Winter is here... and so are winter beers.

So a lot has happened since the last post. We were featured in the November/December issue of a new local magazine called The Man Mag! I tried to post the article here but it didn't work out so make sure you seek out the magazine. 

Also, we had a great time at the 12 South Winter Warmer! There was a lot of great people and great beer. We are looking forward to next year. 

As far as production goes... we can't keep up! You guys keep drinking us dry (particularly with Portly Stout). We've increased our man power in the brewery in an attempt to get beer out faster. It has helped a little. We are doing our best to keep the 50 restaurants that carry our beer well supplied.

And now for some tap room news. We released Infidelis Helles last week and it has been a big hit. This beer is an ale version of the classic German Helles lager. It is light with a nice clean finish. We also have four additional beers in the works. This Friday (12/14) we will release a ginger bread stout and another whiskey stout. For the whiskey stout, we used a Corsair Rasputin barrel. Rasputin is a hopped whiskey so it will be interesting to see how it changes the flavor profile of the stout. We also have a curry stout and a cranberry version of Infidelis Helles that will be released at an undetermined date (hopefully next weekend). As always, we only have one keg of each beer and they always disappear fast!

I hope everyone is having a great holiday season!

Cheers 

The Chalkboard

I thought I would post some pictures of the chalkboard. We write the names of the bars and restaurants that carry our beer on this board. As you can see, it continues to get more and more crowded.

Jonbalaya at the Taproom

Just a reminder for everyone... Jonbalaya will be at the taproom serving food tomorrow. So come on out and enjoy some hot food and cold beer!

Events, events, and more events

So it has been a while since the last post, but we have been very busy! October has been filled with to the brim with festivals. We attended the Southern Artisan Cheese Festival, the Nashville Beer Festival, and Brewsboro. All were great events and we look forward to participating in them again next year.

The end of October marks the end of Brewbtoberfest. We raised some good money for the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. We plan on this being an annual event so if you missed out on it this year we will be sure to keep you informed in 2013.

A couple things we have coming up this week. Wine Down Main Street is on Friday Nov 2nd and is held in downtown Franklin. There will be a lot of wine... but we will be bringing Another Way to Rye and Portly Stout. It's going to be a fun time.

Also, this Saturday at the taproom will be the first time we have a food truck outside! Jonbalaya will be outside serving up awesome food while we provide the beer and brewery tours. Check out his menu at jonbalayacatering.com and nashfoodtrucks.com. Hope to see you there!

New Locations, New Tap Handles

Today I received the updated list of places where you can find our beer:

Stones River Beverage Mart - Murfreesboro
Whole Foods - Nashville
3 Crow Bar - Nashville
Brewhouse 100 - Nashville
Bricks Cafe South Nashville - Antioch
Brixx Wood Fired Pizza - Franklin
Broadway Brewhouse Downtown - Nashville
Edly's Barbeque - Nashville
Hotel Indigo Downtown - Nashville
Jonathan's Grill - Mt. Juliet
Mellow Mushroom - Nashville
Saffire - Franklin
Silo - Nashville
55 South - Franklin
The Stone Fox - Nashville
The Village Pub - Nashville
Wow Cafe and Wingery - Mt. Juliet

All of those locations are in addition to the ones I listed previously on the blog.

Today we also received some more tap handles... and we added to the design a little. Lets see if you can spot the differences.

Don't forget that Thursday night at the tap room is the kick off for Brewbtoberfest! Hope to see you all there.

Cheers

Brewbtoberfest!

Yes you read that correctly... Brewbtoberfest! For the entire month of October, Turtle Anarchy will be donating $1.00 for every pint of At Wits End sold at the taproom to the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center. The donation will go to benefit breast cancer research and patient care.

You can check out some info on the cancer center at:  www.vicc.org

This is a great chance to help out some women. I hope to see you at the taproom!

Taproom hours:
Thursday: 5pm - 10pm
Friday: 5pm - 10pm
Saturday: 4pm -10pm (tours!)

Pilot System

Today I finally had time to move my home brewing system into the brewery.

This will allow us to brew between 10 and 15 gallons of beer at a time. We will brew random styles of beer and pour them exclusively in the taproom. When one batch runs out we will just put something else on. This is going to be fun!

Brewery Tours!

