DuClaw Brewing Company

Our H.E.R.O. home brewing competition has come to an end and we have a winner!  We drank A LOT of delicious homebrews to find this year’s H.E.R.O., and while every entry had something unique to offer, one definitely stood out. Without further ado, ladies and gentleman, your 2012 top four H.E.R.O.s:

4TH PLACE, JALEPENO WHEAT, brewed by Cody Gabbard and Peter Jones of Arlington, VA.

3RD PLACE, BELGIAN IPA, brewed by Jason and Theresa Hage of Owings Mills, MD.

2ND PLACE, S’MORES PORTER, brewed by Keith Hipsley of Fallston, MD.

1ST PLACE, CHOCOLATE CHIPOTLE STOUT, brewed by Vincent and Suzanne Powers of Nottingham, MD. This silky-bodied stout boasts a spicy, chipotle pepper bite perfectly balanced by smooth, sweet chocolate for one unique, very drinkable beer. Congratulations, Powerses, you’ve earned it!

Vincent and Suzanne’s winning brew will be produced by our brewery and distributed in kegs and a limited run of 22oz bottles, available everywhere that our beer is sold. And, just like last year, we are donating EVERY SINGLE PENNY from the sale of H.E.R.O. Chocolate Chipotle Stout to charity.

That’s where all of you come in. Email us at hero@duclaw.com with the story of an organization or individual in need of a hero by June 30th and we will choose one of these submitted causes to receive ALL of the proceeds from this promotion.

Keep those suggestions coming, and watch this blog for updates.

Cheers!

Dave

Judging for the 2012 H.E.R.O. home brewing competition has come to an end. Our panel of experts drank each and every entry, risking life and liver to find this year’s winner (to be announced Monday May 14th). The winning beer will be produced and distrubuted by our brewery, including a limited run of 22oz bottles sold in liquor stores. And, like last year, EVERY SINGLE PENNY that we make from the sale of H.E.R.O. will be donated to charity.

That’s where all of you come in. All you have to do is point us in the right direction. Email us at hero@duclaw.com the story of an organization or individual in need of a hero by June 30th and we will choose one of these submitted causes to receive ALL of the proceeds from this promotion.

We started this competition for the dual purpose of giving aspiring brewmasters a way to earn recognition for their craft, and as a way to give back to our community. Our mission is accomplished. Now it’s your turn.

“To be a hero is to live your life in a small cell whose bars are the principles and rules that define what you will and won’t accept. Misfortune, suffering, hopelessness. If I am privileged enough to live in that cell, to serve in that box with the word HERO written on it…then I say to you, from somewhere deep inside that box, what are you doing out there?” S.

Cheers!

Dave

Mysterium, our Belgian Spiced Ale (spiced with Cardamom, Grains of Paradise and Chamomile), is hitting retailer shelves as I type this.  Check the link out for a little more detail here . It will be in Maryland this week, and should be in Northern Virginia and DC by the end of May.

Mysterium makes a damn good summer drinking beer. It has a strong spiced nose, but finishes surprisingly refreshing considering the flavor pop from the spices. And, I am happy to announce that this beer will be available all year round.  So, find some and enjoy!

Cheers,

Dave

ps – Today will be end of the 1st round of tasting for our H.E.R.O. contest.  It has been a pretty cool time, and we have had fun tasting so many good beers.  Our goal is to narrow it down to 10 beers going into the 2nd round, which has been surprisingly tough.  Every brewer who entered should be proud, there were some tasty beers!

Today, our lives turn upside down as we begin a project that will have us toiling away for many hours, many days, and a few weeks. It will push us to the limits of human endurance. Maybe even break a few of us along the way.

Don’t pity us. We chose this life. We volunteered and now we must make the ultimate sacrifice by… tasting all of the entries for this year’s H.E.R.O. Homebrew Competition! Yes, it is a savage task, tasting and judging hundreds of amazing homebrews from around the state. But it’s got to be done. For the good of mankind.

So while you’re at your “normal” job today, safe from the dangers of too much delicious homebrew, find a quiet moment, look toward Abingdon, and whisper, “Thank you, DuClaw Brewing Company”. Because we do all of this for you.

