Flood Suds Bottling at The Bobcat Cafe
I met The Bobcat’s Brewmaster Mark Magiera at the Summer Vermont BA Meetup where he brought along a some of Bobcat’s beers including Bourbon Barrel Aged South Mountain Stout and Bourbon Barrel Aged Unrepentant. After the recommendation of pretty much everyone at the meetup, Elise and I decided to go there for dinner that Monday. Lucky for me, Mark, Joe and the rest of the guys were downstairs bottling a new beer that day: Flood Suds.
Flood Suds is a Belgian-inspired Witbier using grains (mostly) from Vermont and hops grown by UVM Extension’s The Vermont Hops Project, to benefit farmers that were hit hard by Hurricane Irene last year. I’ve been told they’re using Lawson’s to distribute so you should see the bottles show up at the same places Lawson’s is available some time this month (possibly even the Waitesfield Farmer’s Market but I do not have confirmation on that). Draft will be available at the cafe and also the Vermont Brewer’s Festival.
This is the closest I have ever been to beer bottle production, and it’s definitely the smallest scale production I’ve ever seen (that wasn’t homebrew). Everything was done by hand including bottle fills, corking (with a floor corker), caging, labeling and boxing. Pretty cool stuff and I can’t wait to get my hands on a bottle.
All of this awesomeness was followed up with a couple of flights of beer (we tried every draft on the menu) and some of the best food I’ve had in Vermont. Pics of all of that deliciousness is coming up in the next post.
matthew 'fuj' scher 