Stone Corral

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The Small Batch Series is BACK!

That’s right, the Small Batch Series is BACK!
Local Joe is our latest Coffee Porter brewed in collaboration with Kestrel Coffee Roasters. This brew features subtle malt sweetness, caramel and dark fruit set against the light floral and chocolate notes of the coffee. 

A day well spent

We spent the day with Kestrel owners, Johnny and Charlotte as they gave us the facility’s red carpet tour.   As we hunted for the perfect coffee to build the beer around,  Jonny kept us busy with tasting notes and conversation as Charlotte ground and brewed a variety of carefully curated beans.   We spent a very buzzy hour sipping our way through the varieties and blends roasted right there at their Williston facility. We eventually landed on a delightfully aromatic Costa Rican coffee, noting its ability to complement the forthcoming beer.   We couldn’t be more pleased with the resulting brew and know you will be as well. 

About Kestrel Coffee Roasters

“Charlotte & Johnny Steverson, co-owners of Kestrel Coffee Roasters, met in 2011 in Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a farm-to-table restaurant, in Pocantico Hills, NY.
After leaving Blue Hill, Charlotte, a New York native, joined an event planning company that specializes in corporate and nonprofit events. Johnny started a specialty coffee roasting company and sold wholesale to some of the top restaurants in and around New York City. Johnny, originally from Mississippi, is a New England Culinary Institute graduate and a certified coffee grader.
It had always been a dream of theirs to one day open a coffee shop together. So, in 2017, Charlotte & Johnny decided to move to Vermont and do just that! They opened Kestrel Coffee Roasters in July of 2018.”


Local Joe

This beer was built around the bean. 

Enlightening – Harmony
Beans from a small farm in Costa Rica are professionally roasted by our friends at Kestrel Coffee. Our signature malt bill lends a subtle sweetness, caramel, and dark fruit and embraces the beans light floral notes, profound chocolate, and toffee.

 

 

 

 

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Help us craft our Community Celebration beer!

UPDATE 6/3/2020

Exit 11 Vermont Valley Common is ready!

This is YOUR beer: Exit 11 Vermont Valley Common is an easy-drinking amber ale/lager hybrid created by the people, for the people in our first democratic, virtual community brewing experiment.

We handed you the reins through a series of online polls and crafted this brew especially for you. So, taste what you’ve created and show your love for the community by putting one of these in your hand the next time you have a beer.

Available in cans and on draft, exclusively at our taproom in Richmond, VT.
We are proudly donating a portion of the proceeds to benefit the Richmond Food Shelf & Thrift Store, Inc

Cheers!

 


UPDATE 5/9/2020

You Voted.  We listened.  Introducing Exit 11, a Vermont Valley Common Beer!  

Thank you for participating in our first ever community crowdsourced brew.  We are incredibly humbled by the engagement this project has received.  This beer’s ingredients, name and art represent our community and the towns that surround our interstate exit. 

Exit 11 was the overall winning name with 30% of the vote, and our runner up, Vermont Valley Common Beer, fit the newly blossomed brew’s description so well that we decided to use it as our style name. This name is influenced by the classic California Common Beer, or “Steam Beer.”*

*The term “Steam Beer” is trademarked by Anchor Brewing.

Exit 11 will be available in cans for your enjoyment by the beginning of June and a portion of the proceeds from this project will benefit local non-profit groups supporting our community.  

Stay tuned for a behind the scenes brew day video in the coming weeks. 

Thank you again to all those who participated in this community beer project; we are truly inspired. 

 

EXIT 11, label art designed by, Marie Lemonier.

 


UPDATE 4/28/2020

Welcome to the final round of our community beer project.

You’ve all done an amazing job building this brew. Your knowledge and opinions have come together to form a community focused beer we can all be proud of.

In our last survey, we asked you to suggest a name for our newly developing common style brew. We left the flood gates open and you suggested some very interesting names for us to mull over.

