A 10-barrel beauty bolsters Stumptown Ales

There’s a new beauty in town. A 10-barrel beauty that is.

Stumptown Ales in Davis, WV, debuted the latest and greatest step in its continuous improvement program, and it’s a thing of beauty. Their new 10-barrel brewhouse is now installed, and we should soon be getting ales brewed on it.

A 10-barrel beauty up and running

The brewhouse was manufactured by BCast Stainless Products out of the Columbus, Ohio. Stumptown had ordered it back in June.

“Our new system got delivered on November 9th,” says Stumptown brewer Jeff Melnick. “It took three or four days just to get it inside and in the right position. It was a tight fit.”

Getting everything hooked up and tested  took several weeks, but that work is about through. Melnick says he’s now looking forward to an easier brew day.

“It’s a more modern system. It has built-in controls to make our lives easier.”

This big step up from their former 2-barrel brewing system may mean, as much as anything else, increased availability of Stumptown products to other retail accounts. You may even see them showing up at select accounts in Charleston and other parts of southern WV.

Class with Lawson foreshadows direction

In preparation for christening the new brewhouse, brewery proprietor/head brewer Jon Robeson took a class with esteemed Vermont brewerJohn Lawson of Lawson’s Finest Liquids.

Robeson was part of a group that spent a whole day in Burlington, VT,  with Lawson learning the finer points of his brewing philosophy and techniques.

“We actually spent the afternoon brewing a 10-gallon batch of Double Sunshine with him,” said Jon. “We all got to pick his brain.

“I felt like he was an open book, and he was totally cool about it. Whatever you asked, he gave you a candid answer.”

Robeson says he picked up some incredibly useful tips and tricks from Lawson. You’ll be seeing the application of those tips in Stumptown’s brews. That means even more luscious hop aroma and flavors.

“We’re still experimenting, but we love the results,” says Jon. He says that with the bigger equipment it will be easier for them to make the hops explode in the beer the way they want it too.

Legendary Backside IPA — one of those experiments that debuted as a test batch recently — was a most impressive, luscious and refined hoppy-IPA.

Stumptown’s popular Holy Citra IPA is also based on one of Lawson’s beers. The Vermont-style IPAs have been gaining advocates for the past couple of years in brewing communities outside New England. It’s nice to find one of those advocates here in West Virginia.

More hops, lower costs

The next move at Stumptown will be securing more hops contracts to ensure supply of the somewhat scarce and expensive hop varieties they need to support their New England-style IPA habit. With their move up in quantity purchased, they can now secure better prices.

“We’ll make more money when we can get our costs down by getting them at a better price,” Jon says about the hop contracts.

Keeping customers happy

The front of the house folks are also quite excited by this expansion on the brewery side. Partner/wife Cindy Robeson, who runs the tasting room pub, couldn’t contain her enthusiasm.

“What I like to see is that Jon continuously strives to create new recipes,” she says. “We don’t sit on our Holy Citra or our Stout laurels. Though  we’re a small brewery and only been open a little over a year, we’ve had over 25 recipes come through.”

And what does she hear from the customers?

“You can see it in their eyes when they first drink the beer whether or not they like it. And most of the time I see their eyes light up.”

She says people coming into their tasting room need to get out of their minds that hops equal bitter. She says it’s not that way at Stumptown. In their style of brewing, hops equal flavor.

“Think hoppiness but not bitterness,” adds Jon.

20 barrels per week production

Once they fill the pipeline, Jon says they will continue brewing at a pace of about one or two 10-barrel batches per week.  He expects it will be more like two batches per week once they get their self-distribution system worked out. Over a number of months they will build up to that level by purchasing a supply of kegs and learning how fast the market can absorb their product.

Brewing two batches per week would be the equivalent of just over 1,000 barrels per year.  They have space to add several more 10-barrel fermenters as the market demands, and if they did, they could probably reach 2,000 barrels per year out of their current space.

Additional experimentation coming

When asked what might be the next adventure at Stumptown, Jon didn’t hesitate with an answer.

“Sours,” he said. “We bought a couple of barrels we’re going to start putting some beer in. It takes time for this, so it’s something that is a year or two away.”

Jon says his model will be more like beers you may be familiar with from The Bruery or Russian River. This should be interesting.

More information on Stumptown Ales