Author Archives: Donald

Experiental Learning Analysis of Strong Rope Brewery by Donald Powe, Jr.

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ABSTRACT

The task at hand was a Beverage Production experiential learning experience.  In that experience as a person who study’s wine I was supposed to gain the knowledge of the viticulture and the vivification of wine. Unfortunately, I could not present that experience because of peculiar circumstances. I choose the alternative assignments and visited a brewery in Brooklyn, New York called Strong Rope Brewery.

Strong Rope Located at 574 President ST, Brooklyn ,New York
Sorry for the mean mug

The Strong Rope Brewery located at 574 President ST, Brooklyn, New York.  The brewery is a delightful location for beer tasting with Strong Rope’s own selection of crafted brewed beers.  Strong Rope does have their own ale’s, pale’s, cask and lager beers. At the 574 President ST location I was blessed to see of how they craft their beers for their petite and yet casual bar.  At Strong Rope I was greeted by the owner Jason Sahler whom has been brewing for over 15 years, 2 of which he used open the Strong Rope Brewery.  As a person who studies wine this was an opportunity to understand another action of the power of alcohol and fermentation can do.   As I was greeted by Jason I asked if can participate in the Saturdays tour of beer crafting. The brewing sessions are held every Saturday at 2 pm for $5.

As the tour is going on I looked around and spotted the instruments used to make and brew the beers. Being curious of the container tanks I wanted to reserve my questions for them, but I wanted to listen for the information from the tour. I learned about the ingredients of the beer which consist of malted barley, hops, yeast and the main ingredient of all water.  The process of making beer for Strong Rope. Starts with the ingredients, the Hops are usually dropped down cracked through a mill called a hopper.  There the hops are cracked open and exposes the starchy endosperm from the inside of the grain. .  Caramel malts usually have an aroma of fruit and caramel flavors.

 

 

Strong Ropes Brewery Barrel Tanks. These collection of tanks are part of a brewery system that contains Non- dry hops beer and beer with a steady infused temperature controlled fermentation

Carapils have more of a toasted sweetness to them. Those specialty malts are added and then mashed combined with hot water around the temperature of 152- 154 degrees Fahrenheit for the enzymes make carbohydrates to pull out the sugars.

The concentration however goes back to the Hops, which is the personality of beers.  The Hops are the bittering agents it is the equalizer it’s the usage of hops through mashing process helps with fermentation.  Hops has its own bacteria that acts like a sterilizing agent that preserves the beer. Hops comes in two forms leaf and pellets.  The leaves are usually whole and dried and release a necessary acid and the pellet for us crushed and that reduces surface, this cause the beer not to oxidize or spoil pressing the beer.  At Strong Rope brewery Jason get his hops, grains and malts from farms Upstate and from Long island New York.   Like wine instead of grapes there are varieties of hops that are grown. They work with farms to import some of their most quality hops to make their different craft beers.  From the hops and malts the use for example from upstate New York they connect and conduct business with the local farms there to craft their seasonal beers such as “Cluster, Perle, Liberty, Columbus” the reserved hops are then recycled.  They are thrown in with the compost and given back to the farmers where they can use the compost to grow and later craft their beers

” The Storage” , unit containing Strong Ropes Hops, malts and kegs, it also serves as their refrigerator.

 

 

When it comes to personnel there aren’t a lot of employees that work in Strong Rope the reason of that Jason explained that he wanted a staff that was just as gifted and as passionate about brewing as he is.  Jason wanted someone who had the knowledge to brew and craft as well as bartend.  Someone who can provide knowledge and great customer service skills. Their kettle practices continue after the milling process the ingredients are pressed over and over until the liquid becomes somewhat clear than they are sent to kennel containers for conversion where they take about 30 -45 minutes to become bright in color. There they have the draining process where the malts usage to help make simple sugars are steeped and then taken and thrown to compost. The sugars the yeast consumes are recycled and run through pipes from the kettle. There the liquids are used with hops provides the Ale acid which is the bitter agent of the beers. The hops provide the personality of the beer. The beer is then boiled and piped through a whirlpool through a heat exchange machine which converts the hot water to cold once cold its blended with little oxygen and yeast. From fermentation the yeast settles down to the bottom of the kettle fermenter.