That's right! Starting tomorrow we will be offering brewery tours every Saturday. This is how they will work:
       - we will do tours at 4:30, 5:30, 6:30, and 7:30
       - you get a 16 oz. pint glass to keep
       - you taste our three flagship beers: Another Way to Rye, Aurumglass, and Portly Stout
       - you get a behind the scenes look at where we brew our beer
       - $8/person (individuals under 21 can go on the tour but cannot sample the beer)

On top of all of that, anyone who takes a tour tomorrow can get a 10% discount on t-shirts and pint glasses!

Also, starting at 1 pm tomorrow Flying Saucer is having their Annual Outdoor Beer Feast! They are serving 60 beers from over 40 different breweries and Turtle Anarchy is one of them. I've been to Beer Feast before and it is a great time. The following link will get you the info you need:

http://www.beerknurd.com/stores/nashville/

And if you are interested in trying Smoke & Mirrors at the taproom but have not made it in yet, get yourself motivated cause the keg is getting light...

Thanks all.

We've been busy...

We had a great time at Wine on the River this past Saturday. Everyone who attended drank 20 gallons of beer in just under 3 hours! We ran out of beer over an hour early... at a wine event! Next year we will have to bring more. Thanks to everyone who attended for the support.

Now for some taproom news... we have less then 10 gallons (that's about 80 pints) of Smoke & Mirrors left! Smoke & Mirrors is our chipotle pepper and cinnamon stout. You don't want to miss this stout so make sure you visit the taproom this weekend to get some. I don't know how much longer it will last. 

Also, we have a smoked scotch ale that we will be adding to the taproom line up in a couple weeks. I'll try to keep you posted on its progress. 

Cheers everyone.

 

New Locations!

Some of you may have noticed that you can now get Turtle Anarchy at a few more locations. Well, yesterday I received the complete list of the current places you can get our beer and I thought I would share it with you.

Here are some great places to get growlers filled:

Libation Station - Johnson City

Midtown Beverages & More - Nashville

Stogie's Ales and Fine Cigars - Brentwood

Whole Foods - Franklin

Woody's Smokes & Brews - Franklin


Restaurants/Bars:

12 South Tap Room & Grill - Nashville

Aloft Hotel - Franklin

Amerigo's - Brentwood

BBQ Beach - Nashville

Brewhouse South - Franklin

Broadway Brewhouse - Nashville

Cool Cafe - Franklin

Mojo Grille - Nashville

Corsair Taproom - Nashville

Etch - Nashville

Flying Saucer - Nashville

Kimbro's Pickin' Parlor - Franklin

McConnell House - Franklin

Mellow Mushroom - Murfreesboro

Mellow Mushroom - Franklin

Twin Peaks - Brentwood

We would like to thank all of the fine establishments that have put our beer on tap and all the people that support us while they are out or at our taproom. If you keep drinking it we will keep brewing it.

Thank you and cheers from the whole crew here at Turtle Anarchy

Labor Day

Exciting news!!!! The taproom will be open tomorrow from 12:00 pm - 3:00 pm. It would be a great time to come in and get a growler for your evening cook outs. I'll have another update shortly.

Hope everyone is having a great extended weekend.

Updates and such

I just wanted to give everyone a quick update on a few things.

First, we have started distributing to Nashville! The following is a current list of places where you can find our beer other than our taproom:

Cool Cafe
     coolcafefranklin.com
   
Twin Peaks
     twinpeaksrestaurant.com

Mellow Mushroom - Franklin
     mellowmushroom.com/franklin

McConnell House
     mcconnellhouse.com

12 South Taproom  
     12southtaproom.com

There will be more to come shortly.

Second, the following are some upcoming events we will have beer at:

August 23rd: Thursday Night Food Fight - behind McConnell House in Franklin
          mcconnellhouse.com/events

September 15th: Wine on the River - Shelby St. Pedestrian Bridge
          wineontheriver.com

October 13th: Brewsboro Festival - The Avenue Murfreesboro
          brewsborofest.com

There are a couple more events in the works that I will let you know about soon!

Lastly, 50 Shades of Black at our taproom was a big hit last week! Brewmaster Mike did an awesome job designing the stouts. We went through quite a bit of beer so if you did not make it down to the taproom last week, make sure you get there this week or you might just miss out on the stout sampler.

