Sprague Farm & Brew Works grew and malted its own barley and grew its own hops to release a true 'farmhouse ale'
Share with others:
Plenty of local businesses and people make their own beer. But few have gone as far with the do-it-yourself as Sprague Farm & Brew Works has done.
The craft brewery, located in a former dairy barn near Venango, Crawford County, not only grew its own barley, but also malted that barley, and made it into a beer with its own hops and maple syrup.
Like an "estate wine" in that most of the ingredients come from, and the brewing all happens on, the farm, this "estate beer" -- something that's been made by only a few other brewers including West Coast biggies Sierra Nevada and Rogue -- is to be pouring Sunday, Oct. 16, at Sprague's Oktoberfest.
"I'm surprised that it came out anywhere close to what we wanted," says Brian Sprague, who describes the first 6-barrel batch as light in color, lemony and tart, in the classic French "farmhouse" style. "It reminds me of a wheat ale, even though it's all barley."
He plans to name it "La Ferme," which translates as "The Farm." It's the achievement of a dream.
He and his wife, Minnie (Mary), opened the place in the summer of 2008. As he told the Post-Gazette at that time, he'd started to dream about opening his own brewery in the late 1980s and once he bought the 65-acre farm in 1997, he considered brewing farmhouse ales under the name "French Creek," which flows nearby.
But then he decided to start out with more standard brews.
In 2009, they planted some malt barley on their farm, but were unable to harvest it, due to wet weather and the fact that no one wanted to harvest such a small planting. This spring, they tried try again, planting some on a nearby farm more equipped to harvest it. But they also planted on their land and bought their own well-seasoned 1970s John Deere combine.
This August, with the help of their friend and Penn State Cooperative Extension agronomist Joel Hunter, they harvested about 3 tons of barley, which sounds like a lot, but couldn't find a commercial malter willing to work with what amounts to only about 125 bushels. So they did that themselves, too, doing enough research to take their first shot at converting the barley to malt-- that is, soaking it to germinate just enough to activate enzymes that change the grains starches into sugars and then stopping that process by air drying it.
First Published October 13, 2011 12:00 am
