What up in with Troeg’s in their new home in Hershey, PA? Here’s a rundown. Lots of Mad Elf, breaking down the old brewhouse, building up the new one…
On Brewhouse fabrication:
T1 (aka the Harrisburg brewhouse is no more and T2 (new brewhouse in Harrisburg) is coming together nicely. Amongst all of the engineers, welders, fabricators, electricians, riggers, etc the Trogner brothers are still finding time to brew at their new Hershey, PA facility. So far they have brewed 500 bbls of Hopback, 600 bbls of Troegenator, 300 bbls of Pale Ale, and nearly 1000 bbls of Mad Elf. They have also been able to brew three new small batches to join their Scratch Series on the new 15 bbl brewhouse they put in specifically for this series.
Brewing:
The first of these three was to be a Munich Helles honoring German friends From BrauKon. With the new brew system and increased mash efficiency and and a higher boil off than expected the starting gravity was much higher than anticipated. Add 3 additions of Hersbrucker hops and house lager yeast and you have Helles Bock due out in a couple of weeks.
Next up was a batch of Hopback used for yeast propagation.
About new Cocoa Porter:
The most recent batch was a cocoa porter. They lowered the starting gravity from previous choolate brews and toned down the burnt character by reducing the amount of black malt and roasted barley. A bit of lactose was added for sweetness and a mix of black and red cocoa powders were used. A reduced amount of Warrior and Cluster hops were added to keep bitterness down. It has since been moved to a conditioning tank where it is sitting on cocoa nibs and vanilla beans until Troegs brewers are pleased w the flavor and that is when it will be bottled.
[Troegs]
Check out this VID of the new brewery