We’ve been brewing like crazy lately, sharpening up one of the first planned seasonals, our Dry Irish Stout.  It is coming along faster than expected, and we should have a finished product soon, leaving us a new Circle Brew to focus on.  Here’s a pic of her, gorgeous, isn’t she?

Keep spreading the word!  The countdown is at 31 and dropping.  We’ll keep you updated on the progress, and you keep supporting Circle Brewing.

As of today, we are 37 shares away from breaking ground! While that is not the total number of shares remaining, it is the threshold needed to proceed. We are close and getting closer to bringing Circle Brewing Company to market. After we sell the 37 shares, we will immediately begin gathering the equipment and building out the brewery. So, get the word out! The sooner we lock down those shares, the sooner you can walk into your local watering hole and throw down an icy cold Circle Brew.

We’ve also been brewing like crazy and will begin working on some recipes for our first seasonal brews. If you have any thoughts or ideas on that, please let us know.

We’re hammering away, and just wanted to give you all a quick update on the progress. Spread the word!

Well, it has been a long time coming, but we have finally brewed a batch of Blonde that we are pleased to call Alibi! Looks like 18 was our number. We’ll continue to keep brewing and to improve on our recipes, but mmmm…we’re there. So now we’ve got all three of our staple recipes, Alibi Blonde Bock, Envy Amber, and Blur Hefe, and are beginning to stockpile samples for prospective investors. Soon, we will begin to work on some new recipes that will be our seasonals. If you have any thoughts or adamant requests, by all means, email us.

In other news, we’ve got a little blurb coming up in the April/May Edition of the Southwest Brewing News. We’re looking forward to our first little bit of press and would like to specifically thank Hans Granheim for his help.

We’ve finally bent to the pressures and created a Facebook Page. So, check us out and sign up to be a fan on the page. We’re pushing to get the word out in any way we can and to as many people as possible.

So, get out there, Circle Brewing fans, and help us help you get Circle Brewing Brews on the shelves and in the bars.

We’re BACK! From the GABF that is. And I promised you some hardware, and yes, I delivered. While I am sad to report that my baby, the whiskey rye, was overlooked by the powers that be, under the banner of Uncle Billy’s Brew and Que and Brewmaster Brian Peters, we won a silver medal in the Kellerbier Category. Knocking out 22 other breweries in that category, we were able to leave the GABF as winners. So thanks to all that kept their fingers crossed.

Check out the pic of Jud and the random girl who jumped into the shot at the last second. What can we say, drinking was involved and Jud’s a chick magnet. Hilarious.

But it wasn’t all just medal winning, we also had a chance to taste the many beers of Colorado. While staying at Jud’s brother Nate’s place in Boulder, we visited some of the locals, Avery, Mountain Sun, and Walnut Brewery. We also tried countless others in the area apart from the countless hundreds, literally, at the Fest.

Taking the bus to and from the GABF was quite an adventure in and of itself. Here’s a pic of me at the bus station wishing there was still beer in my taster glass (it was actually plastic). While we are still pretty bad at taking pics for posterity’s sake, or even remembering to do so, we’re trying.

On the brewfront, the latest Blonde is carbonating as we speak and the newest round of Hefe is on the docket to be brewed this weekend. We’re experimenting with a variety of yeast strains this time, so we are quite excited about these batches. I’ll be sure to let you know how it turns out. . .

We have really stepped up the brewing to prepare for the upcoming second round of equity investment. We wanted to stockpile a number of bottles of our Envy Amber, as it is the only recipe that we are completely finished tampering with, and ooooh is it good. Both Jud and I have to keep reminding each other not to drink too much of it because then we won’t have any for investors to taste. We’re now overlapping our brew schedules, to maximize the output and variation in experimentation on our Blonde and our Hefe. It has been a long time since the last post, but we have concluded from some heavy deliberation that we will go with a Texan Hefe as our third brew, and will save the Five Past Pilsner for our fourth roll out down the line. So, with the exception of this weekend, we have been and will continue to brew every two weeks.

The big news is that we are going to the GABF (Great American Beer Festival for the layman) in Denver this week starting on Wednesday. And yes, we’ll be back with tons of pics. The brew pub I work for is entering 5 beers in the competition this year, one of which I was particularly instrumental in creating, Woodeye Whiskey Rye, which I have dubbed my baby. The brew is basically a Rye IPA aged in a Wild Turkey Oak Barrel, and I have predicted a gold medal and don’t plan on leaving the GABF without a metallic symbol of its victory. Don’t worry, next year Circle Brewing Company will enter its own beer in the GABF and other renowned festivals, but not quite yet.

Our Alibi Blonde Bock is rocking. We are really pleased with the latest round, and by the time we get back from the GABF, it should be sufficiently lagered. The Envy Amber is spot on. Dry but a little malty sweet. Flavorful with a pleasant aroma, but not overly hoppy. Just great stuff. We hope to be able to share some of our brews with potential investors as we open the second round of financing to local investors on October 16th.

So, it’s off to the GABF! And don’t worry, we’ll be sampling enough beer to drink one for everybody.

Beerwise we are tightening up around here. The first batch of Blonde Bock is done and the second batch is fermenting! We were very pleased with the first round and are going a little lighter for the second set. We’re going to keep the alcohol by volume around 6.5%, but also want to have a thoroughly rich malty profile. This time around we also are experimenting with a different yeast strain, so we’ll see how that affects its balance.

The business is coming together well as we have been gaining momentum steadily since the last entry. Thanks to all the investors and friends who have come to visit in the past few months. It has been really busy and productive, and thanks for all your input. Everyone provided some honest and outside perspective which has proved quite useful. We are currently on the path to our groundbreaking in the coming months.

In other news, we’ve been mulling over our decision on our third beer style. We are debating whether we should continue with the Pilsner, due to a number of variables in the market. As an alternative, we are taking a very hard look at making a bold Texan Hefeweizen. The market is great for it and we think it would be a nice complement to the Amber and Blonde Bock. We are still debating it, so if you have any feeling on the matter, please let us know and send us your feedback.

Stay tuned in the next few weeks, we’ll have more info as we keep brewing and the biz keeps growing.

Alright. Jud and I have finally finished putting together a basic website that we are happy with, which includes this blog. We’ll be adding to this as the business progresses, keeping all the fans out there up-to-date.

To get everyone up to speed, our beers are coming along nicely, and we are brewing at a breakneck speed to perfect our recipes. I developed general recipes while in California, but Jud and I wanted to spend this development stage fine-tuning them into the masterpieces we think they can be. We brew three five-gallon batches at a time, which takes approximately two weeks for the ale, then sample them for a few days and start the process over again, refining as we go. We have been focusing on the Amber Ale first, and have recently completed what I think is an incredible and perfectly balanced ale. Modest, I know. After 12 batches, we are moving on to the Blonde Bock next, which I think will be slightly more challenging to perfect.

Well, I thought I would include a few pics from our home brew setup, to give you a little idea of what we’re doing. We built this cold box from scratch so that we could keep and modify the temperature during fermentation. Basically just a mini-fridge with a temperature controller attached to an insulated box. Some stain and a little poly and she looks pretty good, huh? There’s also some shots with some amber in primary fermentation in the finished cold box, our home brew setup during sparging, and our keg fridge…enjoy!