Written by Josh Stewart, Brewer & Director of Safety
What happens when you give a team full of brewing experience, knowledge, love, and full individual autonomy on making beers, a kick ass year of employee beer series releases!
Perrin’s Director of Brewing, John Stewart, has given each production team member a certain month of the year to come up with a beer style, recipe and name for their beer. The results have been and will be completely original and exciting. Study after study shows the positive effect that autonomy has at the jobsite and I truly believe you will see those effects in these beers!
The very first brewer’s choice beer was actually done in December on 2015, with our Quality Control expert Bryan “Boomer” Bastow. Boomer brewed “The Bock Never Stopped” a Helles Bock made with Michigan Zuper Saaz hops from Hophead Farms. This brew has notes of spicy hops, caramel, and toffee malt character. This beer finishes super clean, allowing you to never stop drinking the Bock.
For the month of January, our Cellar Manager Justin Stewart, embodied manifest destiny and created a Southwestern style red ale named “Remember the Ale-amo”. This ale highlights mesquite smoked malt, beans to add a wonderfully complex and truly unique mouthfeel. And to top it all off, a subtle dry hopping of chipotle and ancho peppers marry the whole experience.
February offers Adam LeClaire’s unique view on a non-alcoholic root beer. With all of these alcoholic root beers that have come out, sold like crazy and then completely died like a shark in the desert, Adam thought it would be nice to get back to root beers foundation and produce a truly bad ass non-alcoholic version that will benefit all ages. I bet it will be your favorite!
March, Bill VanEenamaam’s Octuple IPA, a HUGE ASS IPA with a full body and a ton of hops. You can learn more about Bill in a previous brewer’s blog. The Flying Dutchmen is as crazy as they say, and this beer is going to be insane. This one is definitely for uniting hopheads. April, Josh Stewart’s QStew Light European style lager. QStew is being brought back as a different rendition, no longer the best pale ale on the face of the planet but instead a very light traditional German style lager dried hopped with some very non-German experimental FRUITY hops.
And that is enough of a sneak peek! Well maybe one last hint, nothing is out of bounds- barrel aging, souring, honeybee sex juices (aka honey), etc. You can see by just the first 5 months the diversity in the styles and varieties of the beers being brewed. I know every production team member’s special abilities and epic ideas, and let me tell you that you will not see one average, mainstream, boring beer come out of Perrin Brewing’s Brewer’s Choice beer series.
So let the suspense grow, the taste buds water, the neurons connect and your legs walk right into Perrin Brewing Company to enjoy each and every one of these Brewers’ Choice Beers!