Feature: Brewing Pumpkin Beer at Capitol City Brewing Co

The basement

While the mash goes on, Mike and Travis give us more of the tour of the brewery. Next to the brewhouse they have a number of fermenters–a few 15 barrel tanks as well as a few 30 barrel tanks that take two brew sessions to fill. The brewery mainly uses these big ones for their popular Kolsch beer which takes a little longer to age and sells a little faster than some of the other core beers. The basement includes their small filtration system used on most of there beers except for the darkest like the Fuel, coffee stout.

Pumpkins floating

More fermenters and bright tanks for aging and carbonating line the walls of the basement and at one end they’ve got their keg cleaner. A five minute largely automatic process, the keg cleaner is a window into a large part of the brewing life. It’s not just all about thinking up crazy new beers and brewing them all day. As McCarthy puts it, “75% of the time we are cleaning things, washing kegs, sanitizing equipment and moving around heavy stuff, that other 25% of recipe formulation and brewing interesting beers is the fun part that the brewers look forward to.” At Cap City they have their core Kolsch, Amber, Pale and Porter, but it’s the seasonals and specialty beers that give the brewers a chance to try out new things at the two brewing locations. McCarthy has been exploring his love of Belgian styles brewing a Belgian Tripel, Dubbel, and Saison.

Cap City Crew

After leaving the brewhouse, I decide to complete the brewing cycle and take a seat at the bar to check out some of the beers they’ve got pouring right now. The pumpkin beer wouldn’t even be ready to ferment for a few more hours, and it’d be lot longer before we could really try any of it. Luckily there are some other seasonals and specialties ready to go. Mike’s Belgian Table beer pours a golden yellow and sips like a lighter Tripel. It’s a fun example of how craft beer can bring you beer styles you’d never see in stores or even at Belgian breweries for that matter. Travis pours me his Zwickle Trickle Helles-style lager that he had brewed–definitely a testament to his interest in the technical nuanced brewing process and an appropriate beer as we enter the month celebrating German beer and Cap City’s upcoming Oktoberfest party.

As for the Pumpkinator, according to McCarthy it will be on tap October 1st along with an Organic Belgian Tripel and the Oktoberfest Lager. Looking forward to tasting the final product after all that hard work and early rising.

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Tags: Arlington, Capitol City Brewing Company, Mike McCarthy, Travis Tedrow