*We have put together a list of our favorite names you submitted. Please, take a moment to vote for the name you like best. The name with the most votes will be crowned the winner and printed on our beautiful new can design.

We have scheduled the community brew’s canning day for May 29th.

Thank you to everyone who played along with us. We can’t wait to taste this crowd-sourced, community brew with you!

 

*This survey has concluded.


UPDATE 4/22/2020

The votes are in!

Read all about the vote tally and the characteristics you chose in our Community Beer below.  Next up, name that beer!

Submit your suggestion for a great name. Remember, this beer represents our community. The Stone Corral team will select 5 to 10 of your best name suggestions. Then on 4/28 vote for your favorite name! 

Your beer:

In round one, you chose a beer that is medium-amber colored, 5.5% alcohol, and 3 out of 10 on the malty-to-hoppy scale.  Round two voting is in with some clear wins and some ties.  Your input was very diverse, and we are already planning some additional beers to meet your tastes so you lovers of dark, light, smoked, wheat, rye, strong, and low alcohol beers- we heard you loud and clear! 

Yeast:

Even with all the participant’s German lager and American ale were tied for the most votes!   Because there is no clear winner here, we are going to make a compromise.  Our German Lager yeast works well at ale fermentation temperatures, resulting in a clean, complex, and somewhat fruity beer, with some characteristics of both lager and ale.  This technique has been used since the mid-1800s to brew a style called California Common Beer, or “Steam Beer” (although that name is owned by Anchor Brewing).  Since we are brewing a community beer, we think the notion of a “common beer,” along with the compromise, is a great match.

Malt:

Vienna and Munich malts were the clear winners here, and both will work perfectly with this brew.  Tied for third place are crystal malt and oats, so we will use both of these as well.

Hops:

Sterling was the clear winner, followed by Mandarina Bavaria and Rakau.  These three will make a lovely blend.


UPDATE 4/20/2020

WOW! Over 100 of you contributed your preferences to our community beer and we are off to a great start.

When we tallied up all your input, we are beginning with a beer that is:

Medium Amber 12 SRM
Moderate in alcohol, 5.5% ABV
3 on the malt hop scale.   (1 being the most malt-forward, 10 being the most hop-forward.)

There are a lot of World styles that fit this description:
European Amber Lager
Czech Amber Lager
Marzen Lager
Vienna Lager
Amber Kellerbier Lager
British Bitter
Irish Red Ale
Belgian Pale Ale
Saison
American Amber Ale
California Common Beer
German Altbier

So you can see we still have some decisions to make.  But we don’t need to make a traditional World style- those are just so you can get your head around how this beer is developing.  The rest is yours to decide.


4/17/2020

Stone Corral is celebrating Spring and the resilience of our wonderful community with a special beer we want you to help design. Throughout our time in business, our local community has been a constant force for inspiration.  Your support has been overwhelming and heartwarming, and we treasure the many wonderful friendships made over the years, especially in this time of uncertainty.  A portion of the proceeds from this project will benefit local non-profit groups supporting our community.

You be the brewer!

You don’t need to know how to brew, you just need to know what you like.  We will post links to a survey where you get to tell us what you think our community beer should be like.  We’ll take all the input, sort it, and craft a beer that represents all your collective preferences.

It takes a village…

Crafting a beer that represents our community is a big undertaking.  We need your input.  Every opinion counts toward the final result.  You get to pick the color, strength, flavors and special ingredients in our survey, and we will design the beer to match your collective preferences and then, you get to choose the name.

The fun starts now.

*Follow the link below to get started. You can participate anonymously, or leave your name in the comments.  Choose whatever makes you happy in a beer and submit the survey.  Please think about what represents our community, as well as your own preferences.  There are three steps: You choose the most general characteristics in the first survey. Do you want our beer to be dark? Amber? Light? How hoppy? How malty? How strong? Then, once we know where our community beer is heading, we will offer you options to refine the flavors in step 2. Lastly, you get to help name our community beer.

