Tag Archives: Enegren Brewing Company

by | September 3, 2011 · 10:20 am

Vegan Attempt/Fail

Sometimes, you just to have a meat-free, dairy-free, good ole fashioned vegan breakfast.
Modified from my Peach Pie Pancakes – subbed in dairy-free chocolate chips for peaches. Chocolate matches PERFECTLY with the cinnamon on a chilly, marine-layered morning! And then I also subbed in sour cream for some of the almond milk. Oops.

After such a wonderfully vegan attempt start to the day, you may want to keep up with that attempted vegan streak. I, however, went out for a big pulled pork sammich.
Oh, yes! The stuff of my dreams!

After YOUR vegan lunch (obviously you didn’t cave to the call of the pig as I did), you may decide that a day full of only vegan food is indeed possible. If you happen to be looking for a simple, delicious vegan tortilla soup recipe, Angela created one the other day that is to die for!
The most difficult part of the process is the chopping, and even that only takes a few minutes!
Add some chopped avocado and vegan sour cream and you’re good to go! Unless you’re like me… Then you may decide that this tortilla soup needs a little protein boost…
You can try as I did and roast your own chicken. I’d never roasted one before, so I winged it. I washed it, dried it, sprinkled lemon pepper and salt all over and stuffed with with onions, carrots, celery and two lemon halves. Then I stuck it in the oven and went to Twitter to find out how long I should bake it for in order to not die of salmonella or E. coli. The answer is two hours at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Just in case you also wanted to not die.
This time, I added regular sour cream to pair well with my chicken tortilla soup. It was awesome.
If you want to expound upon your newfound veganism, you could get a gluten-free, vegan amber ale. This was… interesting. I can’t really compare it to other gluten-free beers since I haven’t tried any, but it wasn’t too bad… I ended up opening a Sierra Nevada Tumbler right after. Whoops. I’ll definitely need to find some others to try out so I can give Amanda some recommendations. Trying beer for a friend – the ultimate sacrifice.

Hopefully your attempt at a vegan day is more successful than mine… For now, it’s 10:20am and I’m already cracking open a bottle of beer so I can make my cheat version of Oatmeal Stout Brownies with Caramelized Bacon for today’s brew day at Enegren Brewing Company.
My day = Massive vegan fail.

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by | August 21, 2011 · 11:55 am

Brewing at Enegren!

Yesterday I awoke at 4:30am, made a gigantic mug of coffee and rolled out the door over to Enegren Brewing Company for brew day!
When I got there a few minutes after 5am, Chris and Matt were already set up, prepping for the mash in.
In order to fill one of their 6 barrel fermenters, Enegren has to brew TWICE in one day. It’s a crapload of work and makes for a long day, so I tried my best to help out in any way I could, as well as not get in the way.
And this is just the first batch.
Here’s what’s in one of those buckets that Matt’s lifting. There were five buckets of this size. TWICE, they lifted five of those to the mash tun. Macho men.
Delicious oatmeal breakfast mash! Such a heavenly aroma.
While the mash tun does have a thermometer on the side, it isn’t the most accurate way to read temperature since there can be hot pockets and uneven heating througout. Matt, Chris and Joe use a long harpoon-style thermometer to check for those hot spots and make sure their readings are accurate.
Checking the pH.
While they did the scientific stuff, I stirred in my required brewniform.
Tacky boots were a necessity – of course.
In my attempt to be helpful, and since the brewers were excessively busy with creating delicious beer, I filled these kegs with beer from Joana – the fermenter full of their California Alt beer.
So. Many. Kegs.
They showed me how to fill, and after a getting soaked by a few minor beer showers, I finally got the hang of it.
Lauter tun with a false bottom, extracting the sugary wort from the mash.
Once all the liquid is extracted, they open the door to a wall of caked grains, and try to get the bucket underneath before it spills all over the floor. They succeeded – this time.
I think I need to do more weight lifting if I’m going to be in the brewing business…
11am rolled around, so I changed out of the brewniform and stepped behind the bar with Brie to help serve the masses of craft beer lovers that stopped by.
Wave after wave of groups came in to taste, fill growlers and chat with the brewers. They stayed for a couple of hours, but I don’t think they really enjoyed themselves or liked the beer that much… The couple in the center is actually getting married soon, and Enegren will be serving their beer at the wedding! I guess they do kind of like it after all.
While brewing is a very, very serious business, there’s ALWAYS time to play Whack-a-Mole when Chris is cleaning out the mash tun.
Brie has had serious training when it comes to Whack-a-Mole.
You can never practice too much when it comes to Whack-a-Mole.

I lasted until 11pm before I decided that I wanted to survive the drive home and not fall asleep behind the wheel. The guys were getting close to finishing up the second brew, but still going strong when I left. It was a LONG, exhausting day for me – the fact that the brewers hold 9-5 jobs AND do this on the weekends astounds me. I’ll be back there as much as possible, until they kick me out. And just to end this post on a gratuitous note:
See you guys soon!

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by | August 18, 2011 · 11:31 pm

FIRE IN THE HOLE!!!

