Our first review from the Voodoo Barrel Room Collection. We recently attended the Barrel Room release at Voodoo Brewery in Meadville, Pa. They released their two imperial stouts (BBVD, & Black Magick) each of them receiving three different barrel treatments (Pappy Van Winkle, Buffalo Trace, & Laird’s Apple Brandy Barrels)! They also did their Gran Met (tripel) in the Laird’s Apple Brandy Barrels for this release as well. Be on the lookout for many more beers from this series in the near future. Cheers!

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Part of a series of quick interviews we’re doing with local brewers in the Erie area.  Who is behind the beers that you love? Let’s find out!

Pat: Hey, its Pat from the Erie Better Beer Bureau, and I’m here with Shawn Strickland, Brewmaster at Erie Brewing Company here in Erie.  Thanks for answering some questions for us today here at Erie Brewing.  How long have you been a brewer?

Shawn: About six years, now.

Pat: Were you a homebrewer or a hobbyist before you became a professional brewer?

Shawn: Actually, no, I worked construction prior to here! [Laughs] I actually never homebrewed until I started working here.

Pat: That’s cool, kind of a different path than a lot of brewers take before they become brewers.  How long have you been working for Erie Brewing?

Shawn: A little over thirteen years now.

Pat: Ok.  What is the most interesting or memorable experience you’ve had since you started working here?

Shawn: Prior to being in this building, we were actually in the brewpub down where Union Station is, and moving all the old tanks and brewpub equipment from down there was quite different.  That was the first time I ever moved brewing equipment.  I used to install cranes and stuff in buildings and it was a big change.

Pat: Interesting.  What is your favorite beer–that you make here–that you like to drink?

Shawn: I’d say Fallenbock is probably my favorite.

Pat: What’s your favorite beer that you like to drink that you don’t make here?

Shawn: Haha, my fallback beer is probably Stroh’s.  That’s one of my favorites.  There’s so many different beers that I love besides that, but its usually always in the fridge at my house or at my buddies’.

Pat: All right.  What do you like to do when you’re not brewing?

Shawn: Ride BMX bikes! I also shoot skeet in a league, shoot trap, anything that has to do with shotguns or drinking is usually good for me. [Laughs]

Pat: Yeah, you can’t go wrong there. What do you have coming up here at Erie Brewing that we should know about?

Shawn: Hmm, in the near future here our pumpkin beer is going to be coming out, called Johnny Rails.  We’re also going to do an experimental series here, its only going to be sampled here at the brewery.  You can come in here every other week, and it’ll be on our website saying what we’re going to have for that week.  It will give us a chance to try a variety of new things and see what people respond to.  People can come try out our experimental stuff or some regular favorites in our sampling room and let us know what they think.

Pat: Thanks! Sounds good.  Any last words?

Shawn: None that I can think of, other than Cheers!

Special thanks to all the backroom guys at Erie Brewing for taking time out of the end of their day and welcoming me as a guest.  It was a fun afternoon!

We sample the newest release in Southern Tier’s Blackwater Series, this is Plum Noir (an Imperial Porter brewed with Italian Plums).

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Part of a series of quick interviews we’re doing with local brewers in the Erie area.  Who is behind the beers that you love? Let’s find out!

Pat:  Hi! This is Pat from the Erie Better Beer Bureau, and I’m here with Matt Allyn of Voodoo Brewery.  Thank you for your time, Matt.  I’m just going to ask him a few questions here.  How long have you been brewing, Matt?

Matt:  Twenty years, roughly.

Pat:  Twenty years.  What is your favorite thing about brewing?

Matt:  The creation.  Creating different beers, working with different people, the collaboration that is brewing.  Stuff like that.

Pat:  What do you like to drink when you’re not drinking your own beer?

Matt:  [laughs] Haha, I don’t know, bourbon?

Pat:  Bourbon!  All right.  What do you like to do when you’re not brewing?

Matt:  I don’t know, I really don’t do much other than brew, work at the brewery, promote the brewery.  I mean, I try to do some skiing, get out to my camp and go four-wheeling sometimes, things like that.

Pat:  What has been your most interesting experience as a brewer, while brewing?

Matt:  Oh, when we opened Voodoo, the first brew that I did took fifteen hours.  It was Black Magick, and luckily I had a lot of local brewers there for the initial brew to help out.  That was probably one of the toughest and most interesting days.  And the biggest mistake that I made was trying to brew the biggest beer I possibly could make on a system I’d then never brewed on.  But, I had a lot of good friends, it was a good time, that made it a lot better.