Seriously, though, thank you to all of the homebrewers that entered this year’s H.E.R.O. competition. The deadline for entry has come and gone and now we begin the truly difficult task of narrowing down the field to find this year’s winner. Check back here for updates on our progress soon. The judging has begun!

Oh, and we heard the whispers. You’re welcome ;)

Dave

In early spring of 2011, we brewed an Imperial Stout for the sole purpose of allowing it to age for 6 months inside Kentucky White Oak Bourbon barrels, and RETRIBUTION was born. When the last barrel of Retribution stopped filling just past the half full mark, we were hit by an epiphany: Let’s fill the barrel the remainder of the way with COLOSSUS. We had no idea how it would taste, but we decided to leave it to fate.

Retribution is the embodiment of patience, craft and perseverance. But, waiting 6 months to try our experimental blend was perhaps the ultimate exercise in these virtues. The resulting 15.5% abv 60/40 blend of Retribution and Colossus was nothing short of divine. Such an extraordinary beer requires extraordinary packaging. The bottle labels were printed on a 100 year old Chandler & Price platen press (similar to a Heidelberg) named “Bessy” by Gilah Press in Baltimore using specially selected paper to convey the handcrafted precision of the beer.

Because the labels were “crafted printed”, they do not have pre-applied adhesive, making them unusable in our automated bottle labeler. But, in the true spirit of our craft, our creative director and brewery staff numbered, applied the labels to the bottles, and wax sealed them by hand to complete packaging worthy of our Divine Retribution.

We put our hearts and souls into this beer, and it is BEYOND AMAZING. Only 168 bottles of DIVINE RETRIBUTION series #1 were produced and they will be hitting the shelves of select retailers today, so grab one of these extremely limited edition bottles before they’re gone! Oh, and in answer to the inevitable question this post will spur, YES, there will be a DIVINE RETRIBUTION series #2. What we will blend with Retribution in series #2, however, is the real question. Enjoy.

Craft be cherished…Rules be damned!

Dave

First, thanks to all who visited us at this year’s BAM Octoberfest.  I hope you guys had a good time, because we sure did.  As some of you may have noticed, we launched a new beer called Retribution that day.  You also might have noticed another ‘surprise’ beer called Divine Retribution.  In barrel aging our beers, we use 53 gallon Heaven Hills Bourbon barrels.  For Divine Retribution, we filled one barrel about 60% Retribution and the other 40% was Colossus.

To answer some questions, we will be releasing this soon in 22oz bottles.  But, we will only have about 156 of them.  Stay tuned here at the blog to hear when (and where) they are going.  It will be posted here first.

I will be posting some more info on Divine and some other beers later this week (no promises though as Baltimore Beer Week is putting a strain on my time and liver)…

Cheers,

Dave

Well, we are almost done all of preparations for this years fest.  I have to say, I am pretty excited about this year.  We have some great vintages going, Devil’s Milk ’06, ’07, ’09 and ’10.  We have the last two kegs of the Big Boy, Colossus.

And we will be debuting our newest addition..RETRIBUTION, our Single Barrel Imperial Stout.  We aged this beer 6 months (192 days) in Heaven Hill bourbon barrels, then bottled each barrel separately..no mixing.  We will have approximately 168 bottles per barrel and 20 barrels.  Each bottle will have which barrel it came from on the label (see pic at right).  Some barrels have strong notes of chocolate, some of bourbon, some of the wood sweetness and some of vanilla.  Each barrel is unique.  If you like bourbon barrel stouts, I think you are going to like this.

Here is a video from last year, just to jog your memory…

Hope to see you there!

Cheers,

Dave

ps – did I forget to mention our surprises? Well, you are just going to have to be there to find out….

I know we have the Age of the Web, but word moves faster than I can imagine.  You will get your first taste at the Real Ale Fest this year (tix go on sale August 18th -online..so get on our email list if you haven’t).

http://mybeerbuzz.blogspot.com/2011/08/duclawretribution-imperial-stout.html

So, the last few days (and for the next week) we have been working on next year’s beer line up. Thanks to such amazing support from craft beer lovers, our job is tougher than ever. Not just the fact we are pushed to explore every boundary of our craft, but we have very quickly hit our production capacity. Our sales, and many in our industry, have been thriving. It seems that there are a TON of craft beer lovers out there. It has been great meeting so many cool craft beer lovers on the Colossus World Tour, and also seeing all the great beer bars out there.