Strong Ropes Final product of keg beer

Strong Ropes Purchased farm Specialty Malts. Some of the malts stored in these storage bags for seasonal beers to be later crafted. the remains of malts are sent back to the farmers as compost

To further to cool and preserve the beer Ethylene glycol is used all these ingredients are filtered and then carbonated. When the beer is carbonated Strong Hopes uses two methods the bottling method or the bright tank method.  The bottling method is all carbon dioxide. every brewer is a fan of foam. Carbon dioxide is pushed in to force oxygen out.  If they are not bottling they are tanking and aging.  There Strong Rope takes their beers and uses methods to age and even enhance the flavor of their beers. They collected old whisky barrels to enhance the flavor of a selected harvest craft. If they choose to use the old barrels they use the tanks for aging where can later bottles for months at a time or later to but in kegs.

” Fall Fire” A seasonal Ale from Strong Rope Brewery. the beer I could not smell the palate until i drunk the beer at least 1/4 of the way Due to the nature of the carobonization of the foam. The taste of from the palate was bitter but reminded me of Peaches, red apples, and pears.

 

For a small brewery they have a total of seven tanks.  The 1st barrel tanks of 5 are used for the hops these beers are non-dry. The other two-barrel tanks are used to allow temperature to be steady for a further fermentation. Through the artistry and craft of these beers I really enjoyed the tore I was very intrigued, and Jason was nothing but hospitable the whole time.  Strong Rope brewery I would recommend for anyone who wants to try a local beer they have won numerous awards for their craft including 2016 Crooked Hop off and 2017’s New York State’s Craft Beer award with numerous other awards.  This experience was fun and welcoming I must do tours more often.

The Analysis of Astors Wine Spirits And Flatirons By Donald Powe

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ABSTRACT

From the past two weeks I researched several Wine & Spirt shops around the downtown Brooklyn and lower Manhattan.  I called shops got turned down for request to interview managers or employees who had any knowledge of Wines. Some Shops were willing but they were on days that were inconvenience to me but I thank you them for their consideration. In total I visited four wine shop but I decided primarily to discuss two wine shops. The two other wine shops will be briefly discussed.  The two wine shops that I visited in Brooklyn were purely for observation purposes.  I wanted to see inside beverage shops that have a variety of wines and have wines from around the world or at least wines that were covered in class for the past several weeks.  I wanted to witness shops who cater to their customer and ultimately I wanted to have a discussion about wine.

“Nicolas Feuillatte Brut” A Sparkling wine from the region of Champagne with a rose blend of brut.

The first shop in Brooklyn that I was Michael Town Wines and Spirits located at 73 Clark St. Michael Town Wines sell a variety of wines in small yet decent sized wine shop. They also sell cognac, bourbons, whiskies located mostly behind the register.  There wines though I appreciated the selection they had from different countries but what they lacked were the organization. In depth they had wines from Germany, France, Argentina, Chile, the grape varieties did differ but were grouped together with their represented countries. The store had red, white, dry, sweet wines in one section of the shelves from France. You couldn’t barley tell the wines apart. I could tell from the region, appellation or at times the sub appellations. I needed to investigate these wines in this shop.

A Featured wine from Astor Wine Spirits. ” Tenuta Rapitala” A wine with a Sicilian Terrior and a french wine making style of the grape Variety Grillo.

The second shop was Heights Chateau located on 123 Atlantic Avenue. I really endured what they had to offer in wines.  It was a shop that offered not only a variety of wines but it also seemed to dedicate itself to wines and the education of wine at least from my perspective.  What I observed Were once from France and Italy.  They had other wines from other countries but my focus was primarily on those two countries.  What amazed me was the organization of the French wines. Their French wines covered regions from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Alsace, the Loire Valley, the Rhone Valley and many other regions of France. Each of those regions had a dedicated shelf and had their dominant grapes along the vintage year organized in order. It was good to see a red dominant grape wine like Merlot in it home grown region of Bordeaux shelved and on display.