As always, drink often... yet responsibly.

Cheers, Prost, Na Zdrowie!

Frist brew of Down With the Coconut!

Today we did our first brew of Down With the Coconut. We took approximately 10 kegs worth of Portly Stout that was still in the tank and added 30 lbs of toasted coconut to it. Nick at Nick's Italian Deli in Franklin was nice enough to let us use his pizza oven (and several of his baking sheets) to toast the coconut right before we steeped it in the beer.

This beer will be on tap starting Thursday at our taproom along with the the star anise stout and whiskey stout.

Bootlegger's Bash and 50 Shades of Black Release

We had a great time last night at Bootlegger's Bash at the Carnton Plantation! The event benefitted the Battle of Franklin Trust. We poured a lot of beer and met a lot of great people. The food and music was awesome so if you didn't get to go this year make sure you mark it down on your calendar for next year.

Now for the beer... On Thursday we are releasing the first batches of 50 Shades of Black!! 50 Shades of Black will be an ongoing project where we take our Portly Stout and infuse it with a variety of different herbs, spices, fruits, vegetables... you name it. We will also periodically age these beer in barrels of all different types. As you may have read on a previous blog post, this first release will include: the one and only Portly Stout, whiskey stout, stout infused with star anise, and a coconut stout. These beers will only be available at our taproom since we have a very limited quantity of them. So, if you like our Portly Stout you do not want to miss out on this.

Also, we will be on tap at the McConnell House in Franklin. They will have Portly Stout on tap starting Wednesday. Don't forget to stop by the McConnell House on August 23rd for the monthly food truck war that takes place in their back parking lot. There's going to be a lot of food and we will be pouring beer!

Our first beer project!!

Yesterday we received two oak whiskey barrels from Collier and McKeel in Nashville.

Whiskey was emptied from these barrels only a hour before we filled them with some of our latest batch of Portly Stout - about two kegs worth.

We took some quality control samples today and the beer tasted great! We can't wait to start serving this next week in our taproom, which will be the only place you can get it. We've also got our other two Portly Stout renditions in the works. Mike is currently adding the star anise to a couple kegs and we are receiving the coconut we ordered tomorrow. I'll have more photos posted on Facebook.

Also, make sure you check out Collier and McKeel's website: www.collierandmckeel.com

Mellow Mushroom!!!! ... in Franklin

Have we mentioned that our beer goes great with pizza? Well it does. And now that you've been informed, you need to head down to Mellow Mushroom in Franklin because they just happen to have Another Way to Rye and Aurumglass on tap!

Also, our website is up. So please take a minute to visit www.turtleanarchy.com

Have a happy Thursday!

Music City and Local Pour

So we had an AWESOME time at Music City Brewer's Fest this past weekend! We loved seeing a bunch of our taproom regulars and meeting many new fans of Turtle Anarchy. Thank you to everyone who came out into the blistering heat and visited our tent!

There's Mike and Andrew rockin' the jockey box!

Whole Fuel Local Pour at Whole Foods in Franklin was also a great success. We were one of a handful of local brewers who attended. I don't have any photos of the event but it was a great time and we hope to see many of our new friends at our taproom.

We have a few more events coming up that I'll share with everyone soon. We also have some new beers that will be appearing in our taproom very soon. So stay tuned and keep drinking.

Music City Brewer's Fest!!

Hey everyone,

The Music City Brewer's Fest is this Saturday and it's going to be awesome. This will be my first time going to the festival and I'm really excited to get some beer out there to everyone.

However, due to the festival, the Turtle Anarchy taproom will be closed Saturday July, 28th. We will still be open tomorrow and Friday at the regular times.

I hope to see you all at the festival!!

Cool Cafe, Twin Peaks, and So Much More...

I hope you're sitting down cause I've got some news for you:

Cool Cafe and Twin Peaks have Another Way to Rye, our Rye IPA, on tap! I had the best fried chicken at Cool Cafe the other day so you have to visit them and try it for yourself. Twin Peaks has got some great burgers and wings. The info on both restaurants is listed at the end of this blog post.

Don't forget to buy your tickets for the Music City Brewer's Fest on July 28th. Last I looked the night session was sold out but there were still tickets available for the day session. We will be there and you should be too!

