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Short's Brewing Company News: March 10th 2007 The Huma Lupa Licious Bottle Release Party

If you were not able to make it out for this production, I’m truly sorry that you missed it. This event, much like a lot of our projects, became more complex and elaborate throughout its development. We went from simply releasing a 12 oz. bottle of beer, to what I like to call a “Short’s Brewing Company Production”.  I have always been a fan of theatre, music and art. Developing a production on our stage is quickly becoming one of my favorite creative outlets. The Huma Lupa release with Wonka Joe is our second Short’s Brewing Company Production. My work has always been a byproduct of my passion and vision. For those to truly understand the efforts involved, I thought it was appropriate to share not only the finished product but to articulate the work that led to its fruition. One method to do this was through song and theatre.  I am a big believer in appreciation through education. For the audience to truly appreciate and understand the Huma Lupa Licious, I wanted to teach them about why it is such a special beer. The affect of educating our consumers resulted in a masterful production of visual and audio ecstasy.

The Huma Lupa Licious production began with a 2 dimensional set construction on our stage, adorned with synthetic hops. The background was painted by our favorite local artist Elizabeth Kantzer. She created a most beautiful Wonka-esque background of a giant beer bottle, hops, fermentation tanks and a bubbly flowing river of Huma Lupa Licious. It was not only effective to have the theme set to a beer version of Wonka’s chocolate factory, but it was necessary. Since the name of our most popular beer, Huma Lupa Licious (named after the hop flower humulus lupulus) is often mispronounced and commonly regarded as “Oompa Loompa Licious” I thought it would be fun play it off the Willa Wonka format. As music would be authentic to a Wonka theme, I wrote a song about hops (as they are the focal ingredient in the Huma Lupa Licious). The song covered the historical and medicinal value of hops, along with how they grow and what value they employ in beer. As good fortunate would have it, I was able to compose and record this song with the band, Gud Huma. Gud Huma is a group of talented local musicians who formed over the course of several open mic nights at the brewery.  They appropriately named themselves after their favorite beer, Huma Lupa Licious IPA.

In attempt to achieve the most Wonka like effect within our capacity, I had solicited my nephews and other local children to serve as the “Huma Lupas”. These kids were aged 4 to 9 years of age, and worked out great. Although kids have a short attention span and are challenging to coordinate in small groups, we had fun and they were so damn cute you could help but love them!  Their hats and shoes were custom made and coordinated with their matching costumes.  We gave them kazoos to use during the song and showed them how to do a little dance on the stage.  After two rehearsals with the Huma Lupas and Gud Huma, we were organized enough for a dress rehearsal and our debut performance.

Much like Wonka’s golden ticket in the candy bar, we did something similar with stainless steel capsules that contained a silver scroll inside six random bottles of Huma Lupa Licious. The scroll winners get to use their tickets for entry into the Imperial Beer Release tasting and food pairing on June 1st along with a tour of the brewing operations with yours truly.

