Russian River – New Beers & Windsor Updates

From Russian River:

So much has happened in the past few months that I don’t even know where to begin!  I will just pick up from where I left off with the last blog right before our Pliny the Younger release.  We were grateful to see so many tourists and locals alike coming back to our pub and Sonoma County for the annual release.  This year the Sonoma County Economic Development Board conducted another 2-week study on the economic impact to set a baseline before we open Windsor and have the release at both breweries next year.  This study was just published and the total economic impact in just 2 weeks was nearly $3.4 MILLION!  You can read the final report here:

http://sonomaedb.org/Current-Projects/Craft-Beverages/

Thank you to everyone who visited this past February, and since October.  Your dollars and smiling faces mean more than ever to our community as we continue to recover and rebuild after the devastating wildfires last October.  Honestly, it has been pretty quiet around here these past 7 months.  If Sonoma County is not on your radar, please consider us for your next all-inclusive world-class destination for beer, wine, food, fun and beautiful scenery!

Windsor update:  for those of you who don’t follow us on Instagram or Facebook, we finally received all of our tanks last month with the last few being installed next week.  Our bottling line also arrives next week and will be installed very soon.  Every day the jobsite is a flurry of activity with scissor lifts, cranes and forklifts, welding, hammering and sawing, and decisions, decisions, decisions!  It has been quite the journey so far filled with a roller coast of emotions from excitement to stress and worry, then back to excitement.  Projected opening date is still this Fall, fingers and toes always crossed.  Projected hiring date for about 120 positions is scheduled for mid to late Summer.  If you are looking for a job in the beer industry, keep your eyes peeled on our website for job openings at our Downtown Santa Rosa pub, production brewery and soon to be Windsor!

Vinnie and our brewing team have been having fun with creating new beers of late.  There is almost always something new and fun on tap at our Downtown pub.  Presently, one of my new favorites is Hop Queen, a German Pilsner made for the recent Craft Brewers Conference in Nashville.  This fun new beer is made with Hersbrucker and Tradition hops.  Another new addition is CFJ-90, an unfiltered 100% Centennial hop “hazy” IPA.  CFJ-90 refers to the experimental number used before this hop became commercially available and is now one of the most popular hops among American Craft Brewers.  Vinnie remembers using this hop in his homebrewing days and referred to it as the “spy hop”.  I could see it starring in a Bond film back in the day!

Lastly and most important, we want to thank our amazing Mothers for always being so supportive of our crazy dreams and entrepreneurial spirit no matter how great the risks.  They are and were both key to our success, Vinnie’s Mom helping us get our new brewery off the ground, and my Mom designing 9 of our ‘-tion” beer labels including the very first one, Damnation.  Cheers and Happy Mother’s Day to all you awesome Moms out there!

Natalie