Friday, December 14, 2012

Little Ol' Us at The Raleigh Rare Beer Festival!

Haw River Farmhouse Ales has been lucky enough to be invited to pour at the Raleigh Rare Beer Festival in Raleigh on January 26th, one of only two breweries-in-planning* (or maybe three, depending on whether our friends at Trophy Brewing get their doors open before the 26th), alongside some of the biggest names in craft brewing from around the state and the country.


To say we're both incredibly humbled and a bit anxious would be a slight understatement. The fact is that pretty much everything we could possibly pour could be classified by some as "rare beer", since you can't really get any of it anywhere until we open our doors next year. So in an effort to not be "those lame guys that think they can hang with the Big Boys & Girls", we put on our thinking caps and have put together a lineup of "alternate versions" of some of the recipes we're planning that we hope you'll enjoy. Here's what's on deck at this point:

  • A bourbon-barrel aged version of our Flanders Red on Cherries, aged for a year in a Heaven Hill barrel we acquired early last year and nestled safely into a corner in our third bedroom on top of 50 pounds of Michigan-grown Balaton Tart cherries.
     
  • A "breakfast" version of our Belgian-style Dubbel, brewed with a couple pounds of flaked organic oats and finished with roasted organic cocoa nibs and freshly ground Sumatra & Tanzania Peaberry coffee beans.
     
  • A sour version of Hiverna, our Winter Harvest Saison, brewed with pumpkin, butternut squash and sweet potatoes and specially aged on Brettanomyces, Lactobacillous, and a handful of French oak chips.
     
  • A 100% Brettanomyces Brux Trois version of our Cotton Pickin' Farmhouse IPA, dry-hopped with big fancy American hops like Citra, Amarillo & Simcoe.

We're also planning to bring a few surprises, including a few growlers of test batches of Communal, our ~3.2%ABV Table Beer, and perhaps some very limited samples of the results of our wild yeast collection experiments. We'll make a few last minute calls on whatever "extras" we have in tow for the day.


So as of today (December 14th), there still appear to be general admission tickets available, so make sure you reserve your spot now if you want to be there—it's pretty much guaranteed to sell out at some point! By the way, the festival is also a fundraiser for Pints for Prostates, so a portion of your ticket price goes to a great cause. We'll see you there! 

* By the way, the other brewery-in-planning is Quest Brewing out of South Carolina, who, based on what we've heard about what they have planned, we're really excited about. Check them out on Facebook and Twitter, if you're so inclined.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Home, Sweet Home...

After almost two years of relentless searching and several months of inspections, discussions, and nail-biting, Haw River Farmhouse Ales has found its new home!

Haw River Farmhouse Ales is proud to be the newest member of
the Saxapahaw business community. Can't wait to open in 2013!

(click this image to take a little closer look...)

Just last week, we signed a three year lease on the space that will become Haw River Farmhouse Ales in 2013, smack dab in the middle of our hometown of Saxapahaw, NC. Our new 3000 sqft+ home is located in the old Dye House building directly below The Eddy Pub, and just alongside The Haw River Ballroom, the Saxapahaw General Store and a number of other great neighbors. The majestic Haw River itself tumbles by just two hundred feet south from what will become our little outdoor seating area.

The recently restored building is an admirable testament to our hopes and plans with the brewery buildout and operation—it's geothermally heated, has solar arrays atop the roof, and is itself a reclaimed existing structure that utilizes found objects from the old mill as a number of its structural components. To say we're really excited about our location is a rather dramatic understatement—we cannot wait to show each and every one of you what we have planned for this space.

So stay tuned, everyone! We've got some really awesome ideas for the experience we know you'll love, and as we move forward designing the space and building out the brewery, we'll make sure to post photos, videos, updates and more, to help keep you in the loop and let you know how things are progressing! We're working hard to get beer in your glasses as soon as we can!! Please let us know if you'd like to come out to take a look in person or if you ever find yourself in Saxapahaw. We're always happy to have you swing by to say hello!