The end result:

We will collect all of your input and average the results in the first round. Then our expert brewers will decide what options you can vote on to make the beer special.  The winning options then will be included in the recipe.  Then you get to suggest a name for our community brew.  It’s all about you.  Well, all of us, really.  The final product will be brewed in May and be ready for your quaffing pleasure in cans and on draft in early June, just in time to celebrate summer.

Spread the word, have fun, and watch for updates!

 

*This survey has concluded.

 

IPA or IPL?

Annie Oakley IPA vs Buffalo Bill Cody IPL

IPA or IPL?

For most, the choice is quick and easy, but for others, this opportunity to proudly put their discerning taste buds into action has been educational. Here at Stone Corral, we design beers to engross the taste buds and encourage the subtleties to be explored. We hope that our beers bring your brain and palette together in an invigorating experience of taste, fizz, and buzz.

This past month we asked our patrons to engage in our first ever Wild West Beer Shoot-Out. We value customer feedback and believe that every beer drinker deserves an opportunity to better understand the complexity of the beverages they imbibe. Beer boils down to four basic ingredients: water, hops, grain, and yeast. Our head brewer, Ryan McKeon, says “Rather than just explain to our customers how every ingredient plays a different role, we wanted to show them… When it comes to craft beer education, what better way to impart knowledge than in a pint glass.” So with the helping hands of Brand Manager, Travis Perrotte, that’s what they did.

Two identical beers were brewed with only one variance between the two: the yeast. Our Annie Oakley IPA was fermented on our own house ale yeast while our Buffalo Bill Cody IPL received our house lager yeast. Yeast imparts a unique, complex flavor profile within the beer. In addition, yeast aides in the creation of ethanol alcohol. When yeast is added to beer correctly, its flavors play in perfect harmony with carefully selected brewing ingredients. 

Choosing the right strain of yeast is a thoughtful process to get just the right blend of flavors. Having an abundance of different types of both ale and lager yeasts available, we felt this was an opportunity to experience the differences between our two house yeasts.

“The initial expectation was that our IPA would overwhelmingly take the win, based on current trends in beer culture,” said Travis. “We gave people an opportunity to decide for themselves and I think many were surprised. Everyone walked away with a better overall understanding of the role yeast plays in beer.” 

No matter which beer wins the shoot-out at the end of the month, we at Stone Corral had such pleasure, as we always do, engaging with so many of you. We hope you were able to expand your palette and mind while allowing for some quality, self-guided beer exploration, and education.

Voting is open until 2/29, so stop in for yourself and taste our Annie Oakley IPA and our Buffalo Bill Cody IPL. Take a moment to reconnect with why we drink beer in the first place: the love of the craft, the endless flavors and the uniqueness of the individual tasting experience.

The winner of the shoot-out will be announced on March 2nd, 2020 on Facebook and Instagram.

Prost!

The ingredient list for both brews is as follows.

Hops: Rakau, Azzaca, Citra, Mandarina Bavaria.

Grain/Malt: Wheat, Oats, Pilsner Malt.

Yeast: House Ale and Lager yeast.

Wild West Beer Shoot-Out

Taste test at Stone Corral!
Stone Corral Brewery is excited to hold a friendly competition
and we need you to decide the winner.
We are releasing two brews on draft that have an identical hop and grain bill. One beer is fermented with ale yeast while the other with lager yeast.
Join us in the taproom, starting February 7th, to taste both our Annie Oakley India Pale Ale and Buffalo Bill Cody India Pale Lager.
Take in the flavors and let your palette decide which is best!

Have some fun with us and cast your vote for the best tasting gunslinger! 
Keep an eye on social media for periodic updates to see which gunslinger is leading the competition and if your favorite will take the crown.

What’s the difference?

Simply put, lagers are brewed using bottom-fermenting strains of yeast held at colder temperatures (around 40-52°F), while ales are brewed with a top-fermenting yeast that operates at warmer temperatures (around 55-77°F, usually).

Ale Yeast Produces esters which are a fruity flavor created during fermentation that can vary in taste and aroma between pears, roses, bananas or other light fruits.


