What is your favorite Spring beer?

Friday, November 14, 2008

More flavorful fall beers


Well, Fall is beginning to turn into winter and soon we'll be focused on making some stronger imbibments to keep the chill away, but right now we're rolling in Pumpkin Wheat, Maple Porter, and cider.
Kevin's back in the mix after the whole wedding/honeymoon/I need to pass my grad school classes excuses and we're going to roll out some more UBU soon, some nice IPA's, Juniper Red Ale, and maybe something oaky; we don't know.
We're looking for some things to keep us going when Ben's up and coming baby starts taking up all his time, so there may be lots of uber-strong, long-lasting one time releases in the near future. Cellar 'em if you got 'em!!
Since Ben started roasting his own coffee, we are looking at making another Java Stout soon as well. Nothing like staying awake so you can drink some more, we say.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

All the froth for your Fall!


Well, we've been brewing a lot here at Natsmile Ales and since it's the fall season, we're rolling out some fuller and more off-the-wall beers that make you want to curl up with a pint when the cold hits.

First off we have a Maple Pumpkin Wheat, a spin off of our usual Black and Blue Wheat that's great with a meal or on it's own.

I CAn Has IPA? has made its triumphant return to the pub just in time for the chill. It's got 5 malts and three hop varieties making it complex and full of both malt and hop flavor. This one just has to be tried.

Our first Wee Heavy, a Scottish Ale called Jamil's Wee, is also on tap, and at 8.5% it's sure to turn your cheeks red this season.

Coming up is a big maple brown ale and the return of Juniper Red Ale.

So stop by and have a pint with us, play some Japanese pool, and maybe a hot game of dice, you never know.

One last thing--it's not really beer, but Natsmile will soon be rolling out our first-ever cider, which is lower in alcohol but fun to make and a different pint that's worth a try. What's Autumn without cider, after all?


Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Kevin Got Married! Natsmile Ales was there!

Our award-winning UBU Strong Ale clone was brewed for Kevin and Ashyn's wedding on September 6 and met with great success. We brewed it five times total over the summer with Kevin on quality control.

The beer was fun to practice and the atmosphere that the final product was served in was fun as well.

Check this out: When you think wedding beer, you usually think Bud/Miller/Coors and mixed drinks. This wedding served Natsmile Ales beer, mead made by the preacher that officiated (with honey from his own bee hives), a keg of Highland Brewery's beer (a brewery in the town of said wedding) and the wine that was served was made just up the road at a winery (with its own vineyard) along the Blue Ridge Parkway. You talk about supporting local, man... it didn't get any better than this.

Add scenic views, four days in a great big cabin with a mish-mash of people, ping pong 'round the clock, and stops at some of Ashville, NC's great breweries, and it makes for a hell of a weekend.

Ninkasi had her way with the UBU that was left over upon returning to the brewery. A C02 hose got loose and sprayed a fine mist of beer all over the brewery over the course of a few days. We would have liked to bottle some up for competition, but so it goes. The wedding UBU was excellent and enjoyed by all. It is so written.

This beer is really good and we can brew it at either 6% or 7.5% as we see fit, so it will without a doubt be a regular at the pub.

ps- Kevin, who we've mentioned many times before as the best intern Natsmile Ales has ever had, is the guy in the suit walking alongside the pretty girl in white. I'm the guy in the wicked bright blue shirt at the edge of the picture.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Summertime Brews Fest was a huge success!!



















Summertime Brews Fest has come and gone once again, and this year was a bigger success for Natsmile Ales and it's affiliate Battleground Brewer's Guild. On the whole, 17 varieties of beer were on display at the BBG booth. Natsmile Ales showcased a flagship, Black and Blue Wheat, as well as Mountain Brew, half Mountain Dew, half beer.

Mountain Brew was met with mixed reviews. Some loved it, some hated it. Either way, it got people talking about our beer, and that's a great thing. Black and Blue Wheat was a favorite, but everyone loves a fruity wheat beer.

