Lake Tahoe Brewing Co. will be unveiling a brand new one of kind beer for the Nevada Appeal’s 150th birthday celebration Saturday.
Special for the celebration, Bryan Borgmeier, brew master at Lake Tahoe Brewing Co. has created a new beer that’s made entirely of local ingredients.
“We wanted the elements of Nevada flair in the beer,” Borgmeier said.
The beer will be made from honey from Al’s Bees in Washoe, local lavender, grain from Bently Ranch in Minden and hops from Southern California. Borgmeier said what was interesting about brewing this beer was he didn’t have any taste requirements, organizers at the Nevada Appeal just wanted locally grown ingredients.
“Sometimes you make a beer and it has to have this and has to have that, but this one didn’t have such strict taste (requirements),” Borgmeier said. “It was made from what we could source, so you don’t always know how it will taste and that makes you a little nervous.”
But organizers at the Appeal gave the new beer good reviews.
To brew the beer, brewers make about 12 barrels in a typical eight hour day, which creates a sweet unfermented liquid called wort.
They then let the wort ferment with yeast, which consumes the wort sugars to create the alcohol in beer. Brewers determine the alcohol content by how many pounds per barrel of extract is left.
The new Nevada Appeal beer has been fermenting for 14 days to mature and round out, and has an alcohol content of about 8.5 to 9 percent.
“It is fun to take on a project like this,” Borgmeier said.
“I have never made this beer or brewed with some of these ingredients so I didn’t know what I was going to get out of it, but when you present a beer and someone tells you that it is perfect, that feels so good.”
However, this is most likely the only chance people will get to try this special beer; the brewery is only making one batch for the celebration and there’s only going to be about 150 bottles for sale. Borgmeier said he has no plans to make this beer again, but possibly next year he’s going to create a similar beer to commemorate the Nevada Appeal’s anniversary.
“I might do a special beer around this time again next year,” Borgmeier said. “It has a good story with it, and that is really important in craft beer.”
The Appeal held a Facebook contest to name this new beer, and the winner is going to be announced at the unveiling of the beer at the 150th party.
To try the beer, visit the Nevada Appeal’s 150th birthday party Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Nevada Appeal building, 580 Mallory Way.