Lager Yeast
Produces minimal notable flavors, providing a canvas for hops, malt, and adjunct ingredients to shine through with their true flavors alone.

Rob Friesel and his Bière de Garde

This past spring, Stone Corral Brewery had the distinct honor to sponsor three categories in the 2019 Greg Noonan Memorial Home-Brew Competition. Our team selected one winner from the European Pale Lager, German-Style Wheat Ale and Belgian/French Strong Ale categories to earn the Corral Cup award and the opportunity to brew the winning recipe at a commercial scale at Stone Corral to be placed on tap for the good patrons to imbibe.  This year, it was our pleasure to award Rob Friesel the Corral Cup title for his Le Rousse, a Bière de Garde. 

Click here for full details on Rob’s winning home-brew.

We asked Rob, what was your interpretation brewing on our full-scale commercial system?

Rob responded:

“I believe my words to Ryan were: “Not that different from homebrewing — except bigger equipment, a little more automation, and a whole lot more buckets. That said, it definitely exceeded my expectations and I had a ton of fun.”

“Ryan was great in helping me get oriented to the brewhouse and talking me through the equipment and how everything was plumbed. Amazingly crushing 50 times the amount of grain (compared to my typical batch size at home) really didn’t take that much longer. And I guess that was my first taste of what scaling up felt like in a lot of ways — and also one of the more interesting revelations: that most of the steps (like the mash rests and boil times) are pretty much the same as what I do in my garage. Some of the in-between steps take a little longer — like pumping 15 barrels worth of wort from the mash tun to the boil kettle vs. my brew-in-a-bag setup where I just get the flame going again. At the end of the brew day though, I felt like we made the wort we set out to make and now we just need to wait for the yeast to do the rest.”

Rob continued:

“I’ve heard the joke before about how 90% of brewing is cleaning stuff up and … that certainly seemed to be true. At least cleaning a professional brewhouse has a lot more automation than my home rig.

And lastly, I really wasn’t prepared for just how HOT it was going to get in there — especially on the brew deck. Of course, when I told this to Ryan and Bret, they both just laughed and said: “And it wasn’t even all that hot today.”

Rob recalls the brew day

“I got in around 9am and Ryan immediately put me to work milling the grain. 660 lb. later he was giving me the introduction to the control panel and we started mashing in and getting the brewing salts mixed in. (It was cool seeing the auger in action to get the grains into the tun.) A few minutes into the mash we took our first sample to get the pH — right on at 5.2. And while we waited for the mash rest to finish up, we started weighing out the hops and yeast nutrients, etc. Somewhere in here Ryan handed me a tri-clamp fitting and started my education on working those. From there we got into the Vorlauf and the lauter — 20 ºPlato for first runnings, 15.2 ºPlato for pre-boil gravity. Then while we waited for the boil kettle to come up to temp, I got acquainted with the fine art of raking out the mash tun. Once we had our boil and the first hop addition was added there wasn’t much to do for a while so… hey, a good time for a couple of tacos. Wrapped up lunch in time to get the fining agents, yeast nutrient, Belgian candi sugar, and the last hop addition into the kettle. Once we’d whirlpooled for a few minutes, we started running the wort through the heat exchanger and pumping it into the sanitized fermenter. Original gravity 17.3 ºPlato. Pitched a nice healthy slurry of yeast and clean-up was pretty much on cruise control after that.”

Who is Rob Friesel?

Rob Friesel, who was a mere one point shy of a three-way tie for Vermont Homebrewer of the Year, lives in Essex Junction with his family. Originally from D.C., Rob and his wife moved to Vermont in 2002. By day, Rob is a software guru and is happiest when he is at home brewing a tasty beer. Rob has been homebrewing since 2014 and has been a member of the Green Mountain Mashers for the past 2 years.

