The Stone Blog

A few weeks ago, we hosted a pretty sweet Google+ hangout all about our awesome collaboration beer that we recently re-brewed: Dogfish Head / Victory / Stone Saison du BUFF. Our very own Greg Koch joined Dogfish Head’s Sam Calagione and moderator Wil Wheaton for a live video broadcast devoted to that very subject. (Victory’s Bill Covaleski was unfortunately plagued by technical difficulties. Bummer.)

Well, besides having a great time chatting and drinking beer, Wil at one point asked if it would be possible for us to share the homebrew recipe for Saison du BUFF. While Greg and Sam discussed it, I reminded Greg from off-camera that it was already available, courtesy of our amazing book: The Craft of Stone Brewing Co.: Liquid Lore, Epic Recipes, and Unabashed Arrogance! </plug> And that we’d also of course be more than glad to share it on our blog.

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No secret that school gets back in session for most of the country about now. No matter if you are a student yourself, or have kids going to school, you could not have possibly missed annual barrage of Back to School ads, promos, sales, and such. You know, the annual tradition that begins barking to us in the dog days of August as an unwelcome reminder that in a few preciously short more weeks summer will be drawing to a close. August also, oddly, seems to spawn forth the release of seasonal (?) pumpkin beers, which at this point have already been on the shelves for several weeks. But the process of getting them there started much, much earlier.

With an average brewing time presumably in the 2-3 week range, after which they are then stockpiled and sent to wholesalers around the country to eventually hit retailers’ shelves by—in some seasonally-challenged instances—early- to mid- August. That means that while you were only a month or so into your summer tan and more concerned with your beer-geek friends critiquing you for pouring your local brewery’s summer wheat into a freezer-kept mug (after all, it’s so damn hot today right? Well, I actually agree with them…), your favorite pumpkin ale brewer was taking delivery of massive loads of pumpkin and working on their posters reading “Get Yours Today!!” (complete with fallen leaves, dried cornstalks and other autumnal imagery that Mother Nature will be catching up with three months later).

It’s the way of the world. Hell, I remember one summer many many years ago in Los Angeles I was dating a girl that was a personal assistant to Neil Diamond, and I recall her bemoaning that she was growing sick of hearing the Christmas songs he was working on recording for his upcoming holiday release. (Never mind that Neil is Jewish; I thought the end result was a great effort.) And y’know, I never have really forgiven myself for not taking at least enough advantage of that previous relationship to swing by the offices for a pic and an autograph.

Anywho. While you were diving into the pool / lake / river / ocean / sprinklers / hydrant in the middle of the summer, your fall sweaters are receiving their final stitching in China and Bangladesh. Or thereabouts.

But I digress. We were talking about Back to School, which, as I haven’t managed to get to yet but will now, reminded me of my relatively recent commencement speech I gave to the 2012 graduating class at Cuyamaca College just a few short months ago. Why would anyone ask me to give a Commencement speech one might reasonably ask? Well, the previous spring I’d been invited to give an environmental keynote to a Green Business Symposium that was being held on the campus, and I guess they liked my message. And delivery. I’d hoped they did, but I admittedly get a little bombastic at times, especially if it’s a topic that I care about, and I was pretty certain that I was either going to eventually get invited to give another talk perhaps, or politely asked never to set foot on campus again. Fortunately it was the former, but I hadn’t expected to get elevated to Commencement-delivery status. I was honored. And gave an enthusiastic Yes!

But what would I say to a group of students about to head out into the quote-unquote “real world”? As I contemplated my own graduation some 25 years previous (not that I can even recall who gave my university’s commencement or any of the words of wisdom that they gave unfortunately), I tried to think about what I wish I’d been told when I was handed my degree, and the pen just couldn’t stop flowing. The proverbial pen, that is. I actually used my laptop, as I am now.