Up next is A Rye IPA and one more batch of Strawberry Wheat to close out the summer. We're thinking that it's also time for a High Gravity, High Hopped, Kick Your Face In beer in the near future. Stay tuned for more details as the drama unfolds at Natsmile Ales!!
ps- I'm the third guy in in the above pic.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Natsmile Ales in the media!!

Mountain Brew made Yes Weekly in a cover story about BEER!! It's towards the bottom in The Hobbyist section. There are some great quotes from members of our local club, Battleground Brewers, as well as a mention of Mountain Brew. Here's the link!

  • Yes Weekly Beer Cover Story
  • Monday, August 18, 2008

    Lots of News!!!


    Whew. Just because we haven't updated in a while doesn't mean we haven't been brewing.

    Sumertime Brews Festival in Greensboro is coming up. One of our summer staples, Black and Blue Wheat, will be on tap as well as a new and probably one-off batch; Mountain Brew. Mountain Brew is half Mountain Dew, half beer, and actually pretty damn good at least as a point-of-interest beer. Come on down to the Collesium 'and look for the Battleground Brewers Guild Booth.

    Our individual contracted brews are heading out to their destinations soon. Our Cream Ale is rapidly gaining fame and is being bottled for private collectors. The award-winning UBU Strong Ale clone will be on tap at Kevin and Ashlyn's wedding in Asheville, NC which is home to a few other great NC breweries as well. Natsmile Ales will be in good company.

    Next up, we're brewing more cream ale for the Natsmile Bar as well as a college class on brewing through UNC Greensboro. Yes, you can now earn college credit for drinking our beer. God Bless America. (blessings may vary in Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico)

    After all that, we're going to make a F*ck The Hop Crisis Double Rye IPA and attempt to clone Brooklyn Brewery's Black Chocolate Stout. Garrett, if you're reading this, please don't sue us.

