If you live under a rock you might not know about Covington Kentucky’s Braxton Brewing.  If you’ve been on this website for any length of time, though, you know that I LOVE what this brewery is doing, and where they potentially could be 5 or 10 years down the road.  They are always moving, always growing and doing it in ways that make my little gnome-heart swoon.  I wrote a little bit back in July… then again in August about some new beers that they have been rolling out – again for October we’ve got another one to get all giddy about:

Oktober FuelOktober Fuel

I love Oktoberfest season… the beers of the season might be my favorites as far as styles go, and though I haven’t had a chance to try theirs yet as of writing this post, I can almost guarantee that I’m going to love it, as well.  The lager comes in at 5.8% abv with 20 IBUs… and since I haven’t tasted it, I’ll leave it up to the crack brewing and marketing team at the brewery to fill you in:

Fall means football, tailgating, festivals, crisp air, and cool evenings. It also means good beer. Germany’s Oktoberfest begins in September and ends in early October. The tradition of gathering with friends, family, and your community over a stein of traditional German beer dates back centuries. More recently, you could find us gathering with those people in our garage over a homebrew, watching a game, or tailgating. Now, we’re excited to continue this tradition with our new Braxton community. We’ve brewed Oktober Fuel — a traditional Oktoberfest Lager — for you, our community. It’s fuel for fall.

 

The history of the Oktoberfest style dates back to the 1800’s to celebrate Prince Ludwig, later crowned King Ludwig I, marrying his Princess. This traditional Oktoberfest style lager is brewed using the finest German malts, decoction mashing and noble hops. This lager has an aroma that is dominated by complex malt characteristics inclduing bready, biscuity and slightly toasty that are emphasized through brewing techniques. It is a light amber to dark orange in color, with a beautiful, long lasting off-white head. Starting with a nice malt sweetness this beer will finish crisp and dry and will have a nice spicyness of noble hops to blance the malt complexity this beer is known for.

Evan is brilliant.  You put that together with Richard Dubé who is a mastermind, and the rest of their incredible brewing team and only beautiful things can come out of it.  Evan has said that this is a real collaboration with the recipe being pieced together from four different recipes from the brewing team.  30% of the mash was decocted and the whole thing has been lagering away for a little over the last four weeks… if you can’t tell I’ve been pretty freaking excited about this since the brewery first started hinting at the possibility of them brewing it and since it’s getting tapped this evening in their taproom, you know I’ll be out somewhere this weekend getting my greedy little hands on some!

BraxtonOhioThe Move North

They have told us from the beginning that they would eventually start distributing in Ohio once the time was right with the brewery.  Lucky for all of us Ohioans, that time has come and this weekend marks the start of this big rollout.  The beer has been trickling up here a little bit, with it’s availability at Great American Ballpark, Nippert and Paul Brown stadiums, and at large events, but now with the rollout to 30 something accounts it’s finally going to be in many of our backyards.  They are marking this momentous occasion with Pint Nights, Tap Takeovers, and other events all over town in the next week, so regardless of what area you live in, there is most likely an event close to home for you to get to.  This, by the way, is exactly what you need to be doing.  Get out and meet some of the dedicated Braxton team around town, let them know that you love what they are doing and support their steady growth!  You won’t be able to miss them at this weekends Cincy Beerfest.  They are setting up a ‘Braxton Beer Garden’ with their massive trailer and interactive social media board – these guys don’t mess around!

This is a brewery (and I know I mention this a lot) that has a genuine story.  They are a family that started this venture in the garage around a love for beer, and the only difference between back then, and them now is that their garage is a little bigger and the brewery within it makes a shit-ton more beer (Thanks to those two big, new 80bbl fermenters a metric shit-ton more).  Let yourself be swept up in this story… it’s well worth it, and they are well worth it.

In an absolutely signature Braxton way, they have created a video titled “Born In The Garage” with Neltner Small Batch, Brian Steege (Shoot with Steege), and edited by Tate Webb.  The video, seen below, really helps you see the birth of the brewery from their garage at home, to where they are today.  If this doesn’t make you fall in love with what they are doing, you might not be human – and this is coming from a Gnome.

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