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Hooray for Hump
Day!
We're halfway
through another work week... how you holding up over
there? If you're feeling the need for a little mid-week
pick-me-up, you know we're always happy to see you over
here at Four Peaks. We're your awesome friend who always
has a fridge stocked with beer, a pantry filled with
good grub... and we don't ask too many questions. So
come over, take a load off, drink a couple beers...
catch a ball game with us. Whatever you want, it's good
times.
Please enjoy this issue of the
Brewsletter, in which we publish the stunning conclusion
to last week's Dear Brewhouse Forum, ask you to rank us
No. 1, pique your interest even further about our '08
Comeback Special and explore the potentials inherent in
"beerboarding." Read on...
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Brewpub Kitchen to Offer "Picnic Menu"
Monday, July 21st & Tuesday, July
22nd
We're getting a new kitchen floor
in the Tempe brewpub! Isn't that exciting? We know
you're stoked for us, but we're going to have to
limit our menu for a couple days until the job is
complete. So... the kitchen will close completely on Sunday, July 20th at 8
p.m. and
we will offer a fun
little "Picnic Menu" on Monday, July 21st and
Tuesday, July 22nd.  Our full
menu will return by lunch on Wednesday the 23rd.
Rest assured, however, the beer supply will not be
affected. We repeat: the beer supply will
not be affected.
The Four
Peaks Picnic Menu
Monday, July 21st &
Tuesday, July 22nd
Appetizers
Chips
& Salsa -- $5 Chips & Hummus --
$6 Vegetable Platter -- $6
All entree sandwiches
served on choice of fresh baked sourdough,
12-grain or marble rye. Accompanied with potato
chips or house pasta salad.
Turkey
Sandwich -- $8 Roasted turkey breast,
Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion and pesto
mayonnaise. Roast Beef
Sandwich -- $8 Slow roasted beef, pepper
jack cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion and spicy
mustard. Corned Beef
Sandwich -- $8 Lean corned beef, Swiss
cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion and horseradish
mustard. Deli Stack
Sandwich -- $9 Ham, turkey and roast
beef triple stacked on your choice of bread with
sliced avocado, Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato, red
onion and pesto mayonnaise. Caesar
Salad -- $7.50 Romaine lettuce, parmesan
cheese and garlic croutons tossed in our Caesar
dressing. House
Greens -- $7 Mixed greens, cucumber,
mushroom, bell pepper, red onion and tomato with
your choice of dressing. Sandwich &
Salad -- $7 Your choice of half a house
salad or half Caesar salad with half turkey, roast
beef or corned beef sandwich.
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Four
Peaks for President! 
Ha, just kidding. None of us are
crazy enough to do something like run for President. We ARE,
however, looking for your vote.
Just 16 days remain to vote Four
Peaks as Arizona's Number One Microbrewery through
Arizona Business Magazine's annual Ranking
Arizona.
Here's how to do
it...
1. Click this link: RANKING
ARIZONA
2. Choose "ENTERTAINMENT" from
the drop-down menu on the right.
3. Choose
"MICROBREWERIES" from the next drop-down
menu.
4. Enter "Four Peaks" as your number
one choice.
5. Enter your email, and submit
your vote!
It's a quick and easy way to do
something good for your favorite microbrewery,
which in turn is something good for the community,
which in turn is something good for the state,
which in turn is something good for the country.
And we all know the country is in desperate need
of good things lately. In fact, do this and then
take the rest of the day off because, as far as
we're concerned, you've done your work for the
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IN TEMPE THIS
WEEKIPA: India
Pale Ale is the serendipitous result of adding
extra hops to preserve ale when the British
shipped rations to occupying troops in India. Our
version - a pleasantly bitter, medium- to
light-bodied dry ale has a fantastic hop aroma and
is extra graceful when pulled from a British-style
beer engine. 6.9 % Alc./Vol.
IN SCOTTSDALE THIS
WEEK8th Street
Ale: It's like our award-winning
English Style "Best Bitter" was made for cask
conditioning. Mellow bitterness and a slightly
sweet malt flavor accompany a heavenly hop aroma
derived from lots and lots of rare imported
Kentish hops. 4.5% Alc./Vol. DON'T
FORGET: Four Peaks Grill & Tap has a
FANTASTIC reverse happy hour from 10 p.m. to 1
a.m. with $3 you-call-its, $3 pints and $3 house
wines. Sometimes it's a mystery to us, even, how
we pull these things off. As always, the
Hopsquatch barleywine is still on tap for all you
Four Peaks Grill & Tap-goers and hop lovers.
