Pre-Flight Post-Event Thoughts

We here at Flying Bike have been spending a lot of time indoors, contemplating and discussing just how the heck to start a co-operative brewery. We’re making lots of progress and things are starting to feel good, like they fit, and we wanted to get out and share the idea.

But how the heck do you get Seattlites out of the house in February? Oh that’s right – beer!

We put together a private “Pre-Flight Tasting Event”, which isn’t quite a launch but it was a lot of fun. It was a chance to share with friends and family, to talk about who we are and what we are trying to do. It was an opportunity for feedback, since the whole idea of this thing is community, is cooperation, is getting like-minded people on board.

Jeff gave a short but rousing speech on where we’ve been and where we’d like to go. We’re making strides, and it really feels like they’ve been in the right direction since the crowd response was very positive! It was great to be bartending again – I miss that social interaction with a drinking crowd, and this time was even better since it was my beer I was serving! I had a great time sharing my beer, which was the Winter Belgian I made at TaFtHB’10.

For those that know, I first made my Winter Belgian last year. It had a good flavor, but they were bottle bombs (or as I like to call them, “self-pouring beers”! “Hey lazy-ass, you want to get drunk but you can’t tip a bottle over? Try one of these, it’ll pour itself!” But I digress. I also apologize to those lazy-asses that are unwilling to lift a bottle. I really feel for you, and I have spare straws set aside. Just ask!)

Anyways, with that history, I was leery of making this again, especially for this event. The pressure was on! I tweaked the recipe to make it a little less strong – original recipe should have ended at 10% abv! This year’s was about 8%.

I used a different yeast, Wyeast’s French Saison. I’d never used this before, and I like it! It’s Belgian-y, but also finished a little tart. I also made a yeast starter this year, which I think helped quite a bit. I think part of the problem with the bottle bombs was that the yeast didn’t eat as much of the sugars as they should’ve.

I also racked to secondary. I have no idea why I didn’t go to secondary the first time I made it, although I seem to remember drinking beer from a straw at that time so that might explain it.

Instead of using 3/4 c corn sugar to carbonate, I only used about 1/6 of a cup. I was leery about the bottle bombs, but I was also concerned because the beer has really small bubbles in it, even after being in secondary for 3 or 4 weeks. They weren’t really bubbling out, just hanging out in the beer.

The final product could probably use a little more carbonation, but it’s not bad. The beer is a little flat, but it’s fairly thick and it tastes like a good strong Belgian, so it’s all good.

I think since the crowd response was so good and we had such a blast, we’ll hopefully be picking up some momentum and rolling with this thing! The people that were goodly enough to come out also received a Flying Bike pint glass – these things look really sharp, and hopefully folks will continue to think of us as they enjoy beer in the years to come.

Until next time, cheers!

-Tim D

Special thanks to Larry and the staff at Larry’s Brewing Supply!

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