Maibock Hurts Like Helles
Jack's Abby Hopstitution - Calyptra
Jack's Abby Session Rye IPL
Jack's Abby Jack's Evil Twin - Evil Twin Collab.
Jack's Abby Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Jack's Abby Coffee Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Jack's Abby Vanilla Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Jack's Abby Cocoa-Nut Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Jack's Abby Chipotle Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Jack's Abby Peanut Butter Barrel Aged Framinghammer
Jack's Abby Barrel Aged Saxonator
Jack's Abby Berliner Braun
Jack's Abby Cherrry Berliner Braun
Jack's Abby Boston Steam Pie
Jack's Abby Chupaca Brau
Jack's Abby Green Goose
Jack's Abby Sunny & Tonic
Jack's Abby 2013 Framinghammer
Firkin1: Hoponius Dry Hopped
Where is that? That is nuts
 
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