    Monday, July 28, 2008

    The Moment Ends? A Tribute to Phish


    >THE MOMENT ENDS?
    >By Jonathan Kiefer
    >
    >
    > Years ago, that was us, the nascent Phish Nation, honking audience
    >participation into "Stash" on the horns of our Saabs, snowboards
    >roofracked; haunting head shops, you know...as if; hauling out the dusty
    >four-track
    >recorders, making trouble for the other members of our INXS cover-bands;
    >loping, lacrosse sticks in our hands, through the halls of prep school
    >dorms, having sought music that could be ours but couldn't be ruined,
    music
    >impervious to overplay on the radio or at the prom, having scoured the
    >college radio stations for some kind of awakening. We had found it.
    >
    >We'd been told we had to hear this. Vermont-spawned quartet, unlike
    >anything: frontman Trey Anastasio, lead vocals and guitar; Page McConnell,
    >keyboards; John Fishman, drums; Mike Gordon, bass. At first, we might have
    >hated it. Or started off skeptical. Listened impatiently, wondering, What
    >the hell? Or thought it was just weird and probably took some getting used
    >to. Word was, they were fluent in various styles. Okay, we said, sure, it
    >sounds like bluegrass because you don't really listen to bluegrass. Yes,
    >tell me about Latin funk, white boy. I mean, fluent? We'd always felt
    sorry
    >for the kid who played seven instruments half-competently, instead of
    >playing one well. But we caught two or three live shows and came back
    >thinking it could have been two or three different bands.
    >
    >We hadn't known how to categorize them and eventually got the idea that it
    >couldn't be done. We liked the idea. It was cool and exclusive to be
    >uncategorizable. We almost got polemical about it. "Hardening of the
    >categories promotes art disease," we quipped, quoting whoever said that.
    >Gradually, we relaxed-we didn't want to be fetishists, after all. No, they
    >weren't virtuosos, but they were aficionados-real music lovers-and they
    >were willing to try anything, even if they screwed it up. They were
    >goofballs,
    >these Phish, and good examples for us.
    >
    >Of course, some of us had our minds blown from day one. The incidence of
    >blown minds, we should say, was not directly proportional to our ability
    to
    >recognize a few bars of Gershwin tucked into "Bathtub Gin," like a tongue
    >in a cheek, or the melodic palindrome within "The Divided Sky" or other
    >unannounced, too-clever and surprising musical structures, quotations and
    >allusions. If we'd expected three chords and the truth, we got five
    chords,
    >sometimes with substitutions, two meters at once, and a riddle. We liked
    it.
    >
    >So we made it familiar. Whistling, humming, mastering even those
    >mathematically mind-numbing syncopations, if only to prove that we could,
    >that tapping along was doable, even through the sustained anticipation. We
    >finally learned all those cryptic words and wondered what they meant,
    >hatched our own theories. In any event, we could sense what the band was
    >getting at, and we liked it. We loved it. We had to know what they'd do
    >next.
    >
    >More shows. Calling them "concerts" just didn't seem right. They opened it
    >up. Jammed. Gliding and riding and weaving those songs out into space
    >somewhere. Twisting around. We'd been treating these 20-minute improvised,
    >exploratory ditties like background music before, scoring chores and
    >homework and drives to the movies and sometimes getting high. The shows
    >changed that. Being there made all the difference.
    >
    >It was comfortable inside the joke. The more we learned, the more immersed
    >and conversant we became about this phenomenon-which we were helping to
    >create-the cozier we felt. We saw more shows, and more. We knew, because
    >outsider friends told us, that we talked about Phish too much. They also
