Water is easily taken for granted. When you want it you turn a handle and it flows from your spigot, refreshing and sustaining.
With the My Creek photo competition in mind, I tossed my camera in the car on my way to pick my daughter up from a nearby friend’s slumber party, intent on spending a few moments communing with my creek.
Just 10 minutes after parking at a trailhead, I was back with these photos and a serene sensibility that the water, sound, light and motion of the few minutes of autumnal splendor had instilled in me.
That was too easy.
You should try it. You should enter the My Creek photo competition if you are anywhere near our brewery. To enter, take photographs anywhere along the Brandywine Creek, then go to www.mycreek.org and submit them.
If you are not near, breathe a comforted sigh while gazing at the pristine beauty of My Creek, the East Branch of the Brandywine. And next time you drink a Headwaters Pale Ale, know that you are helping to keep these waters clean.
After following along with us during our Headwaters Pale Ale revitalization efforts by reading the Behind the Scenes: Watch Headwaters Flow blog series, you know all about what it takes to brew this great beer. But would you like to know where the idea for Headwaters originated? Bill and Ron tell you:
October 17
While we’ve been silent on this blog series over the past few weeks, our brewers and account reps have been busily refilling the pipeline with Headwaters Pale Ale. In fact, as of today, Headwaters is flowing at full force. Pallets of the delicious brew have been shipped to retailers near you. It’s time to get your drink on!
Look for it in bottles, cases and on draft at your local watering hole.
We will continue to keep the tide high in order to drench our thirsty fans with a fountain of Pale Ale. And we promise to do our best to avoid any Headwaters drought in the future.
Cheers to the end of this blog series and the conclusion of watery puns. I was running dry and my vocabulary was being soaked with synonyms.
September 28
Our brewers are still busily brewing Headwaters in order to replenish the market with the delicious pale ale come mid-October. As you anxiously wait for Headwaters to flow from your local tap, we want to fill you in on some great Headwaters Grant news.
When we named Headwaters Pale Ale last February, we did so to pay homage to the pure water we receive from the East Branch of the Brandywine Creek that begins its journey to us just under 14 miles from where we brew with it. Because of the important role water plays in the production of quality beer, we initiated The Headwaters Grant as a way to give back to the groups working hard to protect the natural resource.
Back in May, we awarded our very first Headwaters Grant to The Guardians of the Brandywine to fund their “My Creek” initiative. This outreach program aims to educate individuals and to encourage them to take ownership of clean water issues.
Now, with help from Victory Brewing Company (and from you for buying our beer), The Guardians are inspiring citizens to start making a difference in their own backyards through their “My Creek – The Beauty of the Brandywine” photography contest. You could win $300 for your work!
You can support The Guardians of the Brandywine in two ways:
Buy and enjoy Headwaters Pale Ale. (We are donating 1 cent for every bottle sold in the region).
The Guardians point out on their mycreek.org site:
You live near it. You benefit from it. Even when you do not notice it, it is there nourishing and caring for you. It asks for nothing, and in return, it gives our region vitality. The waters of the Brandywine Creek are our lifeblood. We drink its waters, it feeds our economy, and it offers itself up as protection from damaging storms.
We encourage you to take ownership of the Brandywine Creek and your local bodies of water. You have the right and the ability to protect your local watershed in the future.
September 27
Last week you watched as we received the citra hops that Scott selected while he was in Yakima. Now our hop supply is looking incredibly robust. Our hop cooler is stacked high with bushels of the aromatic cones and our brew house is busy brewing with the new arrivals.
Those Yakima-grown hops won’t be our only shipment. In fact, another of our hop suppliers sent us samples of citra and simcoe last week. The samples come from different lots. Our brewers get together and review the samples to decide which selections to purchase.
Watch as the Victory team chooses from the samples:
September 24
We started brewing with our newly-received citra hops. Headwaters is now flowing through the brewery.