Anyway, I think I did OK, if I may say so myself. And I really enjoyed getting a chance to share my thoughts and perspectives with the young and not-so-young minds (Cuyamaca is quite delightfully diverse, with graduating students from the 2012 class ranging from a brilliant 18 year old, and an equally-inspiriational-but-in-a-different-way octogenarian gearing up to take their next step. Since then, I’ve seen some nice feedback from a snippet of my speech that was posted by the college, and I thought, well heck! Why not share my thoughts with the world? Or at least the thin slice of the world that’s represented by you, my dear readers.

Yes, some people might disagree or scrunch their noses at some of my suggestions, but that’s alright as it’s quite impossible to say anything that’s worth saying at all without at least a modest percentage of scrunched noses… so if you feel inclined, please do scrunch away. While I may not agree with the scrunching of your nose, I will defend to the death your right to scrunch it. Or something. No matter. I wrote it for those who, like me, are rarely satisfied with the status quo… those who are always looking for ways to innovate, improvise, and improve along the way. If you’re of that cloth, feel free to read on. And if you’re not, you may benefit from reading it most.

So, without further delay, mention of sweaters, Christmas albums from Jewish singers, August onslaughts of pumpkin beers, or other asides, here is the text of my 2012 Cuyamaca College Commencement Speech:

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Just like the universe, we’re expanding. All the time. You may recall from our big announcements back in May 2011 that we were embarking on a $50M+ expansion plan to include several new adventures including: Stone Farms, Stone Catering, Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens – Liberty Station, and arguably the coolest of all, the Stone Hotel. While some of those super sweet items have already been completed and others (like the Liberty Station restaurant and hotel) have been slightly delayed, we’re very excited to announce that ground has officially been broken on the brand new Stone Packaging Hall!

So what does that mean for you? Simple: MORE BEER. You see, we’ve been working ’round the clock to get our new 120bbl brewhouse installed next to our current one, but it’s displaced quite a few fermentation tanks. The bottom line? We’re running out of room!

Stone Packaging Hall renderings

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July 26, 1996. A sliver in time that shall go down in history as the day the world changed forever! Well, perhaps a bit of hyperbole, but it was the day that the first keg of Stone Pale Ale was ever sold. (Kudos to our buddy Vince Marsaglia from Pizza Port Solana Beach for coming to pick it up! … ‘course back then, there was only one Pizza Port, so putting Solana Beach to its name wasn’t necessary.)

We’re celebrating here as anybody should for their Sweet 16, with pillow fights, gossip, and a shiny new driver license a really stellar cake! Besides all the obvious perks of working at a brewery, we’re fortunate enough to have a really talented kitchen crew at the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens, and our pastry chefs were kind enough to whip something up for Team Stone as a small token of appreciation for all the hard work they do.

Reason #456,742,403 why it doesn't suck to work here

To answer your question, this deliciously decadent mochaccino cake made with layers of almond biscuit, pecan candy, chocolate cremeux, and coffee mousse was just as ridiculously good as it looks. And those mini “tap handles” you see? They’re made of fondant mixed with various herbs and spices to resemble our original tap handles which were actual stones that Greg used to go out and find at the beach on his “days off.” Pastry chefs Tony Martin and Tonya Ziegler (pictured below with GK) really knocked it out of the park!

Stone tap handles from days of yore

Pastry chefs Tonya Ziegler and Tony Martin show off their tasty creation with GK

In the midst of devouring this cake like rabid dogs who hadn’t eaten in a week, we collectively took a moment to recognize the incredible growth that Stone Brewing Co. has seen over the past 16 years, and how we couldn’t have done it without YOUR continued support and dedication! THANK YOU!

And while we can’t get each and every one of you a piece of cake, we can keep cranking out insanely good beers, and hosting epic events to showcase the glory of craft beer! (Like next month’s Stone 16th Anniversary Celebration & Invitational Beer Festival.</plug>)

Cheers to our first 16 years, and to the next 16! Thanks for being our friends.

Remember when we came out with that badass collaboration beer? What’s that? Oh, which one, you ask? Yes, of course. We should be more specific, as they’ve all been pretty unbelievable. (And we’re totally allowed to brag this hard because there were other brilliant brewers involved, so please consider this our way of supremely complimenting them… while giving ourselves just a little pat on the back.)