If we didn't see it, we're not sure we'd believe
it - almost 12 percent alcohol by volume, and
Jessica here in the office says, "It's like, ridiculously
hopped." Lager in
Turkmenistan is $2.50!
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Dear
Brewhouse
Forum From last
week: I never thought it would happen
to me... I always thought of myself as a normal
guy with normal needs. You know, hang out with my
peeps around the weekend and tip back a few cold
ones.
Dude, was I wrong! I was just
gonna go out with a couple of friends and have a
good time, I wasn't looking for anything life
changing but that's exactly what I got when we
stopped at Four Peaks! All of a sudden I was
thrust hip deep in a quagmire of flavor and styles
from around the globe. Just to let you know I was
one of those
guys - I'd never tried anything crazier
than a Pabst or a Schlitz before that evening. I
was a beer virgin!
The stunning
conclusion...
As I delved deeper, I was
recommended the Sunbru. Kolsch-style was something
I'd never tried before, and it was awesome! I was
told it was a form that originated in Germany. As
the crisp, golden goodness crept down my booze
chute I wanted to take back all the Buds and Coors
I was subjected to before; no doubt, it awakened
something inside me.
That pushed me to the
Kilt Lifter, amber-colored and malty-sweet. I
definitely wanted to pick it up and tap some of
that when I got home... DAMN!
My first
time alone with the Peach Ale and I was hesitant,
I don't know, it seemed I was moving too fast. How
wrong I was! I succumbed to its character, short
and sweet and damn satisfying. I found myself
hungering for more! Another bartender on duty told
me, "it's good for what 'ales' you," and I
thought, "SHE IS RIGHT!"
Then there was
the 8th Street Ale, so English I didn't feel like
speaking it anymore! I was told it had won a few
medals, and I said to myself, "No es suficiente!"
("Not nearly enough!")
When I found myself
staring longingly at the Hefeweizen, I realized
man was not put on this earth to be by himself!
Smelling of banana and clove with a cloudy
appearance... so mysterious, and still so smooth!
I had to find out what it was
hiding!
Lastly, I tried the Hop Knot Ale. I
was informed this is a regulars' favorite, and I
could see why. After one sip I could tell it was
rife with temptation... and hops! I longed for
another, but I had to hold myself
back.
Needless to say the night slowly
wound down. We all agreed we had a good time and
shared something special, something we would never
forget.
As we parted into the fresh
evening air, deep down I knew we all would
rendezvous again; something just made it
inevitable!
FINIS
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| UPCOMING EVENTS |
Saturday, August
16th...
'08 Comeback Special!!
Stay tuned for
more details.
For now, all we can tell you
is:
"Elvis ain't
the only one making a comeback."
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Brewers
Blog VII
"If you don't know
what's in it, don't drink it."
Great motherly
advice from a childhood spent sneaking Jolt Cola
and Mountain Dew. Thing is, she was right - as
usual. Mom drinks wine, but occasionally craves a
Hop Knot.
When reflecting on
that pearl of wisdom, we're still amazed that
seemingly everybody knows what wine is made of yet
few
people can name the four ingredients in beer -
even those who drink it regularly. Granted, wine
is easy in that it is essentially one
ingredient: grape juice (you could count
yeast but, strangely, vintners don't). And out of
this one ingredient, whether blended or not,
consumers are told to marvel at the array of
flavors brought about by the weather, the growing
region, even - in some cases - the orientation of
the vines to the astrological charts or some other
bio-dynamic hocus-pocus (our apologies to the
Anthroposophical Society). All of this is summed
up in the word "terroir," which is fancy-talk for
dirt. We call it a yarn, a tale, told to make wine
seem more mysterious and alluring to a public
largely in the dark about its production. Which is
fine, it sells wine. If you want some wholesale
de-bunking of all this, however, then read about
the Bronco Winery, a.k.a. Charles Shaw, a.k.a.
Two-Buck Chuck. Here's
one article. Fred Franzia - great guy, eh?
Maybe not but we love how he shakes things
up.
What we're
getting at is, well, wine's easy. One ingredient
and it gets to be different every time you bottle
it? Give us a break. If we tried that with beer we
wouldn't be around for 12 days, let alone 12
years. On top of that we're dealing with four
ingredients, two of which are agricultural
products at the mercy of the same "terroir" that
the wine guys tout as being so special in its
variability.