    >told us that, hell, we'd have been Bruce Springsteen fans if Phish were to
    >cover one of his songs. It was a fair point: as if hundreds of originals
    >weren't enough, our boys added music by more than 200 other artists to
    >their live rotation, including one by the Boss himself...but only once, on
    >July
    >16, 1999, with longtime Phish lyricist Tom Marshall on vocals. Yeah, try
    >and stump us.
    >
    >These tricksters were willing to cover just about anybody. The Allman
    >Brothers, sure, sure, makes sense. Willie Dixon? Nice. Whoa, that's a Van
    >Halen tune, remember that? And...um...ZZ Top? Ellington, Coltrane, Mingus,
    >Monk, Miles-dig it. Wow, Neil Diamond, huh? Frank Zappa, yeah,
    he's...yeah.
    >Oh, the Beatles wrote that? Seriously, I didn't know. What? Shut up.
    >
    >Sometimes they played entire albums of other people's music, by request.
    >They kept us guessing. And listening. We went out and bought more music.
    >Theirs, yes, but also caught up on the pop and rock we hadn't gotten
    around
    >to, the jazz or rhythm and blues we hadn't known about, the other stuff
    >we'd stayed away from. If we had instruments, we practiced playing them,
    >hoping
    >to improve by osmosis. With Phish for guidance, we experimented more with
    >writing music of our own. We became active listeners.
    >
    >We were hooked.
    >
    >***
    >
    >It isn't so hard to have groupies these days. Politicians, business
    >leaders, fraudulent religious figures and legitimate ones, athletes,
    >painters,
    >writers, actors and musicians all have them. Teachers, public radio
    >personalities have them, and death row defendants. Institutions have
    >groupies, thanks mostly to advertisers, and advertisers do, too. Nor is it
    >hard to be a groupie. Who doesn't want to get behind something, get
    inside?
    >Who isn't a collector of something, and who isn't entitled? America's
    great
    >plurality is a plurality of scenes. And Phish has one of the big ones.
    >
    >Of the available musical subcultures, the school of Phish is rather
    benign,
    >even earnest. It tends to avoid, or at least not dwell on, the angrier,
    >more punishing and reactionary aspects of rock. To enjoy and participate
    in
    >their scene, Phish fans do many things, but rarely do they seethe. When
    the
    >band
    >"really rocks" or "has a serious edge," as they sometimes do, some fans
    >still express surprise.
    >
    >Then again, expressing surprise, and inducing it, is the band's modus
    >operandi. This has earned them a devoted and constant audience. Groupies.
    >Devotion here isn't defined by knowing all the minutiae, seeing all the
    >shows or collecting all the recordings. It's more about how Phish can do
    no
    >wrong. They've cultivated an atmosphere of curiosity and experimentation
    >and gambled that fans would find it breathable. They chose hard work and
    >word
    >of mouth over posturing and hype and extensive public relations, and they
    >succeeded famously. Here is the band that played the world's largest New
    >Year's Eve concert in 1999 (estimates of attendance range from 75,000 to
    >100,000). Here is the band that had to be forgiven for making a music
    video
    >(only one). And they were.
    >
    >Attention came, eventually, from the elite press because how could it not?
    >This was a fairy tale band, having come up on its own, beholden to no one.
    >Not even the fans. Predictably, the attention didn't spoil them. For the
    >most part, they ignored it.
    >
    >The Phish subculture is democratic, at least in spirit, alleging a sense
    of
    >community and, in one way or another, palpably creating one. A community
    >doesn't mean a utopia, of course, and a mobile, makeshift commune doesn't
    >mean a community. But the Phish subculture is more than its scene. For one