Annnnnnyway, so as you may recall, in 2010, we released Dogfish Head / Victory / Stone Saison du BUFF, a hellaciously herbaceous beer that we–and countless others–fell in love with instantly.

Dogfish Head / Victory / Stone Saison du BUFF is back at long last! But it won't last long.

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Did you hear that we wrote a book? It’s called The Craft of Stone Brewing: Liquid Lore, Epic Recipes, and Unabashed Arrogance.

We bet you hadn’t heard that, which is why we’re sending our demonstrative CEO & Co-Founder Greg Koch on a 9-city book tour. That’s right, Greg & his face are coming to your town, assuming you live in one of the selected 9 cities east of the Mississippi.

What will Greg do on this book tour, you ask? Well, lots of things, but he’ll be talking a lot about exactly how Stone morphed from a tiny two person operation into one of fastest growing, most widely known craft breweries in the world, all while maintaining a fierce commitment to business ethics and the principles our founders hold dear.

So what exactly can the lucky folks who attend these events expect? Well, we’ve selected a veritable potpourri of venues, so it depends on which one(s) you go to.

• If you choose to attend one of Greg’s talks at a university, you’ll hear about the history of Stone, his entrepreneurial philosophy, and the secrets to the company’s success.
• If you attend one of his events at a bookstore, you’ll get to meet Greg, have the opportunity to get your photo taken with him (instant holiday card material), and get your beloved copy of our tome signed by him.
• And finally, if you attend one of his events at a bar, you can expect an absolutely stellar selection of Stone beers, the opportunity to share a beer with said CEO, hear his stump speech, catch him as he dives off the bar, get a temporary tattoo of his screaming visage affixed to your person, and have a generally joyful time.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing at every event. That may also be true of the temporary tattoo thing.

So check out the handy interactive map on our book tour website and see if your city has been selected as one of the lucky hosts. Regardless of whether or not it has, we highly recommend that you stop whatever you’re doing and attend all of them. Dedicated “roadies” will receive additional temporary tattoos and inscrutable words of wisdom.

Some might be content with a folding table in a bookstore for (their) book release, but you know us better than that. After all, The Craft of Stone Brewing Co. is the first (ever) book about us, and we spent over a year writing it. Tomorrow (9/27/11) is the big national release day, and here’s what we have planned to celebrate at the brewery…

To start, a book signing:

Greg Koch, Steve Wagner & Randy Clemens will be signing your books  and graciously posing for pictures out in the gardens starting at 5pm. We’ll even have staff on hand to take the picture for you. So that you don’t have to wait in a never-ending line for your coveted signatures, we’ll be calling people to the table in groups. If your group isn’t up yet, you can go get a beer in the meantime. Pretty good customer service, huh? Well, it gets even better when you look at the tap list…

The Great American Beer Festival is one of the world’s classic beer drinking experiences. This will be the 30th year of this epic celebration of American brewing, and it’s almost impossible to put into words how much it has changed.

From its very humble beginnings, to the colossal event it is today—which nearly takes over the city of Denver for three amazing days—the GABF is the ne plus ultra American beer festival.

In case you couldn’t tell, we’re very excited about it. The GABF is always an amazingly good time. From pouring beer on the festival floor to seeing old friends at the great beer bars around town, the GABF is more than the world’s premier beer drinking opportunity, it’s a gathering of the craft beer tribe.

In celebration of this fact, we’re putting together 5 worthy events at some great craft beer loving venues in Denver. For details on these amazing events, head over to the Stone Brewing in Colorado Facebook events page.

As for the Festival itself, we’ll have a very special opportunity for fans: Stone CEO & Co-Founder Greg Koch will be signing copies of our brand new book, The Craft of Stone Brewing Co.: Liquid Lore, Epic Recipes, and Unabashed Arrogance, along with co-author Randy Clemens.

The book is an insider’s guide on the history of Stone, and it shares homebrew recipes for many of our celebrated beers including Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine, Stone Smoked Porter, and Stone 12th Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout.