In order to weasel my way into the hearts, and into the brewery of Enegren Brewing (speaking of which – check out the latest, most amazing blog full of epicness written by Joe, Enegren’s brew chief), I willingly accepted their challenge to give Surf Brewery another try.
The verdict? It was okay… The carbonation has definitely mellowed out since the last time I was there. I didn’t drink the first two – both a little too close to water for my liking, but the Surf Patrol Black IPA was not bad! Pretty low on the IBU, but passable. After finishing most of the sampler, we ordered a pint to split amongst the four of us. I jokingly asked the server for straws. She brought straws.
That server is my hero. Naturally, we didn’t want to let this precious moment go to waste.
How could I not?
Matt, Chris and Brie – willing to go the extra step for the sake of beer. Awesome.

While I’m still not officially a fan of the brewery, I am slightly more willing to go back and try some of their new brews. They have improved since their soft grand opening.

Since it was still semi-early, and since we’re real people who can’t solely subsist on beer, as much as we’d like to believe, we went over to what used to be a creepy old abandoned restaurant in the Channel Islands Harbor – now refurbished into a Toppers Pizza.
When Toppers first destroyed the beautiful destitute remains of the brick building – complete with shattered windows, dead leaves littering the faded carpet, and wooden booths with cushions ripping at the seams, I was bummed out. But then we ordered a “Fire in the Hole” pizza – pepperoni, jalapenos and pineapple.
Toppers, you are completely forgiven for destroying the history of the crumbling restaurant formerly known as “Harbor Lights”. You are TOTALLY forgiven. I may have dreamt about this pizza last night, and talked nonstop about it today. Maybe…

After that deliciously cheesy, sweet and painfully spicy pizza, we went over to the old mental institution to walk around. Seriously, how can you end a night WITHOUT trespassing into old abandoned courtyards littered with old cafeteria chairs and balconies that have ominous ropes dangling from them at midnight? Pictures to follow:
I couldn’t believe I got a picture of that! Seriously creepy, right?Yeah, I didn’t actually take any pictures there… I’ll put my ridiculously fancy camera at risk at midnight at an old mental institution sometime soon though, I promise. Matt, Chris and Brie – good luck getting rid of me. Anyone who’ll gorge on pizza, drink craft beers with straws and then traipse around creepy abandoned buildings in the dark is… well, just plain awesome.

Something beautiful came in the mail today…
My official Certified Beer Server pin! I’m officially official now!
That sums up my life about now. And what a wonderful life I lead!

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by | July 23, 2011 · 11:16 pm

Enegren Brewing Company

Tonight my friend from Ladies at Ladyface, Janelle, called me up so we could find some amazing brews. We Googled. We succeeded.
Oh man, did we succeed. Enter: Enegren Brewing Company.
Enegren Brewing Company consists of brothers Chris and Matt Enegren, and brew chief Joe Nascenzi.
Craft beer girls, eat your hearts out.
Since they’re not officially open yet (Grand opening is July 30th and 31st! BE THERE!), we had a chance to check out the space while they brewed in preparation for the grand opening.
Their Imperial IPA, Protector, clocks in at 120 IBU and 7.2% ABV. Great floral hoppiness on the nose, but a surprising sweet maltiness on each sip. Lovely medium-high carbonation and a rusty burnt orange with beautiful lacing. Janelle, who’s a fan of Belgian brews, loved it. I, being an IPA lover, absolutely melted. Not quite sure what I was expecting, but this beer exceeded all expectations! We were both incredibly impressed.
Apparently others were impressed as well. Well deserved!

We got a chance to taste their other brew, Valkyrie – a California Alt, right out of the fermentor. It still has a few days left, but today was so perfectly smooth, it almost seemed nitro-pushed. I forsee growlers of each in my future. I forsee those in my IMMEDIATE future…
This is their setup from college days. Impressive, yes?
Here’s their current setup. They have two 6 barrel fermentors, Alice and Joanna. Yes, they name their fermentors. That ups them in the awesome category by quite a few points.
In order to fill one fermentor, they have to do two brews since their mash tun only makes 3 barrels. When we arrived, they were in the middle of a boil, and had been brewing since 7am this morning. The place smelled heavenly!
Chris Enegren created the command center of the brewery. This system is a touch screen where they can control flow, temperature, timers, etc.
DUDE. Seriously. These guys have success in the making – Chris is an engineering major, Matt is a financing major and Joe is a marketing major. Success personified!
They already have a leg up after being featured in the Brew Your Own magazine in 2009, and the All About Beer magazine back in 2010.
THEY’VE BEEN APPROVED! Just in case you didn’t know!

Enegren Brewing Company
680 Flinn Avenue #31
Moorpark, California
GRAND OPENING JULY 30th: 11am-8pm
and July 31st: noon-5pm

Be there! And for all you ladies out there, in case my raving about the beer hasn’t convinced you, here’s one more gratuitous picture:
Thanks to Joe, Matt and Chris for letting us come by! We’ll be back soon. Too soon.

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