The taproom here at Turtle Anarchy is opening tonight from 5:00 pm - 10:00pm. Our patrons have been burning through our beer. These are our first batches off our brewing system and they're disappearing fast. So if you haven't made it down here yet...


Cool Cafe
Corner of Hillsboro Rd at Mack Hatcher, Franklin
www.coolcafefranklin.com

Twin Peaks
1634 Galleria Blvd.
Brentwood, TN 37027
www.twinpeaksrestaurant.com

We are changing our taproom hours

That's right, after much consideration we have decided to adjust our hours.

Today, Saturday 7/14 we will be open 4 pm - 10 pm
Thursday 7/19, 5 pm - 10 pm
Friday 7/20, 5 pm - 10 pm
Saturday 7/21 4 pm - 10 pm

Thank you so much to everyone who has visited us already. We have had a great time sharing our beer with you. Those who have not made it down to see us, just remember that there's a pint here with your name on it!!

Our First Night

Thank you to all the people who visited the taproom last night and made it a great success! I hope to see you again soon. Also, I would like to point out a few things that I might not have mentioned before:

1. There is parking behind our building. You may also block our garage doors if you like (they are the two located all the way to the right when facing the back of the building).

2. Since we do not serve food, you are welcome to bring whatever food you like and we will take care of the trash.

3. We will have a tab system set up for tonight.

Thanks again.

We are opening!!!!

Hey all,

I am proud to say that we will finally be opening on:

Thursday July, 5th from 4 pm - 8 pm
Friday July 6th from 4 pm - 8 pm
Saturday July 7th from 4 pm - 8 pm

So flex your livers cause we've got four awesome beers for everyone to try. We will also be selling      t-shirts, limited edition pint glasses, and of course growlers. So come on in and pick up some local craft beer!  

We Finally Got to Brew!

It has been just over 4 months since we started construction at the brewery, but it has been well worth the time and effort. On Wednesday June 13th we finally got to brew our first batch of beer. We decided that this historic brew should be something with big, bold, hop flavors balanced with a strong malt presence... so we brewed a Rye IPA we've named Another Way to Rye. Andrew and Mike milled the 1000 lbs of malt needed to get the brew going.

The mash smelled amazing in the mash tun.

Once we transferred the wort to the kettle and added the hops, the hop aroma filled our warehouse and back parking lot. We used quite a lot of hops in this beer so the aroma was intense!

Alan from Premier Stainless Systems helped us with the mash out. All that grain went on to feed a lot of hungary hogs!

A lesser known fact about brewing is that after the brewing is done there is a lot of cleaning up. I've heard it said many times that about 80% of brewing is cleaning. This includes climbing into the kettle with a bucket of strong acid to scrub the beer stone and burnt on hops off of the walls. I'll also mention that it was about 100 degrees inside that tank when Andrew got in there to insure that the next brew was a clean brew.  

The next day Mike took the first fermentation gravity reading. And we are thrilled to say that it was right on target.

We brewed four different beers last week: Another Way to Rye, Portly Stout, Aurumglass (Golden Ale), and At Wits End (Belgian Witbier). That means in a couple weeks we will have 120 kegs ready for drinking! I hope everyone is ready...

Green Floors!!!

Ok, so its been awhile since the last post and a lot has happened. Most noticeably, the floor is green!!

We covered the brewery floor with three coats of epoxy to protect it from the chemicals we will use to insure a clean and consistent brew every time. We chose green because we thought it would look cool. I like how the color shines off of the bottom of the tanks.

We have also made progress in our taproom.

There's a few things left to do, but the taproom is coming along nicely.

However, the most important news I have to share with you is that Turtle Anarchy Brewing Company has received its Brewer's Notice! That means, according to the federal government, we are legally allowed to brew beer. So it is expected that we will begin test brews next week. It has been a long time coming and I can't wait. Pretty soon we will be pouring beer!!

Cheers

We have made lots of progress

So, I realized today that I haven't posted in quite a while. We have made a lot of progress over the last few weeks. Insulation and drywall were hung, the taproom was painted, and lighting was installed in the taproom. Our most important achievement, however, was placing our brewhouse. We were finally able to organize the heaping pile of tanks in the middle of the floor into the integrated, beer-making machine it is intended to be.

