E-Malt.com News article: USA, AK: Kenai River Brewing Company to expand and to release Gummy Bear Beer

Kenai River Brewing Company is turning candy into beer and expands to create a new seating area set to open next week, The Republic reported on March, 1.

"It's going to be just a nice sit-down taproom," said Doug Hogue, brewery co-owner.

When the taproom opens, the brewery's main door will shift, and the old room will be used for canning. That will alleviate some growing pains the brewery was feeling, Hogue said.

"Right now when we're canning beer it pretty much shuts down the whole operation 'cause it just takes up so much room," Hogue said.

The brewery took over the space it is expanding into in November, but just started working on the room in January.

As for Gummy Bear Beer, the unusual brew is an experiment.

"We try to brew just as often as we can, just these little single batch brews," Hogue said.

If all goes as planned, the 20 pounds of Belgian candy sugar and 15 pounds of the bears — that's about 2,565 multi-colored gummies — will create a Belgian Tripel that's about 9.2 percent alcohol, Hogue said.

There was also an extra five pounds of gummy bears devoured in the process. Those went to the brewery staff.

Hogue said he mixed the sugar and candy with a variety of grains to craft the brew. The base grain is a Belgian pilsner, and Hogue also used two malts.

"It smelled awesome," he said.

Now, it'll spend about 10 days fermenting. Then it'll spend a few weeks in the fridge before Hogue makes sure the carbonation is set and puts it on tap.

The batch should yield about 186 gallons of beer, Hogue said.


02 March, 2012