Even though the Heights Chateau gave me insight of what to really expect for purchasing a wine I wanted a better experience. So I went to Manhattan but this time with a series of question to ask. I wanted to ultimately compare these next two shops. The 1st shop, Astor Wine and Spirits located 300 Lafayette ST, the other wine and beverage shop Flatiron Wine and Spirits, located at 929 Broadway. The 1st shop I entered was Astor Wines and Spirits at first glance inside the shop it looked like a wine emporium or a Wholesale store to purchase wine but I was wrong.  As I took further steps inside I would consider it the “Whole Foods Market’ of wines. Astor’s had representations of French and mostly Italian wine but with a real great selection. There vintages prices range from $20 to $700 that was before I entered their wine cellar.  Flatiron Wines though had a more intimate feel to their establishment. From the inside it seemed quite but it was completely busy but quick.

Pinot Rose
Present by Heights Chateau. This blended rose wine from France made from the region of Sancerre with a 2016 Vintage

The questions I had prepared to ask both representatives had similar answers but I was more concerned with their contrast answers. The 1st question that had me engaged with both shops was. “Who is your target demographic? “That was question that each shop answered differently Flatiron answered their target demographic are millennials.  I asked why and the Robby who took the time to answer all of my question answered, “well Millennials drink nearly half of the wine purchased from wine shops. Robert no relation to Robby at Flatirons shop.  Answered “Our demographic is mid 20’s to late 50’s.  Both establishment did have wine cellars for their premier Cru wines in which the kept the storage temperature relatively the same between 58- 62 degrees Fahrenheit. I asked both establishments, what were the considerations for purchasing wine from a specific country, region, or appellation?”

Robert responded by telling me “it’s by popularity, most of our wines are Italian and French but we try to buy more Italian wines because the market is flooded with French wines and there can be a better appreciation for Italian wines in some time.”  Robby from Flatiron responded a little bit differently it was more from a scientific and perhaps from a tasting perspective. The response was “It depends on the vintage year the producer, the actual aging and vinfication of the grape wine.  While discussing the taste of wine I also asked. “Do you taste your vintage wines and what impact does it have? Robby answered with assurance. “Absolutely the taste has the biggest on our wines and also our taste makes an impact on choices for our customers.” That being said I wanted to further expand their thoughts on the taste of wines. I wanted to know from Robert from Astor wines. “Can you distinguish wine from its grape variety of similar genetics such as Riesling and pinot noir from a different region or country?

Robert answered me by comparing Riesling. “Yes from the taste Riesling muzzle has a more of a fruit characteristic. I asked the same question to Robby from Flatiron Spirits his response I enjoyed. “Let’s say we have a grape variety of Pinot Noir in France and we have Pinot Noir grown in Oregon. What separates the two taste is the terroir also they are both dry wines. In France Pinot Noir is more acidic and needs more time to develop. In the U.S Oregon Pinot Noir is more fruiter, sweeter and the grapes tend to be much larger than French so we get more sugar, more than acid and we receive more juice.

I stalled for time I realized both establishments were busy but I asked important filler questions about there wine such as what wines from a particular region, appellation or sub appellations contributes to your sales and the gross profit?   Robby from Flatiron wines told me that. “There are certain sub regions that are expensive I they somehow get any Grand Cru’s in their possession they usually make more money on from those purchases.  From Astor’s wines Robert Answered it’s the Premier Cru’s and the Italian wines that contribute to the sales.  I wanted to know besides the demographic who was the general target market. Robby said anyone who indulges in are more expensive bottle and Robert from Astor’s explained they also deliver throughout the United States so the whole country they deliver to as a whole.  I asked both representatives from both shops. “Are there any issues with customers with theft or unfulfilled orders or promises from vendors and distributors”?

Robert replied Not specifically and Robby said no. The last question I asked both Robby and Robert was.  “How long has each establishment ben open for Astor Wine & Spirits has been open at the 399 Lafayette location for about 10 years but the company itself has been around for over 50 years.  Flatiron Wines & Spirits has branched out as well having shops in San Francisco, California area.  Both shops were able to help me identify wines and have a better appreciation of wine at the Flatiron New York location I purchased a Hungarian Rose wine that was enjoyable but high in acidity. I enjoyed this project very much and I’m looking forward toward the next assignment.

 

 

” Tenuta Rapitala” A wine with a Sicilian Terrior and a french wine making style of the grape Variety Grillo.