    >thing, Phish usually codify their music-and make it familiar to fans-in
    >concert, long before recording it in a studio and releasing it on an album
    >(they sold out two national tours before ever signing a record contract).
    >This offers a rare perspective in pop or rock, more common to the
    >quiet-seeming, steadily creeping influence of genuine folk or the loud,
    >public ceremony of gospel. Some hard-line Phish Heads, having grown
    >accustomed to live dynamics, find the crisp, contained studio versions
    >chafing and difficult. But they can forgive that, too.
    >
    >Really, the worst thing Phish could do to the fans would be to stop making
    >music together. And last October, at the peak of their popularity, that's
    >what they did. Wrapping up a typical fall tour, they thanked the fans,
    >explained it was time for an "extended hiatus" and dutifully pressed on to
    >the two final shows at Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View,
    California.
    >Then they went home to their families. They told the press "no comment"
    and
    >never really said goodbye.
    >
    >***
    >
    >We are the Phish Nation. How do you like the sound of that? The Phish
    >Nation, we are. We are your phriends and phamily. The true, blue phans of
    >Vermont's phinest. What's it all phor? Some hippie band? Some smart
    >person's band? Some good-humored, avant-garde rock band? Some
    experimental,
    >nouveau-folk, electric jam band? The most important band in America?
    >
    >It's this: Phish is where we go for solace and release. Phish is where we
    >go to not be alone. To rest our minds and expand them. It's as spiritual
    as
    >we
    >want it to be, and the rules are pretty easy to swallow, the grooves are
    >easy to follow. For some of us, this is the holiest thing we have.
    >
    >Look, we're not going to hang around the airport, trying to convert
    >you...though now that we think about it, that's not such a bad idea. Come
    >with us. Pheel the phlow. You know you want to.
    >
    >Okay, okay.
    >
    >Time has passed. Years. Let's have a look at the Phish Nation now. Mostly
    >white, mostly male, mostly upper-middle class. Must we apologize? We are
    >the crunchies, the wookies, the tapers, the taper-wookies, the tourists,
    the
    >yuppies, the yuppies who don't think they're yuppies, the stoners, the
    >stoners who don't think they're stoners, the yuppie-stoners and you get
    the
    >idea, the clean-and-sobers, the Deadheads, the anti-Deadheads, the posers,
    >the neo-slackers, the college-towners, the UVM'ers, the all-American Yalie
    >quarterbacks, the California Berkeleys, the Boston Berklees, the community
    >college tryers, the mousepad Mafia, the assistant service consultant-PR
    >manager-programmer-implementation coordinator-client services
    executive-web
    >designer-dot commers, the lot commers, the kid brothers and sometimes
    >sisters, the music snobs, the music snob snobs, the bike messengers, the
    >outdoorsies, the need-to-get-out-moresies, the nomads, the miracle
    seekers,
    >the miracle workers, the proto-hippies, neo-hippies, prep school hippies,
    >nobody's hippies, nobody's fools, the occasional ravers, the accidental
    hip
    >hoppers, the one-in-a-million ganstas, the others.
    >
    >We are the Phish Nation.
    >
    >By now, it's evolved into-we don't know if it's fortunate or not-an
    >obsession. An addiction? Gosh, we say, we've spent more than a decade on
    >this band, and who knows how many dollars? Saved our wages and salaries,
    >planned our vacations around them. We've done hundreds of shows, seen the
    >country. Descended in hordes on supermarkets and rest stops in the
    >heartland, hearing: So where are you guys from? And answering: Everywhere.
    >Those Mom and Pops must have loved the looks of us. If we could camp, and
    >were into that, we would. We'd earn what we could in the parking lots,
    >selling arts, crafts, T-shirts, food, dope. It really became a lifestyle.
    >We tried not to romanticize it, but that was silly. It is romantic.
    >
    >Or it was. Evolution means change, and we've seen it, all right. The shows
    >are one thing, but nowadays that scene in the parking lots is something
    >else. We've got that younger generation now, and with it a generation gap.
    >The youngsters are suspicious. So are the oldsters. We have factions. Our
    >opinions differ. Why do the yuppies have to ruin everything? Why do the
    >hippies have to ruin everything? Hugs? Drugs? We're losing our phamily
    >values. We were brothers and sisters once. Now we're far removed. Are
    these
    >trying times for the Phish Nation? Yeah, no question, the scene is pretty
    >wack.
    >
    >***
    >
    >Breakups and breakdowns are common enough in popular American music. Plain
    >old breaks, "extended hiatuses," though not unheard of, are less common
    and
    >less successful. The touring life, however attractive, however rewarding
    >and necessary, is a strained one. Sometimes a loss of momentum becomes, a
    >point
    >after which things won't be the same, becomes necessary. Staying the same,
    >of course, is anathema to Phish. Improvisation includes the risks of lost
    >momentum. And exhaustion is counterproductive.
    >
    >For seventeen years, Phish spent most of their shared life on the road.
    >They shared themselves, stayed together, stayed out of trouble and tried
    to
    >stay