We’re about to be overflowing with Headwaters Pale Ale. Grab an oar.
September 23
After a long ride, our hops are here!
Here are the hops in the truck:
And here they are being unloaded. In case you were wondering how we get them off the truck, the answer is . . . manpower.
September 20
Looks like mechanical failure set our hop delivery back a few days. We were expecting our citra to arrive today, but now Friday looks to be the day. In the meantime, the hops were being stored in one of the world’s largest cold storage facilities.
We’re anxiously awaiting their arrival…
September 16, 2011
Our hand-selected citra hops are in transit. We’re slated for a big hop drop on Tuesday. Then, our brewery will be flooded with the flowers.
September 14, 2011
During his visit to Yakima, Scott visited four family-owned hop farms. The Carpenters, Perraults, Roys, and Segals all welcomed him as he toured their operations and selected our hop lots for the upcoming year. In addition to rubbing a handful of hop varieties, Scott got to see these farms in action during their busiest time of the year.
Now it’s your turn.
Here’s a closer look at hop harvesting. The following photos and videos take you from the hop fields, through the facility, an off to storage. Get a sense of what Scott saw below.
Reminder: Scott is Victory’s Director of Brewery Operations. Camera handling skills are not part of his job description.
Note: These photos and videos are a collaboration from the four farms that Scott visited. All of the farms operated differently, but the gist is the same.
The hops grow on vines in the field:
Once they are fully grown, the vines are harvested and loaded into the trucks:
The trucks bring the vines to the facility and they are unloaded and hooked to a conveyor:
The vines travel on the conveyor from the truck to the feeder:
The vines are fed into automated machines where the hops will begin being cleaned and separated from the vines:
The hops travel through a series of machines that clean and separate the hops from the vine:
Then the separated hops are loaded into the drying beds. Here the fresh cones will be dried for preservation. This video specfically shows our chosen citra hops being loaded for drying (yay!):
The entire bed is filled with fresh hops. Underneath all of the hops is a mesh-like floor that opens to a heat source which dries the flowers:
Check out the massive dryer that burns below the fresh hops. This flame produces the heat that dries the hops to preserve their oils:
Once the hop flowers are dry, they are baled for shipping:
Then, off they go to cold storage:
And here’s what’s left behind:
September 13, 2011
Scott is now back in Downingtown, PA busying himself with brewing operations. As he sifts through the piles of work he left behind while in Yakima, he’s uploading even more photos and some videos from his trip west. Tomorrow, we will share some nifty video clips of the hops, the harvest equipment, and the incredible processes that he wrote home about (see below).
Scott also reported that the hop lots he selected while in Yakima are being shipped out on Friday. We’ve got space reserved for them in our hop freezer.
September 10, 2011
Yesterday was Scott’s final day in Yakima before heading back to Victory where we will soon see the Headwaters flowing. Thanks to Scott’s citra selection, It’s only a matter of time before Headwaters will pour from Victory Brewing Company onto store shelves and bar taps near you.
I spent yesterday with the Roy and Carpenter families at their family farms. Both the Roys and the Carpenters have been in the hop-growing business for several generations.
The Roys have the distinction of being the largest privately-owned hop farm in the world — with close to 3200 acres of hop crop. They have multiple processing facilities. In these facilities, the hop cones are separated from the vines and leaves. The Roys have a very modern and technologically-advanced facility and are constantly re-investing in new technologies and methods. Their interest in the latest and greatest allows them to increase their efficiency and increase the quality and consistency of their harvests.
I also went to their experimental yard where they had more than 30 different varieties growing. I was able to bring some samples back for the crew to rub.
In the afternoon, I went to the Carpenters ranch and met Brad, Greg, and their father Tom who have been growing hops for their entire lives. It is truly a family company. The Carpenter’s offices are located in the house they grew up in. And both of their wives as well as some of Tom’s grandkids are part of the business now.
