It’s a new dawn,
it’s a new day,
it’s a new life for me,
and I’m feeling good.
- Nina Simone
With luck, you and Nina have something in common with this new year so far! And why not? The sun is shining, the… uh, um… Boy, I thought I’d have more positives to share off the top of my head. But after that gloomy December, the sun poking out ain’t nothing!
Maybe you’re feeling good because all those New Years Resolutions you made are making you a better person? There’s at least a few happening here amongst the Klockow crew. Starting with Jamie, she’s doubling down on last year’s progress on protecting her mental health. For Tasha, this year is going to be more about “all or something” rather than “all or nothing.” Don’t let not doing it perfect stop you from doing it all together, you know. Kyle and Amanda were very cryptic about some big project they plan on completing this year. I dunno, we’ll all have to wait and see, I suppose. And Adrianne always chooses a word of the year as a theme, or maybe to haunt her, which she said she figures out later what it more or less means for her. This year’s word is “peace.” We should probably all pray for her.
Then there’s Andy with these words of wisdom: “You don’t have to wait until 4/20 to get high, you can NOT drink months other than January, and you can start a resolution anytime.” The smug bastard has been hitting the gym since October.
But if there’s one thing that New Years is good for, it’s looking ahead. And that’s my segue to talk about upcoming events, specifically the next iteration of Ditty Wish Ventures to do a GAME SHOW! We’ve been looking forward to this one, because it’s the Newlywed Game! Seriously, do I even need to say it? Local couples, all pre-chosen (yeah, if anyone is worried about getting called out of the audience to play, fear not. That’s not how these games are set up), will be put to the test and potentially subjected to public embarrassment all for your entertainment! Do these couples, these life partners, have what it takes to answer basic questions about one another?? We’ll all find out on Thursday, Jan. 9, from 6 to 8 p.m., only in the Klockow taproom.
It’s also the second weekend of the month, which means Board Games & Records on Sunday, Jan. 12. Time to assemble your crew for a solid RISK campaign, or whatever game tickles your fancy, as well as your finest vinyl for a chill day of, well, board games and records. It’s relaxed. It’s easy going. It’s all day. And it’s at the Klockow taproom.
Ok, What Is That?
Despite what Andy said about having a dry month whenever you want (and, let’s face it, April is clearly the best month for that), January is widely recognized as the time to do it. Dry January, they call it! And we don’t know whether you know this or not, but we do actually have a number of non-alcoholic options if you still wanna go out for a beverage this chilly month. Naturally there is root beer and cream soda, as well as a few different flavors of kombucha. We’ve been making our Dukka Water for some time now, and we can’t forget the Shrubbery line (dry just means no alcohol; it says nothing about THC).
But we also have our BHK-NA, our non-alcoholic nut brown ale. Which begs the question: Ok, what is that?
No doubt you’ve seen non-alcoholic beer in the grocery store or in television commercials, but have you stopped to ask yourself what this means? If so, you’re in luck, because we’re going to tell you how our BHK-NA is made, as well as why it was.
“I felt like there was a demand for that. Definitely had people asking about NA options,” said Andy Klockow, co-owner and head brewer. “And we saw an opportunity in the marketplace, because no one is really doing a dark beer.”
Mid-dark, to be more specific. But that’s still darker than the various pale lagers that are most prevalent in the NA market. Even NA IPAs, with their greater hop flavor, are still mostly relegated to golden malts. And our customer base has definitely noticed this, given the number of compliments we’ve received for putting out a different style for the NA brew crowd.
But the question remains, how is this done? Well, since water and alcohol boil at different temperatures, one way is to throw the beer back in the kettle, bring it to 172 degrees F, and boil off all that alcohol. Whereas this is definitely a way to do it, and has been done by many companies before, it has a few big problems. For one, all your alcohol is lost unless you set up an additional coil to catch it. What’s more, if you don’t bring it down to less than .5%, you can’t actually call it NA, so it’s difficult and costly if you get it wrong. And last but certainly not least, boiling your beer kinda makes it taste like garbage. There’s a reason people haven’t historically been huge NA beer fans.
So what is a brewer to do if they want to have a good tasting brew that has functionally zero booze?
“There’s a company in St. Paul that came up with their own technology to vacuum distill alcohol out of beer,” said Andy.
Using the same principle of alcohol boiling at a lower temperature, the aptly named ABV Technology created a process whereby they put the beer batch under pressure so that they can boil the alcohol off without actually increasing the temperature. The result is a beer that is functionally the same as it was before, just missing an ingredient.
“It allows the alcohol to be driven off without affecting the flavor of the beer. Which is huge!”
And what of this alcohol that’s been distilled away from the beer at room temperature? It is captured, sent back to us in a separate container, and eventually turned into our Itsa Selzer (in a way, this is like a double “Ok, What Is That?” since now you know where the alcohol in our hard seltzer comes from, too!).
Throughout the upper midwest, if you have an NA beer, you likely have enjoyed a product thanks to ABV Technology. In addition to processing onsite, they actually manufacture the same equipment for use at larger breweries and smaller, dedicated NA breweries. So besides BHK Nut Brown Ale just being a tasty beer to begin with, if you’ve enjoyed one of our BHK-NAs before, you can thank this ingenious process and the folks at ABV Technology.
Whether you’re doing dry January, dry April, or dry whatever, fear not for we have you covered!
~
Thanks for checking out our humble little brewery! As long as you keep coming by, we’ll do our part by making the best damn beer possible and serving it in our always inviting atmosphere.
The Klockow Staff
Beer drops this past week:
Local, etc. -
Zorbaz on the Lake - Grand Rapids
NoPo Coffee Co. - Grand Rapids
SuperOne Liquor - Grand Rapids
SuperOne Foods South - Grand Rapids
SuperOne Foods North - Grand Rapids
Pokegama Plaza Liquor - Grand Rapids
Pokegama Lake Store - Grand Rapids
Smoke on the Water - Coleraine
Raven Stone - Coleraine
38 Outpost - Grand Rapids
Sammy’s - Grand Rapids
Duluth, etc. -
Dovetail Cafe - Duluth
Corktown Deli & Brews - Duluth
7 West - Superior
SuperOne Liquor - Cloquet
SuperOne Liquor - Pike Lake
Old Chicago Pizza - Duluth
Boulder Tap House - Superior
Fitger’s Wine Cellar - Duluth
D.E.C.C. - Duluth
McGregor -
Mark’s Bar - McGregor
The Craft House - McGregor
Big Zandy Zorbaz - McGregor