In addition, it features recipes from the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens like Garlic, Cheddar, and Stone Ruination IPA Soup, BBQ Duck Tacos, and the legendary Arrogant Bastard Ale Onion Rings, among other fascinating tidbits contained in the tome.

The dynamic duo of Randy & Greg will be signing & selling books at the Stone booth on the Festival floor at the following times: Thursday 9/29 from 7:30-9:30pm, Friday 9/30 from 6pm-8pm, and Saturday 10/1 from 2pm-4pm and 6pm-8pm.

But that’s not all, folks. We’ll also be pouring a bevy of wonderful Stone beers at our booth, including:

• Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale
• Double Dry Hopped Stone IPA
• Stone Levitation Ale
• Stone 15th Anniversary Escondidian Imperial Black IPA
• 2011 Stone Old Guardian BELGO Barley Wine.

Yeah, you’re not going to want to miss our booth.

Well, Mitch is back from the U.K., where he brewed a monstrously hoppy yet sessionable IPA, but now we’ve sent Greg to mainland Europe for a series of historic events. Seems like we’ve got someone in Europe all the time these days.

Here’s the situation: Greg has gone to Europe to continue the search for a brewery location. We’ve been searching for almost 2 years now, but we’re doing our absolute best to nail down a site. It’s been a challenge. Hopefully we’ll have news to report soon.

While he’s over there, he’ll be breaking some new ground in the European beer world. This Friday, September 16th Brussels’ legendary Moeder Lambic bar will be hosting Greg & 30 insane taps of Stone beer.

As far as we know, that is the most beer ever from a single brewery on tap in one place in Europe. Feel free to correct us if we’re wrong, but we believe this is a first. We know for certain this event will feature the first non-grey market Stone beer on draft ever in mainland Europe, which means you can be assured it will be fresh & served properly. We don’t expect to do this again until we open our European brewery.

The event will actually be a mini-festival of sorts, featuring Stone merchandise, bottled beer, and, of course, Greg’s now famous speech, usually delivered from the top of a bar. No word yet on whether or not he’ll deliver it in Dutch, French, or German. Oh, and this amazing event just got a great write-up in The New York Times.

While he’s traveling, he’ll be doing a variety of other events as well:

• On Sunday, September 18^th, Greg will travel to Amsterdam’s “American BeerBar BeerTemple”, an innovative new establishment bent on bringing the American craft beer revolution to Dutch beer lovers. The event will feature 8 palate-wowing Stone beers from bottles along with the aforementioned Mr. Koch and his shenanigans.

• Greg will then travel to sunny Glasgow, Scotland for an event at BrewDog Glasgow on Tuesday, September 20th. The event will feature an array of heavy hitting beers, cockney speechification, and rollicking good times.

• The Greg/awesome beer train then rolls into BrewDog Edinburgh on Wednesday, September 21^st for more of the above-mentioned activities.

• And finally, Greg will come back to the good ‘ol U.S. of A for an epic event at New York City’s legendary Rattle ‘n Hum on Thursday, September 22nd, featuring 17 Stone taps. Should be a blast.

This will be quite the trip. Feel free to come along for any or all of it. You’ll like it, we promise.

Thought you might like to learn about the results of the recent epic “Beer vs. Wine Dinner” at the Rancho Bernardo Inn’s highly regarded “El Bizcocho” restaurant.

First, a short recap of what the dinner was all about….

• The recent October 16, 2009 dinner was the third in a 3-year series.

• The premise is simple: A multi-course fine-dining dinner served with a specially selected wine to go with each course, as well as a specially selected beer. All the attendees of the dinner get a specially prepared card to mark their preference for each course – either the beer or the wine. At the end of the dinner, the results are tallied and the one winner is announced based on the total number of votes for the evening.  “Wine” was represented by Sommelier and Certified Wine Educator Barry Wiss of Napa’s Trinchero Family Estates.  Barry has flown down from Napa each year to participate in the challenge.  Neither I nor Barry had any say in the creation of the menu — each year it was presented to us with a “Gentlemen, here you go…do your best!”