Theatrics was only half of the work for the production. The real challenge came from behind the scenes with actually putting the Huma Lupa Licious into a bottle. After all this was the whole reason for the party right? This mission started by driving to Alpena, home of the Fletcher Street Brewing Company. They were kind enough to sell us two pallets of 12 oz. bottles. These measured about nine and a half feet tall containing about 120 cases. We loaded the pallets into the back of the truck with a loader. As crazy as it sounds, it worked. Strapping them down very tightly, our average speed to the Bellaire was about 45 mph. We traveled nervously against a head wind the entire trip. Alas, we returned with all bottles in tact. The bottle mission was a success. Our second challenge with the bottle section of the party was labeling them. A labeler is still one piece of equipment we do not have. We did have enough slow days in the pub to employ a hand labeling crew among our staff and patrons. After a few days of hand labeling we had enough cases ready to start an actual bottling run.
Retrieving bottles and labeling them wasn’t so bad, and brewing the beer was the easy part. Putting it  into a bottle was another story. Our part time brewery assistant, Eric Schroeder spent a lot of time getting to know the Meheen. The Meheen is a small bottling machine that fills and caps four 12 oz. bottles of beer at a time. We picked this thing up 2 years ago when we bought the Boyne River Brewing equipment. Throughout those last few years, we finished several projects which enabled us to begin bottling operations. Now we were ready to figure out how it worked. I give all the credit to Eric. As Stevo, Tony and I kept the brewing operations and the party production in full speed, Eric tinkered with the Meheen night and day. He had isolated and fixed many problems until we could actually start bottling beer. Having to overnight parts, troubleshooting over the telephone and a baby in one arm, he got the Meheen running. We bottled our first run of 10 cases or so on March 7th. It was just enough for us to get used to how it worked. The following day, we had a full crew and packaged a grand total of 86 cases. It took four of us. Eric loaded the filler, I manned the capping station. Steve and Tony managed the flow of staging empty bottles and casing finished product. They were also busy pulling out the occasional low fill and hand capping the occasional miscap. The capper was the most problematic. As I monitored the feed slots (much like playing connect four) I also used a retractable magnet to retrieve the caps that didn’t quite make it into the capping head. If the capper became jammed, the steady flow of fill and cap soon became disastrous, resulting in binding parts and eventually breaking bottles. Once this happened we had to clean and reset the entire machine. After a few hang ups we had a very nice flowing operation. We soon became more comfortable with the flow and our motions were flawless. Then suddenly it stopped. The tank was empty. The bottles were filled. It was smoother that we could have imagined.  Amazing, Huma Lupa Licious was in a 12 oz. bottle……….sweet!

The beer was bottled, the song was finished and the Huma Lupas, Wonka Joe and the Gud Huma Band were ready for the show. Jon (AKA Woj) the Deli Lama had a fantastic dinner under control. Leah had the staff updated on the rules and regulations for the party. We had one last effort to employ and it would have never happened if Eric Schroeder had not come to our rescue once again. The slide show was not finished. I was awaiting photos from the Oregon Hop commission, and trying to organize the ones I had. This section of the production was very important to me. It was the visual link to understanding the song, the beer, the project, everything. I had never done a slide show before, but I was prepared to learn how to the night before. Eric had done several in the past and was quite familiar with the program, so he made it easy on me. Although he had experience, he was still challenged to coordinate the slides to the song and hit the right speed. Filling in the missing photos still had to be researched and employed, which also took time. Again he took another vital project under his wing and worked throughout the night to have it ready for the following morning. It was beautiful and said everything it needed to. A big thanks to Eric and the rest of the staff and volunteers for putting up with my obsessive productions. We were able to meet our bottle release deadline and put on a great performance with all sections of the production complete. The Huma Lupa Licious 12 oz. bottle release party will always remain one of my most favorite projects. I was able to combine several of my interests into one party and share them with the community. We used education, writing, entertainment, we involved family and friends, we sang, we used art and theatre, we composed music, we employed culinary arts and used brewing and beer in a place we designed and built for that reason. I take pride in believing Short’s Brewing Company is affecting people in a positive way and enriching their lives through our quest for beer liberation through industry innovation and everything within its wake.  Thanks again everyone.

Beer Farmer

More photos coming soon!

 

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Smugglin Plumbs: Sweet perfume of rich roast and plum, cast through hearty malted complexity, finishing slightly sweet and dry. .75 lbs. plumb per gallon. 5.8% ABV

Cup a Joe coffee Cream Stout: Deep aromatics of malt, sweet espresso and cocoa. Flavor is robust with big malt character covered with cream and coffee. 6.0% ABV

Snow Wheat: Winter Hefeweizen Style What Ale - notes of banana and clove

Hangin Frank: Toasted pale ale with tons of citrus hoppiness.

The Golden Rule: Our organic English IPA has a simple malt profile which lends most of its attention to the unique hop flavor and aroma. 5.8% ABV

The Magician: A rich lustrous dark red London ale. Rich malt complexities lending notes of toaste caramel, raisins, toffee, and slight roast chocolate. Very light hop additions let the true malt characters promenade throughout the tasting enjoyment this beer
offers. 6.0% ABV

Black Cherry Porter
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Huma Lupa Licious
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