If anybody embodies the spirit of American entrepreneurism and self-sufficient independence, it is the Carpenters. For a guy like me who is into nut, bolts, and machinery I was in awe of to see that the majority of their picking, cleaning and separating equipment is designed, engineered, and built in-house. They are constantly reworking the hardware for better results.
I was able to see our simcoe being finished picking and the last of it in drying, and the start of the citra. The Carpenters worked very hard to increase their acreage of simcoe and citra specifically to accommodate our growth.
Sounds like Scott had a great visit. We just hope it wasn’t so fun that he “forgot” to catch his flight home.
September 9, 2011
Yesterday Scott got down to business and visited two hop farms.
I spent most of the day at the Segal Hop Ranch. The ranch is currently being run by the third generation of Segals to operate it since it opened. Back in 1968, the Segals were the first hop farmers to commercially grow cascade hops, and they deserve credit for giving rise to one of the most dominant hop varieties being used in craft brewing.
High-oil cascade hops
The Segals are known for the high oil content in their cascade hops. And it is those oils that contribute to the aroma we get from hops in our beer. At the ranch, I selected the cascades that we will be using for some of our brands over the course of the next year. After evaluating the lots they harvested prior to my arrival, I chose Lot #10. The aroma from that lot was perfect for HopDevil.
Hops being harvested
During the visit, the Segals showed me an unnamed experimental hop they are growing that had a fruity aroma with notes of banana and vanilla. John Segal and his farm manager, Martin Ramos hosted me during my visit and spoiled me with homemade tortillas and awesome Mexican food made by Martin’s mother.
Right: Citra
Left: Experimental
Later I visted the Perrault Farm where I met Jason Perrault (4th generation). The Perraults have been insturmental in helping the growth of simcoe and citra hop varieties. There, I was able to rub some citra’s which were not quite ready to pick. I was told they were going to “let them hang” until they were ready. I was amazed how much the aroma will change over the last few weeks before harvest.
Hanging hops.
After that it was off for a bite to eat at the Sports Center, which has a great beer selection and nice Rueben.
September 8, 2011
The interwebs decided to hold Scott’s latest update hostage until just now. The photos he sent along caused the email update he wrote on Tuesday to be held in Victory mail purgatory. But never fear, he did arrive safely in Yakima and is currently busy hand-selecting our precious hops.
Here’s what Scott had to say about his day ‘o travel:
I spent the entire day on Tuesday traveling. The booming metropolis [read: itty bitty town] of Yakima is located off the beaten path so it took three flights to get here.
I left my house at 7:15 a.m. and arrived here at 5:15 p.m. PST. Despite the heavy rain in Philly, my flight left on time and the flights were fairly smooth. The best part was the incredible view as we flew over the mountains and landed in Seattle (which I enjoyed after making a connection in Chicago). The peaks of Mount Rainier and Mount McKinley were higher than the aircraft as we descended, which, while awesome in some respects was a bit unnerving for a guy like me who hates to fly. I had a two-hour layover before the final leg of my travel from Seattle to Yakima, so I was able to enjoy the first beer of my trip and relax my nerves from the first two flights. I started with a Pike Place IPA and finished with a few others.
The final flight to Yakima gave me even more views of incredible mountains, which gave way to smaller desert hills. Then, finally, I saw the green, fertile plain of the Yakima Valley.
To give an idea of the size of Yakima, I took this photo of the airport…
I celebrated my arrival by talking hops and beer with Jim Boyd of Roy Farms at the Sports Center in Yakima. Jim grows much of the cascade and centennial hops that we use at Victory.
For my final photo from day one, here’s the stunning view from penthouse suite:
Check back tomorrow for more fun and sarcasm from Scott’s trip.
September 7, 2011
A few weeks back we told you about our hoppy conundrum and gave you a little insight into the incredibly tricky business of brewing predictions.