Pat:  Thank you.  Is there anything we can look forward to from Voodoo? Any events or new releases you’d like us to know about?

Matt:  We’re going to keep doing our session beer series that we’re doing at the pub, and I think we’re slotting September for the next Bourbon Barrel Room Collection release situation.  We’ll have our Wee Heavy, we’ll have the barleywine, some more of the Gran Met apple brandy, we’ve got Wynona’s Big Brown aged in Buffalo Trace barrels, and we’ve got a couple of the 2 Live Grand Cru Volume 2, and a couple more surprises that will be in that collection as well.  We’ve also got a new pale ale that’s coming up next, and we’ve got Delicate Like a Flower, which is a hibiscus-style golden Belgian Ale.

Pat:  All right! Thank you very much, good stuff to know!  Any closing words for us?

Matt:  Drink good beer!  That’s all that matters!

Image used with permission

Midnight Sun is out of Alaska, and this is their BA Barleywine (2011 Vintage). Grab a beer, and let us know what you think of this one?

Cheers ~ The Bureau

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This is the newest release in the Backstage Series from Founders Brewing Company out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is a Double India Pale Ale aged in Bourbon Barrels. There’s been a lot of conversation surrounding this beer, so hit play to hear our opinions on this beer. Cheers guys!

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Pat brought over a bottle of Avery Maharaja (a highly rated DIPA out of Colorado) for Dave & Morey to taste blindly. Will they think that this beer is worthy of the hype that it often receives? Watch to find out!

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Pat: Hey, this is Pat from the Erie Better Beer Bureau, and I’m here with Jason Lavery of Lavery Brewing Company.  Thank you, Jason.  Can you tell us a little about your brewery?

Jason: Sure! We’re a ten-barrel brewhouse founded in 2009 and we’re on 12th and Sassafrass Street.  We distribute to Erie, Pittsburgh, York, Philadelphia, New Jersey and Delaware. We did about three hundred and fifty barrels in 2012 and we’ll do about a thousand barrels here in 2013.  We do ten different beers, mostly seasonal, so about three or four different beers at any given time.

Pat: How long have you been brewing, both personally and professionally?

Jason: As an amateur, I’ve been brewing since 2004, so this is my ninth year.  Professionally, 2009 was our first year and when I did an apprenticeship to become an official brewer.

Pat: What’s your favorite beer that you brew?

Jason: Right now, I’d definitely have to say its Dulachan, our new session IPA.  It’s 5.6% (ABV) and hopped with Simcoe, Columbus, Citra and Amarillo hops.

Pat: What’s your favorite beer when you’re not drinking your own stuff?

Jason: Orval! [laughs] Or Hennepin. Or, really, whatever I have.

Pat: What do you like to do when you’re not brewing?

Jason: I have three kids, you know, and they’re very active in sports and stuff like that, so I try to be very attentive, overprotective dad.  That kind of stuff.  Weekend warrior things.

Pat: What has been your most memorable moment as a brewer?

Jason: There’s been a few.  Opening our brewery–the day we signed our loan papers to get the money to open our brewery was pretty huge.  The day we got our first equipment in was pretty huge.  We also just got new tanks in last year.  Opening up in Philadelphia was pretty big for us because they’re now about half of our sales.  Specifically, I guess I couldn’t say just one thing.  We’re kind of that wide-eyed, so amazed that we’re in this profession still and we really don’t take anything for granted.  Every day is pretty awesome and beer fests are always cool, especially ones in town because we get to interact with all our people that we know and see.  So, every day!  As corny as that sounds. [Laughs]

Pat: Is there anything we can look forward to? Anything coming up that we should know about?

Jason: We’re doing a new black saison that we’ll be releasing in May, called Death or Glory.  It’s a 7% black saison brewed with our saison yeast.  We’re also actually opening a pub.  We hope to be open August 2013.

Pat: Thank you Jason.  Any last words for us?

Jason: Cheers!

Mark was nice enough to share his 2009 bottle with us. This a huge Imperial Stout that weighs in at 15% alcohol! Three Floyds (FFF) releases this brewery-only beer on Dark Lord Day once a year at the brewery. We hear that it’s quite the get together, and hope to attend one day. Cheers!

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