• In October 2007, “Beer” won. However, it was very close. Beer took three of the courses and wine won three. Yet, beer edged out with more total votes during the evening. This dinner was captured on film and an entertaining documentary was created by our friends at Redtail Media (the same team that created the viral I Am A Craft Brewer video with me). The “Beer vs. Wine 2007″ doc is on the promotional Stone DVD. If you haven’t found the opportunity to view it yet, grab the DVD and watch it. I think you’ll find it quite well done and entertaining. If you haven’t gotten one yet, it can be obtained at the Stone Store either at the brewery, or online here.
• This clip is a preview of the beginning of that 2007 documentary:

And this 30-second clip featuring Chef Gavin Kaysen is from the middle of the 2007 documentary:

• In October 2008, “Wine” won. Again, very close with three courses to three courses, with wine winning more total votes in the evening. Again, documentary footage was shot, but it has not yet been edited. This 30-second promo spot was created. Hell, even knowing the results doesn’t stop you from wanting to see the whole match after watching this punchy spot:

• Thus, Friday, October 16th, 2009’s dinner was going to determine the “best two out of three” winner. The rubber match. The champion. Once more, our documentary film making friends at Redtail Media captured the action. While it may take several months for them to get the editing done, both the 2008 dinner and Friday’s dinner will be edited into episodes.

OK, so without further ado, I’ll now reveal the results: BEER! Yes, beer won the night. This time, it was so close that they had to recount…twice. Turned out WAY too close for comfort for me, but ultimately it was indeed Beer that won…and just by ONE vote.

This is a big deal. The premise of the dinner–the motivation for me to do it–was to prove a point. I intentionally picked a wine-centric fine dining chef-driven restaurant for the Beer vs. Wine Dinner. I wanted to show that even in this “hostile territory” the ability of great craft beer to pair amazingly with great food was equal, or better, to that of fine wine. And we succeeded. We ALL succeeded.  This includes YOU because we are all a very important part of the craft brewing movement and we are collectively showing the world how wonderful and amazing the world of great craft beer can be.

I’d like to give special thanks to our Head Brewer, Mitch Steele, as he helped pick the selections with me for the beer pairings for each of the dinners.

You can view the grueling tasting and selection process in these two “Greg’s vBlog” clips (you’ll see that we should get a Medal of Valor or something for our willingness to self-sacrifice for the betterment of craft beer):

This year, we were further aided by the Stone Brewing World Bistro & Gardens’ Beverage Coordinator, Dr. Bill, and his educated and insightful palate in the decision making process. Ultimately, we succeeded in our mission. We demonstrated that craft beer is to be reckoned with in the culinary world. You and I already knew that, and now even more people will have the opportunity to know it!

Here’s a picture that was shot just moments after the results were announced and I was given the trophy. Standing next to me is Barry Wiss of Trinchero Family Estates, the Napa-based Sommelier challenger who flew down for the event:

All in all we all had a terrific time.  I gotta hand it to the wine guys, they were consummate good sports.  Barry didn’t skip a beat in offering a genuine “Congrats!” when the voting results were announced, and even went on to tell me that the Beer vs. Wine dinners had really opened his eyes to the depth and complexity in the world of great beer.  Barry’s compatriot at Trinchero, Chris Siconolfi, emailed me the next day writing “Thank you for the competition and the partnership last night, it is like we all agreed, at the end of the day it is about opening the consumers’ eyes and educating on the fact that beer and wine pair amazingly well with food.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself!

Stay tuned as the Beer vs. Wine saga WILL continue.  Barry and Chris have invited me to conduct a soon-to-be-scheduled Beer vs. Wine Dinner in the heart of Napa wine country.  I can’t wait.  And I’m gonna go in swinging.

Hey, just ’cause we’re all friendly and everything, and we are, doesn’t mean I’m going to pull any punches.  When I go, I’ll go to win!

Winner Greg Koch with Executive Chef Judd Canepari and Barry Wiss of Napa's Trinchero Family Estates

Cheers,
Greg Koch, CEO & co-founder

Stone Brewing Co.