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Parched Eagle Flight Status Five Months in

Hello all,
The Parched Eagle opened on April 30th, a little over five months ago. Our product has been well-received from the start and everyone seems to like the ambiance of the space. That said, from a business perspective, it has been touch and go. We have had a couple of good sales months and a couple of really slow ones. Overall we have been just breaking even, but September didn’t quite make it into the black. We will be looking at some cost savings measures, but many of our costs are fixed. That leaves us with increasing sales. We have noticed that events like special beer releases bring in a much bigger crowd. Live music events at the Parched Eagle have been especially enjoyable and well attended, so we plan to do more of that (including Maury Smith & the Orchestra Bordenave tomorrow night!). While our food has been well-received, the food sales haven’t been hitting the mark, so we are looking at changes in that area. We may do away with the costly and time consuming sandwich bar, and go with locally made pizzas. We will definitely continue to offer pretzels, as this has been our most popular food item. We will also likely continue to offer the sausage and cheese plates. We know that visibility is an issue at our location, so we are looking at our signage options. Of course we are all about the beer and with our small system we run out of batches of any particular beer fairly quickly. We are looking at increasing our production in the short term and our capacity as soon as feasible. Longer term we are looking at getting our product into stores and other bars around town.

How can you help? Obviously coming in for a beer and bringing lots of friends is a good start. Word of mouth is always important for a small local business like ours, so please tell your friends (and family) about us. We have noticed the high ratings you have been giving us on untappd and we are honored. We also want to hear from you about how we can serve you better, your ideas for offerings or events, or people and other businesses you think we should know about.

We are passionate about making outstanding beer, but it doesn’t mean anything without you there to enjoy it. On our back bar we have a bumper sticker from the Brewers Association that states “Support Your Local Brewery”: that fits us to a tee! We need the grand community of craft beer drinkers to come through our front door in order to prosper (and make more and more great beer in return).

Cheers!
Jim and Tom, co-owners

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It’s Saison, umm, Season!

Hello all,
Yes the arrival of summer means that it’s the season for one of my favorite beer styles: Belgian Saison (aka Farmhouse Ale).

Saisons are complex: fruity/tart, spicy, a tad bitter, and with just enough malt backbone to support everything else going on. A good adjective for Saison is effervescent as it elegantly proceeds down through the taste buds. A high level of carbonation adds to the effervescent feel.

Today we’re releasing Saison DuRok: a beer that we’re quite excited about! We used the zest from a bag of organic Valencia oranges along with 5.5 ounces of ground Indian coriander as the spices for this brew, which has fermented quickly and fully to a hearty 7.1 % ABV!

Brewers: we use Wyeast’s French Saison yeast for Saison DuRok. I’m a huge fan of that yeast strain and strongly recommend it.

Here’s a little background on the style from bjcp.org:

A seasonal summer style produced in Wallonia, the French-speaking part of Belgium. Originally brewed at the end of the cool season to last through the warmer months before refrigeration was common. It had to be sturdy enough to last for months but not too strong to be quenching and refreshing in the summer. It is now brewed year-round in tiny, artisanal breweries whose buildings reflect their origins as farmhouses.

Stop on by the Parched Eagle soon to have Saison DuRok on tap!

Cheers,
Jim

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New Recipe: Harpy American Strong Ale

Hoppy New Year everyone!

Speaking of (pretty) hoppy, tomorrow I’m going to brew a pilot batch (on my homebrew system) of our new recipe Harpy American Strong Ale.

What’s an American Strong Ale, you ask? Here’s what Ratebeer says about it:

“Not a style, per se, but a catch-all category to incorporate the plethora of strong, stylistically vague beers coming from American microbreweries today. Some are related to English Strong Ales, but with a higher hop rate, while others are ultra-strong variants on the IPA or red ale themes. No matter how varied their origins or characters might be, all are intense, potent, with generous quantities of hops and malt.”

Harpy will roughly be a double/imperial Amber (Red) Ale. Locally think of (say) a ramped-up Ale Asylum Ambergeddon. And for reference the inspiration for this beer is Stone Double Bastard, one of my favorite beers!

Harpy will have lots of dark toasted  (not roasted) malt character that will hopefully coincide nicely with a mélange of piney and citrusy hops. It will be complex and a tad devilish at around 9% abv.

If the pilot batch turns out well look for Harpy to be one of the first specialty beers brewed at the Parched Eagle in perhaps March or April!

Cheers,
Jim

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The Quest for Hops

Hoppy Tuesday everyone,

First I can happily report that the build-out for the Parched Eagle is well underway, on schedule, and we should be on track for opening by (hopfully) the end of February. We’ll keep you posted!

As Head Brewer one of my tasks during the build-out phase is to order brewing ingredients, with hops being at the top of the list! More specifically, certain hop varieties are in GREAT demand in the craft beer community, including three that we’ll use heavily: Amarillo, Citra, and Simcoe.

While I’ve been able to track down both Amarillo and Simcoe in recent days, Citra is proving to be the most elusive/in-demand. Why? Well, it’s one hell of a unique hop that has no single substitute. Also, it’s proprietary i.e. is only grown at a few farms in the Pacific Northwest. Here’s a link to Hop Union’s description of Citra: http://hopunion.com/citra-brand-ycr-394-cv/

To my senses Citra lends mango-like aroma and flavor along with fruits that Hop Union mentions: grapefruit, melon, lime, gooseberry, passion fruit and lychee. Citra and Amarillo combine to provide a wonderfully deep aroma profile for Hop-Bearer so hop heads: please wish us the best of luck in scoring some pounds of Citra in coming weeks!

Mosiac is a newer hop variety that’s a good possible substitute for Citra with a similar tropical fruit profile but guess what? It’s as hard to find as Citra.

Worst case scenario if we can’t  score any Citra is combining Amarillo (another GREAT aroma/flavor hop) with the likes of Ahtanum, Falconer’s Flight 7 C’s, Australian Topaz, and maybe something else. It’s a hell of a quest, this quest for hops!

Hoppy Holidays,
Jim

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Reasons to be cheerful (and thankful), pt. 1!

Happy Thanksgiving Eve all,

Yeah paraphrasing the classic song by Ian Drury & The Blockheads seems quite appropriate today as this week the Parched Eagle secured the financing needed to take flight next February!

We’re starting our build-out process next Monday and are hopful that we can open in early February. MANY things need to go right in order for that to happen but we’ll see and it’s a good goal to shoot for. We’ll keep you posted, including updates on the build-out process (particularly in January as we install our brewing system and bar and start brewing).

Are Tom and I thankful on this Thanksgiving Eve: damn right! We’re thankful for all the great people who have been involved in helping the Parched Eagle get underway during our long start-up phase. I’ve been thinking this for months: we’re surrounded by such great talent we’ve GOT to make it happen, and we will!

The Parched Eagle will be located in Westport at 5440 Willow Dr. Ste. 112. Just west of Northport Road off of County Rd. M. We’re taking over the former Bunky’s Deli & Catering space: it’s cool and I can’t wait to see it transformed into the Parched Eagle!

Hoppy Thanksgiving!
Jim

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