8 replies to this topic

[SchwanzBrewer]

I didn't want to post this in the review section because I don't feel qualified to really rate the beer, but I will tell you about the experience and give some really general descriptions.Well on my trip to Port Aransas, Texas, I stopped by in the Port Aransas Brewing Company. The food there is pretty good. We had a nice deep dish pizza. The beer: All of their beers are hazy. They claim this is because it is "natural". I tried their sampler which consisted of a pilsner, Island pale ale, red ale, bock, hefeweizen, red wheat, and a shandy (pilsner + lemonade).I am not a beer judge and have just recently started expanding my pallet so I am going to use the following scale: poor, average, good, tasty.Pilsner: Good. I have never tried a pilsner (outside of miller products) so I was surprised by the flavor. Tastes nothing like a Miller.Island Pale Ale: Good. I expected this to have more hop presence and aroma. The description on the website is pretty accurate, but without knowing that you were ready for more hops. If you put this against SNPA you think they were not even in the same category.Red Ale: Tasty. I liked this beer the best of all, but it tastes nothing like a New Castle like the website describes.Bock: Good. It was pleasant but not a summer beer.hefeweizen: Good. Tasted just like blue moon.Red Wheat: Average. I think my pallet was ruined by the time I got to this beer, and I'm not a huge wheat beer fan.Shandy: Poor-Tasty. I thought this was disgusting. It was way too sweet for me and just left me saying yuck. My GF on the other hand loved it and ordered a whole glass so to each his/her own.I aked about the brewery the first time I went in with my GF and the waiter was short and just said its right back there, so I didn't really get the back story. A couple days later I stopped in on my own while the GF was getting her nails done and I had a nice chat with the bartender about the brewery.It turns out that they only make extract beers. The reason for this is because they are in the Port A city limits and when they submitted their plans to the city council they were going to have a traditional two story brewery with brewing upstairs and it would feed to the fermentors down stairs where it could be kegged and served. But, the council considered all grain brewing as manufacturing + they wanted them to install an elevator for safety and handicap purposes. Well, there was no room for the elevator and they were stuck, so they found these all-in-one brew pot, fermentor, keg, things that have heating coils and cooling coils in them at $16k a pop. So they went to extract brewing. Apparently they special order all of their extracts to get their flavors. I am not sure if this was BS or not, but my detector was going off. I asked whether they steep any specialty grains and the bartender did not know. They only teach employees how to brew after they have been there for a year, and the bartender had only been in charge of the cleaning and sanitizing to that point, he was going to start his first beer in a month or so. The brew pots are pretty cool. They boil the wort in the pot, skim off the proteins from the hatch, dump the trub from the conical in the bottom, cool the wort with the internal chiller, add the yeast and let it go. After fermentation s complete they chill the beer again, dump and remaining sputz out of the bottom, add the carbonation line and let it sit while it carbonates. When its done, the tap is right there on the fermentor, no transferring, no mess. I thought that was pretty darn cool. I wish I could have seen the inside of one, but they were all in use. I wanted to stay and have some more beer, but I had to pick up the GF from the nail place.All in all, I liked the Port A Brewing Company. They had a lot of micro brews in the bottle and had good food. It was definitely my favorite restaurant on the island. Cheers,Rich

[buzhazzard]

I am headed to Port A this summer and will have to go by just to check out the fermenter / server vessel. I did not even know this was down there.

[SchwanzBrewer]

Its pretty new, maybe a year old? Enjoy!

[Sidney Porter]

https://www.cafekari...m/karibrew.htmlThere is a place on Amelia Island that has the same setup. I have not been there. Some of their styles are made by blending....

[SchwanzBrewer]

Ya, I wish the owner was there so I could ask him about steeping and such. I kind of got the idea that they didn't add and specialty grains, but who knows.

[Sidney Porter]

my uderstanding of the one in Amelia doesn't do any steeping. I understand them as being big Mr Beer kits. I don't even know oif they need to boil them or if they just heat it up enought to mix the extract and water.

[ncbeerbrewer]

I was doing some research last year about opening up a microbrewery in my area here and I came across a local manufacture that sold systems and malt extract. It did look pretty simple and it was cost effective. I am not sure how successful it would be in the commercial world but I guess if the manufacture is is in business and the saying is true "good beers can be made from extract" then hey anything is possible. Sounds like it was a fun time. Thanks for the info. If I ever get down to TX to visit my Aunt/Uncle I might just stop in there as well.Local Company

[SchwanzBrewer]

After seeing that, that is incredible, they are claiming brew to drink in 5 days. Maybe that is why all the beers are hazy, they never have time to mature.

[ncbeerbrewer]

That seems reasonable to me. I figure at worst you could cold crash for a few days that clears things up pretty nicely but if they don't do that then yes a short timeline can dictate that as well.