Malt, hops, yeast and water -
that's it. Yet we have to produce the same-tasting
beer day in and day out, no variations. How do we
do it? Well, primarily we have an amazing
team of brewers with pride as great as their work
ethic; really, an amazing group of people. We also
go to great lengths to ensure this consistency.
For example, a lot of brewers will talk about the
quality of their malt or the freshness of their
hops and even the unique character of their
particular yeast. We have all that, but when it
comes to consistency we like to talk about our
water.
>From the day we
started brewing in Tempe we knew the water was
going to be an issue. If a beer has 5 percent
alcohol then it has 95 percent water and if that
water tastes like what comes out of your garden
hose then good beer is going to be difficult to
make. We could have installed a charcoal filter
which would remove the chlorine and fluoride and
such, but it would not address the varying ionic
concentrations, or - in a simpler parlance - the
salts.
In Tempe these concentrations vary
greatly depending on the source of the city's
water, whether it is reservoir or well water.
Don't get us wrong, the city does a good job of
delivering clean potable water to a hot city but
for our needs it just wasn't enough. So we took it
one step further and consulted the star charts,
sought out a wise water-guru, dusted off the
divining rods and now we truck in our water from a
secret artesian well found in only one pristine
region of the world...
 OK, maybe not, but
we did install a reverse osmosis system (the wine
guys get all the good stories). This system strips
the water almost ion-free. There was one
problem: water that's too clean will affect
the health of our yeast. Yeast not only needs
malt-derived sugars to make beer, it also requires
some minerals for healthy fermentation. Through
some trial and error we figured out how to add
these salts and minerals back to our RO
water.
Not only that,
but we figured out how to approximate different
water profiles from great brewing cities like
London, Munich, Burton-on- Trent (the
home of Pale Ale and
IPA), and, of course, Edinburgh (Kilt Lifter
anyone?). Needless to say this process has helped
our consistency tremendously. When we installed
the RO system we were one of a handful of
breweries in the U.S. that had them. Now we're one
of several in the Valley. Pioneers? Maybe, but
we're happy to share, so much so that we piped our
water to the bar and to the ice makers. We even
installed a system at the Scottsdale location.
Take that, cork-dorks.
So, next time you
want to know the really clean water it takes to
make beer, order a glass at either of our
bars.
Plus, it's hot and
you need good water. Sorry, but sometimes we get
motherly too.
Dust off
those divining
rods!
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No, seriously.
Dear Four Peaks... We
always love to
hear from you, but there are times when your
comments make us feel extra warm and fuzzy. This
comment from Kris in San Diego put a smile on our
faces. We had to share...
"I couldn't rate
anything but your beer, yet. I am in the Navy
stationed in San Diego and a friend's dad (Mike
M.) lives out in Arizona. I visited once awhile
back and was told I had to try Kilt Lifter. I
guess it took me too long to get back there to try
it and now Mike keeps sending me more (last week
it was a case) every time he finds a way. He
claims it is coming from from you guys for my
service...
All I can say is
WOW and thanks, Kilt Lifter is a great beer coming
from some great people. Hopefully I can make it
out the Arizona way sometimes soon to try a bite
to eat.
Thanks
again,
Kris"
Thank YOU, Kris,
for what you do for all of US. And Mike M., if
you're reading this - thank YOU, too. It's folks
like the two of you who inspire us to keep raising
the - er - bar.
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Beerboarding
Urban Word of the
Day strikes again, this time with "beerboarding," which it
defines
as:
A controversial
process of extracting otherwise-secret information
from a friend or co-worker by getting them drunk
and thereby loosening their control on their
tongue.
In a
sentence: We beerboarded Tim
Neumann with the pictured Hefe Weizens and a
steady barrage of questions to convince him to
come clean about losing his microbrew virginity to
Four Peaks.
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Thanks to all who keep reading, and drinking,
and drinking, and reading. Keep your eyes peeled
for our next issue, in which we'll have a re-cap
of the much-publicized gourmet beer dinner up at
the Grill & Tap complete with photos, quotes
and maybe even a special recipe from chez Craft.
We just came up with this idea, just now. Good
one, huh? Deserves a pint of Kilt Lifter, don't
you think? (Let's hope The Crafty One's up for
it!)
Topa (Basque), 
The Gang at Four Peaks Brewing
Company
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