Rob shared that in college he had, “friends that had studied abroad (though I never did) and came home with stories of interesting beers they had in the other countries. That was my first real glimpse into beers that weren’t just pale and fizzy and flavorless. Then, when I moved up to Vermont, I started to explore what the local scene had to offer… Craft beer was definitely my gateway into homebrewing. I’m curious by nature and I want to know what makes things tick. Drinking some beer was all fine and good, but I wanted to get down into the details and the only way to do that was to try and make some. I was hooked after the first batch.”

We love Rob’s Le Rousse and are thrilled to share this beer with Stone Corral’s loyal patrons. Rob describes his winning beverage as a traditional, artisanal, amber Bière de Garde. It’s a malt-forward beer with some notes of toffee, caramel, and toasted bread with some light fruity hints of dried raisins or cherries. Clocking in at 7.2% ABV, this beer will be on tap exclusively at Stone Corral in Richmond, VT in late-July.

Prost, Rob!

Click here to read Rob’s personal blog and keep up to date with his adventures and misadventures in home brewing.

Lagerfest Brewers Invitational

Stone Corral and Bolton Valley Resort have teamed up to offer the first Lagerfest Brewers Invitational. We’ll be shining the light on lagers from some of your favorite Vermont breweries with a side of great food and live music.

Stay tuned for a list of participating breweries in the days ahead, but don’t delay as Early Bird Tickets will only be available through July 19 and then prices go up from there.

Join us for a party on the hill!

Get your tickets here.

Seven Days Vermont Restaurant Week.

April 26-May 5, 2019

$25 Menu*

Closed Monday.

Includes choice of draft beer, salad, two tacos and dessert.

*Available for $20 without beer.

SALAD OPTIONS

Baby Kale Caesar
Tender baby kale with roasted-garlic-and-lemon dressing, shaved Parmesan, buttered bread crumbs

Tumbled Greens
Greens with caramelized Brussels sprouts, haystack apples, maple balsamic dressing, Cabot Clothbound cheddar, toasted pumpkin seeds

TACO OPTIONS (CHOOSE TWO)

A Creole Good Time
Blackened fish, fire-roasted-tomato-and-lobster sauce, pickled fennel, Old Bay mayo, potato sticks

Hen House Haberdashery
Barbecue chicken, chocolate goat cheese crema, crushed tortilla chips, chile-cilantro slaw, pickled onions, salsa verde

Ole’ Reliable
Slow-roasted barbecue pork, crumbled Cabot Clothbound cheddar, house slaw, scallions

Tawny Taco
Mulligatawny chickpeas, cucumber, apple, Napa cabbage & pea shoot slaw, toasted sesame and coconut yogurt dressing

DESSERT

Flourless Chocolate Cake
Sour-cherry-blackberry compote, toasted pumpkin seeds, goat-cheese-chocolate crema

Hipster Salad DIPA Now Available.

We’ve brewed one of our favorite DIPA’s yet!  Check out the video below to hear our brewer, Ryan speaking about our newest creation. 

You know who you are.  The idea of eating hops straight off the plant has crossed your mind.  You’d take a bath in double IPA if you had any left.  Hipster or not, this salad is just for you. 

Citra for bright citrusy aroma, Azzaca for ripe fruit flavor.  Rakau for intensity and Mosiac for complexity.  5 separate hop additions to inundate your senses.  This hazy, juicy bliss is for times when you think hops should be a food group.

We’ve got a shiny new Youtube channel! 

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to see what’s happening here at the brewery.
When you do, you will be able to check out video updates and behind the scenes footage, plus a bit of horseplay…
Go ahead and click the button below to be re-directed to our YouTube channel.
Click Here
Thanks for supporting your local brewery!

The Stone Corral Family

XX Chocolate Maple Porter Makes Its way into a fresh new can!

We are truly excited for one of our all-time favorite flagship brews to make its way into some beautiful cans!   Check out the video below to see the canning process.

XX Chocolate Maple Porter // 7.8% //

Dark, rich, delicious, yet not too heavy.  Made with maple syrup and fair-trade cacao nibs from our friends at Middlebury Chocolates.