The Friday Question
Today was a special day in the brewery, the 19th anniversary of the very first Oliver’s brew day … let me say that again … NINETEEN years of Oliver Ales! I don’t know about you but I think that that is pretty amazing! That’s a lot of pints right there. I have had the honor of brewing Oliver Ales for the last 12 years (yeah, so my back hurts) so of course I couldn’t let this day pass without brewing something special to celebrate. “19″ is a big stout … if all goes well in fermentation it should weigh in at about 8.5% abv and I’m thinking about cold conditioning it with whole coffee beans (from our favorite local roaster Zeke’s of course). It will probably be released at the end of February. We’ll be doing some more bourbon barrel aging next week, this time Hot Monkey Love will be destined for the barrels which we’ll age for about 3 months.Yum!
So, last time out I asked how many different beers we brewed in 2011 for a growler of Oliver Ales and a bottle of the super rare BrewDog “Sunk Punk” (saw one at $50 on ebay earlier). It was a close run thing but only one can win and this time out it was Mr. Chris Sollitto with his guess of 40. The actual number was 39 by the way. Congratulations Chris.
This week I’ll keep you guessing numbers by asking how many pounds of grain total did we use in this weeks brews? We brewed four times, the first of which was a Blonde Ale, with a fairly low grain bill ( OG 1.043, 305lbs, to get you started) finishing with “19″ which had a massive grain bill (OG 1.080). Whoever gets closest will win something very special. I figure that as we’re celebrating the past, I’ll offer up something vintage so a bottle of Thomas Hardy’s Ale 1990 is up for grabs as well, of course, as a growler of Oliver Ale. I have to admit that I haven’t tried this vintage yet so I make no claims as to how it’s held up. As always, post your answer via the comment option and have a great weekend!



2350 lbs
1850 lbs
2005 lbs
1752 lbs
1902 lbs.
2037 lbs.
1678 lbs
2110 lbs.
1425 lbs.
1875
1812
2227
1785
1780
2130
1974
1950
1915
1650
1500
2351
1970
2156
1389
1996 lbs?