The Stone Pilgrimage Part II: The Tour
The Stone website suggests you show up at least 2 hours early to reserve a space for a tour of the brewery. We arrived about 45 minutes early and managed to snag the last 3 tickets for the 1 PM Sunday tour. I think it was the deranged and desperate look in my eyes that led to our good fortune!
Dan, our illustrious tour guide, led us through the 55,000 square foot brewery. The only (well not only…) difference between a homebrewer and a professional brewer is the size of the equipment. If you were to take our typical Backyard Brewing Society tools, increase their scale dramatically and dress everything in beautiful stainless steel, you would, in essence, have a brewery. Now obviously a lot more goes into a Stone beer than our haphazard monthly brew sessions, but the process is essentially the same.
According to Dan, under California law, the only way we could be provided with free beer is by making the tour educational. In order to complete this requirement, Dan went into a great explanation about the brewing of beer and delved into discussions of water (Stone uses municipal water that is run through a reverse osmosis system and then tweaked), hops (they use pellets…not sure why I thought differently here), and malted barley (Almost all of their beers use 2-row as a base malt).
To reinforce the scale difference between homebrewing and commercial brewing, I witnessed the largest blow off tube and bucket ever. One of the large fermenters was obviously fermenting and had a 3 inch blow off tube stuck in a 55 gallon plastic drum. It was bubbling ferociously. In fact, it was putting off so much CO2 that Dan asked someone to step back from it so this person would not suddenly pass out from a lack of Oxygen. Dare I say, at home I’m not too worried about creating an oxygen void outside of my fermenting bucket.
For some reason, I thought the brewery would be bigger. Don’t get me wrong, it’s huge, but it’s not ginormous. (It’s even bigger when you realize Stone has never spent a dollar on advertising. The company has been built on word of mouth between beer lovers.) Besides Dan mentioning Stone doesn't serve “fizzy yellow beers”, he also indicated that if the masses don’t like Stone beers, it’s fine by them. As I have discussed on these pages before, beers such as Miller Lite & Bud Light are enjoyed by so many because they are watered down to such a bland consistency they offend no one. Stone’s beers are unique and not appreciated by everyone. This is a good thing.
After touring through the bottling area, we entered the 8000 square foot refrigeration cooler. As we stepped inside, I questioned Dan why there wasn’t a soundtrack of angels singing. He said he would look into it. I was pretty awestruck by the cooler. Besides stacks and stacks of kegs and bottles, I spotted a rack of firkins. The firkins, I believe, were one off brews: Double Bastard with American Oak and Sublimely Self Righteous Ale with Amarillo. I can’t imagine the kind of experimentation they do.
No sooner than our tour began, it ended in the gift shop with tastings of Smoked Porter, Arrogant Bastard, Pale Ale, and something else which escapes me. I find it a wonderful experience to walk through a business where you genuinely feel the love, respect, and attention the employees give towards their job and their product. Stone definitely has a family atmosphere, and in my opinion their beers are better because of it. As I sip my next glass of Arrogant Bastard, I feel a little more kinship with the beer, much like I did when having Old Speckled Hen after touring Green King in Bury St. Edmunds. I have a feeling if I were to retire and move to Southern California, I would simply be happy bussing tables at the Bistro. My thanks to Dan for a great tour and everyone at Stone for a wonderful experience. Brew on!
