2009 JOLLY ROGER IN THE TANK!

FIRST BATCH BREWED ON OCTOBER 29TH

Traditionally, Jolly is different every year (last year it was an Imperial Red). Morgan Phillips, Drake's assistant brewer, was given a big assignment by Josh & Brian. Formulate and brew this year's Jolly Roger!

This just in From Morgan:

"Everything went great with Jolly yesterday. It came in at 22.2 Plato so if the yeast attenuate at their listed capacity it will be about 9.5% abv. With beers this size it's hard to estimate because it could easily go either way as much as a half a percent. We should know for sure in about ten days.

As for the beer itself I'm very pleased with how it came out so far and it should be very good. It's an Imperial Brown I modeled off an English Brown recipe I've done before. Some of the ingredients are English and it is English inspired, but this big boy is very American. The color is a very rich maple brown that doesn't seem to have red or orange highlights, just brown. The flavor is rich toffee with toasty notes underneath which should give a nice play between malty sweet and dry flavors in the mouth. The mouth-feel with be full and a little sweet, but there are plenty of hops to balance that out. I went with Magnum for bittering and a duet of Chinook and Willamette for flavor and aroma".

Jolly Roger should be on tap at your local East & West Bay taphouses, starting around November 20th.

Thanks for reading!

-- John

WHERE'S DRINKDRAKES.COM?

NEW WEBSITE IN THE WORKS

For those of you that keep up on these kinds of things... you might have noticed that the old drinkdrakes.com website is no more.

We finally got around to transferring the url, and are busy creating a new website. Nothing too elaborate. But, expect to see more information about the brewery, it's history, our staff, and the beers we produce.

We'll keep you up-to-date on the latest seasonals, and events at the brewery. Look for it to go live in a few weeks!

Thanks for reading!

-- The Drake

DRAKE'S AUTUMN FEST IN LIMITED RELEASE

Josh & Brian have just kegged up our single batch of Autumn Fest, Drake's Fall seasonal. An American version of a Fest-style Bier. Amber color, medium bodied, and a smooth flavor. This beer is the brother from another mother of the famous beers of Munich. Fest Beers are usually brewed in anticipation of an upcoming festival (Oktoberfest, Fall, or Autumn, Spring, etc...) We used a kolsch yeast (but it is not a kolsch-style beer) 18 IBU's (relatively low). Spalt & Saaz Hops 5.75% abv

Currently can only be found on tap at our sister brewpubs Jupiter & the Bear's Lair Campus Pub (at UC Berkeley), in Berkeley. Coming to a few other select pubs & restaurants in the East Bay, the Peninsula, & San Francisco.

THE EVIDENCE: DENOGGINIZER TAKES SILVER AT THE GABF

As many of you know, Drake's infamous Denoggin- izer Double IPA earned some hardware in Denver. We've been waiting for the official awards photo from the Brewers Association, operators of the Great American Beer Festival. We now have the shot, so here it is! Josh & Brian accepting the Silver Medal for Denogginizer, in the Imperial India Pale Ale catagory.

To learn more about this great beer. See a previous blog posting on how Denogginizer came to be.

We plan to have Denog in 220z. bottles available later this fall. Molly & John are putting the final touches on the label right now.

Thanks for reading!

-- The Drake