Just to give an update of what is going on:

1) H.E.R.O., our home brew competition beer, a Chocolate Peanut Butter Porter, is being brewed today and schedule to release in 22oz late August

2) We should be submitting for label approval to the ATF for our October 22oz seasonal(s), that I think is going to knock your socks off.

3) Mad Bishop, our Oktoberfest, will be packaged in 12oz bottles soon and to hit liquor stores in mid August.  Yeah, it is getting crazy when you Octoberfest has to be out in August.

4) And we have been finalizing our surprises for the B.A.M. Octoberfest this year.

5) I will be posting the lineup sometime in August, so stay tuned.  It is looking like next year’s line up is going to be pretty freakin’ awesome.

6) We have two more 80bbl fermenters and a bright beer tank coming in late August to add about a 30% bump to our capacity, and that is not a moment too soon.

Also, I just wanted to thank everyone for drinking the beer and pushing us to do it more extreme, more cool, more session-able, more crazy, more retro and better than ever before.  We wouldn’t exist, or be able to do all of our the crazy stuff if it wasn’t for all the support out there….

Cheers!

Dave

First and foremost, we want to thank the nearly 1,000 people that entered our Facebook Kegerator Contest – we like all of you, too!

100 of you will receive a free DuClaw Brewing Company T-shirt in the mail soon, and you are:

Rondy M. Reeves, Jr.
Michelle Strain
Leslie Kelley
Jack Krabbe
Kelsey Rada
Jim McDonald
Jeanelle Faith
Shane Sondergard
Nicholas Rudolph
Roy Fisher
Chelsey Garner
Matthew Tress
Lauren Ladner
Kim Segermark
Thomas Phillip Bethke Jr
Nicole Terwilliger
Tom Webster
Erin Buckland
Will Morse
Christopher Graham
Robert Janssen
Sean Mooney
Mark Roberts
Christopher Bonsall
Brian Kasabula
Michael Fortier
Michael Brady
Jessica Swift
Anthony Pepeta
Rachel HaAhn
Zachary Price
Dane Wittig
Jerry McGee
Robert M Stone
Steven Haller
David Hartogs
David Hamelink
Mindy Snyder
Cory Watson
Ryne Kimlick
Diana White
Kelvin Henderson
John J. Buffington III
Jason Tidwell
Alicia Bowers
Michael Bazzell
Tom McGrath
Mark Heflin
Brian Twardowicz
Kim Sheridan
Jason Reeps
Brien Hebb
Marc DiLonardo
Joshua Cummings
John McCormack
Gary Lehnhoff
Karen Law
Ryan Hofherr
Jennifer Gareis
David Ashby
Aaron Semler
Bryan Jon Zajchowski
Steven Kern
Dominic L. Cantalupo
Susan Stone
Mike Pezzica
Heather Stover
Cesar Diaz
Noah Linebaugh
John Shepard
Nicole Hospelhorn
Sharon Hooker
Stephen Rau
Andrew Rohrbaugh
Christine Johnbrier
Daniel A. Blonarowycz
Cristy Michel
Danilo Rodriguez
Beth Czyryca
Vincent S Brando
Chris Meyers
Daniel Hoerr
Bryan Fishback
Scott Fessler
Jessi Miller
Stefan Shoemaker
Thomas Olszewski
Andrew Stumpf
Greg Reinbold
Christopher Penuliar
John Dicken
Lisa Umbel
James Skrakowski
Chuck Coleman
Andrew Walton
Maggie Vierra
Marcia Barr
Ian (sorry Ian, you didn’t give us your last name)
Pamelyn Burke
Stephen Hannibal-Lockely

Congratulations, everyone!

And of course, one of you has earned the jealousy of the rest…
(imagine drumroll here)
Our grand prize winner, and owner of a new kegerator is…

Joshua Green

Yay, you!

Another big THANK YOU to everyone that entered the contest. Stop back here (and our Facebook page) often for news on upcoming beers, events and contests. Cheers!