We still haven’t gotten our hands on that magic crystal ball to tell us exactly what hop orders to place, but we are about to get our hands on our 2011 hop crop. And that means we’ll have plenty of the citra variety to go around. So get ready — the floodgates are about to be lifted and Headwaters Pale Ale will be making waves at a retailer near you very soon.
We expect Headwaters to flow from Victory Brewing Company no later than October 17. In the meantime, we’ll be updating this blog every step of the way. You get to see the daily tasks that ultimately make Headwaters possible — starting today.
Remember meeting Scott in last week’s post? As our Director of Brewery Operations he keeps all of the various Victories brewing. Yesterday, he boarded a plane headed for Yakima, Washington to secure the American whole-flower hops we use in our beers, including the citra we need for our forthcoming batch of Headwaters Pale Ale.
Stay tuned for photos and stories from Scott’s trip and more behind-the-scenes of our Headwaters production. Oh, and of course, even more water-related puns to pour from this blog as the Headwaters begin to trickle again.
The Victory Brewing Company administrative offices are churning out dozens of projects these days. Today, I’m tackling two seemingly opposing tasks. First, we’re creating a new Hop Wallop t-shirt with the appropriate slogan, Hoppiness is Happiness. But, at the same time, I’m composing this blog post to announce to all of our beloved fans that the hops that give us so much cheer are also giving us a few headaches and sorrows these days.
As you may have read in some news blurbs lately, many brewers are being affected by hop shortages. We consider ourselves both lucky and smart to be virtually unaffected so far. Our friends and competitors have had to close up shop or hugely scale back production. None of those scary situations have happened here at Victory.
So, why the headaches and sorrows? Because we have to tell you that you may have trouble finding Headwaters Pale Ale for the remainder of the summer. The centerpiece of Headwaters is Citra hops. Based on the lead-time needed to order our whole-flower varieties of Citra and the popularity of Headwaters, our supply is not as robust as we’d like. We are unwilling to compromise on the recipe and will only brew Headwaters with the Citra that makes it so delicious.
A little background information on hop purchasing…
In order to secure the exact varieties of hops a brewer wants in the exact form a brewer requires, we need to plan in advance. The reason for this foresight is that, absent of such input, a hop farmers may rip out some of the delicate, aromatic varieties in favor of another high-yield variety favored by industrial brewers in an effort to protect his own business. The unprocessed, whole flower form of hops that we prefer to use here at Victory, all become pellets and oil if not claimed by October 1 of each year, giving us no buffer to dip into if we happened to order less hops than needed. With all of these factors in mind, we typically contract our hops three years in advance with our farmers. Unfortunately, we’re still looking for a crystal ball to help us make these three-year lead-time hop purchases.
We are both thrilled by the popularity of our newest brand and saddened that we have to announce that Headwaters may become scarce until October. At that time the 2011 crop will have been gathered.
Rest assured, we have wheeled and dealed with our hop farmers, offered to pay a premium on the Citra hops, and you will have plenty of fresh-hopped Headwaters to enjoy through 2012.
There are still cases, bottles, and kegs of Headwaters on the market so snag it when you find it. It just isn’t as readily available as you might like. If you’re thirsting for a refreshing summery brew, I recommend a delightful Prima Pils or satisfying Summer Love.
Emerging from true obscurity in a truly obscure location, we’ve had 15 years (almost) to demonstrate our character here at Victory. Early on we debuted the brazen beast known as HopDevil. This menacingly delicious little ruffian assaulted folks’ sensibilities with a heady, citrusy hop bite tempered with a comforting resolution of rich, German malts and served notice that east coast IPAs had arrived with style. Against the pleas of our few wholesalers in 1997, who correctly recognized that pilsners were misunderstood and generally lame at the time in the US, we stubbornly rolled a new era pils, Prima, and have gained fans and acclaim steadily since with this appealing, crisp quencher. At 10 years we introduced a strong altbier, bright with brassy, German hops that was a deliciously round peg that defied any convenient square hole with our Ten Years Alt.