From left to right, there's the hot liquor tank (hot water), the mash tun, the brew kettle, and the cold liquor tank (cold water). That metal box in front of the hot liquor tank is the grist case. The grist case holds the malt after it has been milled but before it is transferred into the mash tun.

The following photos are of our taproom. We just started framing the bar yesterday!!

Lastly, I am particularly proud of our large walk-in cooler that my dad and I constructed last week. We had to move the door, which meant cutting a new doorway in the side. That left a rather big hole where the door was originally meant to go... so we built a wall.

In case you are wondering, it's not wood on the inside. We can't wait to fill this cooler full of beer!!!

As always, I'll post more photos on Facebook.

We made the news!!

For those of you that do not know, the brewery has received some media attention recently! We were featured in an article in the Tennessean on Monday and we appeared in the 10 o'clock news that night on WKRN. Both interviews were very thorough and well done. I would like to thank the two journalists for their interest in the brewery. The following links should take you to the written and video interviews.

The Tennessean
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120319/NEWS01/303190013/Nashville-craft-beer-scene-hopping-these-days

WKRN
http://www.wkrn.com/story/17195960/middle-tennessee-sees-surge-in-micro-breweries

As far as construction goes, the electricians have been very busy getting power to all the various lights, fans, and outlets that will be in our building. We will be insulating the walls and hanging drywall starting next week. That means we will finally be able to set the brewhouse into place and stand up the walk-in coolers. We also received the glycol chiller (photo below) on Tuesday and its huge. This unit will deliver glycol refrigerant to the fermenting tanks and the brite beer tank. It keeps the beer at the desired temp and is crucial in the brewing process.

This is a photo of our brewhouse control panel. I just had to post it here since it is frickin' awesome!

Stay tuned, I'll be posting a lot more photos after the drywall is hung and the brewhouse is placed.

The brewery is taking shape

It has been a little while since I posted any info. So I thought today would be a good day to bring everyone up to date.

We have made a bit of progress since we stood the tanks up a couple weeks ago. We have spent a lot of time (and a lot of money) transforming an empty warehouse into what will be an awesome brewery and taproom.

These first couple photos were taken during the first or second day of framing. From left to right, there's my office, women's room, men's room, and then the janitor's closet.

In this next photo, I'm standing behind our future bar and looking down toward our janitor's closet. Once the sheetrock goes up, those tanks to the right will be moved within a couple feet of the wall (the one between the two ladders laying on the floor) to form the brewhouse.

There's a lot more work to be done but we are making solid progress every week. Next week, we will be getting started on the electrical work. I can't express how excited we are to start brewing beer! More info to follow.

On a side note, I want to wish everyone a wonderful and safe visit to the Franklin Beer Festival next weekend. There will be a lot of great beer and a lot of great people there as always. We will be there next year.

Standing Up the Tanks!!

Every brewery, regardless of location, shares one common event: the raising of the tanks. For those with ample ceiling height, raising the tanks is a relatively simple process. The braces on the top of the each tank are tied to a forklift or crane and the tank is lifted and set into position. For those with less than ideal ceiling height, the process is not as straightforward. Turtle Anarchy happens to fall into the latter category.

Standing up our tanks took two highly skilled forklift operators from The Bailey Company two days to complete. It was a very tedious process but necessary considering that we do actually want to produce beer some day.

The first tank to be raised was our brite beer tank. It was a good tank to start with since it is one of the shorter tanks. Since there wasn't enough ceiling height for a crane, each tank was lifted as high as it could be with the forklift and then pushed over onto its feet. It was kinda scary.

The next tanks that we stood up were our four fermenters. These tanks are 13.5' tall. As you can see in the photos, there wasn't much room above the tanks. The mast of the forklift actually had to be maneuvered around the support beams, electrical conduit, and sprinkler pipes all while lifting the tank!

In the end all of the tanks were successfully raised without any problems. The brewhouse and hot and cold water tanks will be moved to their final locations after some framing is completed. (I'll have info and photos of the framing soon!) I would like to thank the forklift operators for their time and patience with this delicate process. These tanks are more fragile than they look. I would also like to let them know that they are now my go-to guys for all my brewery tank logistical needs. Thanks guys!!

More photos on Facebook