Brewing R&D
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OUR EVOLUTION
We shifted our legacy all-natural, premium ingredient recipes to exclusively organic ingredients in 2023 and continue to partner with accomplished brewers to scale our current portfolio of IPA selections as well as other beverage formulations.
Our original "Brew Lab" for recipe development was located in Connecticut, at Shebeen Brewing, from 2013 to 2020 - it was one of the pioneers of a number of its own IPA varieties and its talented brewmasters even coached fellow brewers at larger breweries in the region on some of their unique flavor-harnessing techniques over the years.
This Brew Lab is where our 2017 NYC IPA™ debut offering and 2019 GREATER NYC IPA™ varietal iterations (pictured below) were formulated - and, where we learned a lot about not just about brewing but also other less apparent yet just as important, aspects of operating a brewery - from sustainability initiatives for spent grain via collaborations with local farmers to energy and water efficiency/conservation methods and more. To that end, their brewmasters hot-water recovery techniques, unique mash filters and other processes were helpful in considerably reducing the 6 gallons of water utilized to brew each gallon of beer to 4 gallons or less, an achievement for early years when trying to understand scaling recipes to production from experimentation brews utilizing the Tippy system and more. For recipe development and formulation processes, it ran the gamut, we sourced Tri-State grains, worked with yeast labs/culturists in the NYC metropolitan region and even grew some hop varieties at the brewery. Culminating in what we deemed, GREATER NYC IPA™, these beer styles remain our primary offerings.
Our team certainly appreciated the brewing expertise and insight gleaned from our collaboration with our inaugural brewing partner which began with a product development initiative back in 2013 featuring a hop-forward, essential nutrient-infused IPA.
BREWING PARTNER CRITERIA
Our private-label program began in 2018 and expanded our network of production-ready brewing facilities to other areas throughout NYC metropolitan area as well as other regions of the country the following year.
- Our pre-requisites for partner brewers include:Consistent quality with their own portfolio and the ability to scale to meet demand/otherwise ensure timely production of our IPAs and other beer varieties as well as, optimally, beverage assortments that have become a more important of our portfolio in recent years (e.g. RTD Cocktails, Better-for-You and NA/Alcohol-free offerings).
- Access for and cooperation with our in-house team and regional consultants to implement our proprietary technology playbook including calibrating the water utilized in the brewing process for our IPAs to have the proper pH (7.2 - 8.0) and mineral composition of the baseline data for our lab-tested NYC tap water blueprints in order to ensure production consistency. We also require additional filtration requirements for the water that forms the basis of our beer and beverages, implemented to remove unwanted so-called "forever chemicals" and other unwanted particles/trace elements (e.g. PFAS, Lead, etc) as an added level of quality assurance for our client and their customers.
It is worth noting, each of our contract-brewing collaborations always seems to arm us with some blend of recipe and/or scaling know-how, regional ingredient nuances, product development insight and various other production-related expertise which, in time, often become part of our standardized procedures (such as, not to get too technical, reduction of overall grain-to-can brew time techniques which serve the purpose of increasing per batch yield).
Most importantly, symbiotic brewing synergies aside, our brewing collaborations (along with connoisseur and cicerone trusted feedback) provide us the capability to meet the needs of our private-label clients nationwide (as well, we always seem to make for some new friendships along the way).
Consistency, reliability and creativity are staples of all of the breweries we partner with as such characteristics ensure our 8 IPA recipes - Flagship IPA, Session IPA, Double IPA and Imperial IPA as well as more recent additions - Cold IPA, White IPA, Black IPA & NA IPA - are made with the guarantee of the highest-quality standards.
With our collaboration partners, there always also seems to be a bonus ancillary benefit of some sort that ultimately ends up accruing to our IPA lineup - sometimes it is an improvement on our processed and procedures and other times it is featuring of "local" ingredients that are premium in nature and further enhance our core recipes. The common denominator of our brewing and production partners is a distinct focus on freshness of delivery and quality of the final product - attributes that are always appreciated and enjoyed.
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2019 Special Edition - GREATER NYC IPA™