But innovation needs an appreciative audience and therefore none of these beers could have achieved their destiny, to be loved, if it were not for the characters consuming these exciting brews. We are talking about you. You are one of our characters, a player in this story of craft brewing risk and reward.
So, mindful that our family includes you as much as the characters we’ve developed in HopDevil, Golden Monkey, St. Victorious, etc. we look to celebrate our ’15 Years Of Character’ with all of those who have contributed greatly to the success of Victory.
Starting on February 15, our fifteenth anniversary, we’ll kick off a year of events nationwide, that celebrate our past 15 years together.Join us at Victory on Feb. 15 to witness the first screening of ‘Fifteen Years Of Character(s)’ our video homage to the fans of Victory. Hear the Victory stories of fans and friends like Greg Koch of Stone Brewing and Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in this video. That night we’ll pepper our hot, new February menu with some favorite menu items from the past 15 years of Victory, demonstrating the deliciously creative ways that our staff has captured your imagination.
You’ll find Brewmasters Bill & Ron here that evening as well, signing commemorative posters and celebrating your contribution to Victory’s success. Regarding our 15th year, Ron commented, “Nice, six more years before I can enjoy a Victory beer!” To which, Bill added, “Excellent, we can act like we’re 15 for a solid year now!
Introducing Victory Brewing Co.’s new flagship beer.
Reflecting over the years as we approach our 15th anniversary here at Victory, we can’t help but be struck by the realization that Downingtown has made a great home for Victory. From the enthusiastic throngs that crowd our brewpub to enjoy our creative, flavorful beers and cuisine to the natural charms of the area, we are blessed with good fortune. As the active community contributor we’ve been over those years, we recognize our opportunity to both utilize and protect these assets.
Chief among those assets is the pure water we receive from the East Branch of the Brandywine Creek that begins its journey to us just under 14 miles from where we brew with it. We’ll be celebrating this water (insert your lite beer joke here) with our anniversary beer, Headwaters Pale Ale, due to be released February 15, 2011. Now, considering that beer is the product of four simple ingredients and the three other than water rely on water for their existence, we’ve had a fair amount of latitude in paying homage to water in our beer. So, we’ve played all of our cards deftly, bringing the hops, malt and yeast in harmony, with our great local water as the conductor in Headwaters Pale Ale.
Creativity in action as the new beer label begins.
Victory co-founder Bill Covaleski pauses by the source of Victory Beer, the historic Brandywine River.
Reflecting over the years as we approach our 15th anniversary here at Victory, we can’t help but be struck by the realization that Downingtown has made a great home for Victory. From the enthusiastic throngs that crowd our brewpub to enjoy our creative, flavorful beers and cuisine to the natural charms of the area, we are blessed with good fortune. As the active community contributor we’ve been over those years, we recognize our opportunity to both utilize and protect these assets.
Chief among those assets is the pure water we receive from the East Branch of the Brandywine Creek that begins its journey to us just under 14 miles from where we brew with it. We’ll be celebrating this water (insert your lite beer joke here…) with our anniversary beer due to be released February 15, 2011. Now, considering that beer is the product of four simple ingredients, and the three other than water rely on water for their existence, we have a fair amount of latitude in paying homage to water in our beer. So, expect us to play all of our cards deftly, bringing the hops, malt and yeast in harmony, with our great local water as the conductor.
September 28
High-oil cascade hops
Hops being harvested
Right: Citra
Hanging hops.
A few weeks back we told you about our 
The Victory Brewing Company administrative offices are churning out dozens of projects these days. Today, I’m tackling two seemingly opposing tasks. First, we’re creating a new Hop Wallop t-shirt with the appropriate slogan, Hoppiness is Happiness. But, at the same time, I’m composing this blog post to announce to all of our beloved fans that the hops that give us so much cheer are also giving us a few headaches and sorrows these days.
