Beer Tastings!

Planning and number crunching and brewing for New Main continues.  Sometimes it seems like it’s slow going, and other times things happen in a big flurry.  David has been doing a great job of blogging throughout the process, and you can read all about that here.

David and I have both been busy brewing up test batches to work on dialing in recipes.  We’re making pretty good progress on that front, I think, as we’ve locked in the Saison, IPA, Pale Ale and Porter.  There might be minor tweaks here and there based on feedback we might get at tastings, but we’re pretty happy with how those taste right now.

Speaking of tastings, this Friday we’re going to be having a tasting at JR Bentley’s in Arlington.  David is bringing the porter and pale ale, and I’ll have the saison and IPA.  The pale ale and IPA were both kegged this week, so both are super fresh, and we’re excited to have people try them.  I’m also going to bring a small amount of the Belgian quad to see how it’s progressing as it ages, and I might bring a couple of bottles of the saison that had pumpkin pie spice added.

I’ve also decided that I’m going to go ahead and enter Deep Ellum’s Labor of Love again this year, but David is not.  I’m going to enter the saison, quad, and IPA, since you can enter 3 beers this year, compared to just 2 last year.  The festival is September 4^th this year, the Sunday after Labor Day, as always.  Entry is $30 per person, which gets you unlimited tastings of homebrew.  There was lots of great beer last year, and I expect this year to be no different.

This week we’re working on finalizing our beer names so we can start working on getting trademarks for those.  We’re not quite ready to share that yet, but should be pretty soon.  Once those are all set and trademarked, expect to see New Main popping up on Untappd as a commercial brewery, and not just a homebrewery.

I know David’s talked about this some in the past, but I wanted to touch on it as well.  Like most brewers who start a brewery, we’re coming from the homebrew world, and we are going to make sure we remember our roots.  So, we’re going to have lots of homebrew-centered events.  A homebrew competition is one obvious event, but we also want to host things like a homebrewer’s roundtable from time to time, to let local homebrewers have a chance to chat with a local brewery, and to get tips and tricks for us and each other, as well as share their beer and get feedback.

Lastly, thanks to all of you who bought t-shirts for our first fundraiser!  We’ll have more coming soon, including glassware, more t-shirts, and more cool stuff!  We will also have a small number of t-shirts available at our tasting on Friday for $25.  Keep an eye on the New Main Facebook page for more info, as well as upcoming tastings and other events.