    >open, innocent. Meanwhile, they practiced as determinedly as conservatory
    >students and wrote music prolifically. Together or not, they're probably
    >doing something musical right now. As Phish, though, they may have arrived
    >at a point where the dismissal of preconceived notions itself became a
    >preconceived notion. They may have reached a critical mass. Few people
    >think they don't deserve a break.
    >
    >If Phish wanted a West Coast "home town," they could have San Francisco.
    >The Bay Area, with a rich but not yet daunting history, still enjoys some
    >version of youth, some vivacity. It's as good a place as any for the Phish
    >scene. A place for possibilities and paths not taken, a haven for the
    >otherwise marginal, where the spirit of bohemianism, of creative
    >self-invention, will be nurtured-and tested-daily. This is a natural
    >destination for personal pilgrimages. Or musical ones. True, according to
    >volume 5 of "The Pharmer's Almanac," Shoreline Amphitheatre isn't among
    the
    >fans' top ten favorite venues for witnessing live Phish. But, then,
    >"Anywhere" is
    >number three.
    >
    >The blessing or curse of Phish's current success, the relative wack-ness
    of
    >the scene, neatly reflects that of the Bay Area, whose cultural identity,
    >after a few seismic shocks, might seem on shaky ground. In both cases, a
    >debt is owed to the legacy of the Grateful Dead-the band that took free
    >flowing, electrified communal music on shared, ritualized road trips from
    >under to aboveground decades ago and recast San Francisco's cultural
    >reputation. Jerry Garcia's death in 1995 blanketed the area, like a
    >persistent fog, with the devastated sense that a real movement had ended,
    a
    >scene was lost. From another perspective, it was wide open.
    >
    >Phish is not "the next" Grateful Dead, but the Phish scene is to the
    >Grateful Dead's something of what Volkswagen's new Beetle is to the old:
    >obedient but hardly servile; bigger; bolder; with more horsepower; slicker
    >seeming, yet goofier when you think about it; a good idea to some, a bad
    >one to others; an idea whose time has gone, or come.
    >
    >But not merely a replacement. Such things, to the people who hold them
    >dear, the true groupies, are irreplaceable.
    >
    >***
    >
    >We've got Widespread Panic here. And String Cheese Incident and moe. And
    >Galactic and Karl Denson and Sector Nine and Medeski, Martin & Wood and
    >others as yet unheard of. We've got Phish solo projects, Anastasio's new
    >band and tapes to trade, CDs to burn, the old stuff to hear, again and
    >again. We've got websites to check, just for the hell of it. But for how
    >long, how long? We'll need our phix.
    >
    >We've been good to them, and God, they've been good to us. Swum us through
    >the highlights and traumas and transitions of our comings-up: left nests,
    >invented independences, beginnings of academic and professional careers,
    >the finding of peers or friends or lovers and the losing, the deep, dark,
    >uncharted waters of adulthood, of life.
    >
    >At that very last show, we told ourselves to ignore the rumors, good and
    >bad. Never call it a breakup, we said. It's a break. No reason not to
    >believe that, right? Hadn't Trey said something about 17 more years? No,
    >not a breakup. A setbreak, of sorts, between two great jamming epochs!
    >That's
    >it, that's it. We'll be back in 15 minutes, folks! Or months, whatever.
    >
    >They played "You Enjoy Myself" for an encore, and we sure did. We showered
    >them with applause. They looked at us, we at them. They left, saying
    >nothing.
    >
    >We passed a wave of shock between us. The house lights rose, and we didn't
    >move. Okay, maybe not all of us, maybe half or fewer, but we stayed. The
    >soundman played the Beatles' "Let it Be," and the crew came out to strike
    >the set. We showered them with applause, too. Clapping and cheering and
    >whistling and shouting. We hugged and cried our tears of joy, of
    melancholy,
    >and you can't take that away from us. It was beautiful, we agreed. We
    >recognized the solidarity.
    >
    >And, as instructed, we let it be. Evolution means change, and change means
    >growth, right? Let's remember what we have. We are the Phish Nation.
    >
    >Maybe it had been an escape. Maybe so, maybe not. Maybe so, maybe not.
    Yes.
    >we admit it, we concede. An escape from all the irony, the edge, the
    >useless rage that permeates our really pretty good lives. We love these
    >guys,
    >because they aren't rock stars, and they aren't anti-rock stars, either.
    >They aren't dumb, and they aren't affected. They're just not wrapped up in
    >all that knowingness (How about not knowing? Expecting? Hoping?), the
    >self-consciousness-which is not to say self-awareness. They're aware, and
    >so are we. More than an escape: an impulse, for all its progressiveness
    and
    >moving forward, of nostalgia. To find a childhood, yes, that's what we
    >said, a childhood. Of ideas that would take us all around the world, of
    >curiosity
    >and precociousness, sure, of course, but the good kind, the hungry kind,
    >pre-competitive precociousness, the kind in which we played, the kind we
    >displayed before the Saabs and snowboards and lacrosse sticks and seeking
    >out a new sound. Before finally settling in to our low-slung,
    >former-warehouse
    >offices with exposed bricks and ducts, free Cokes and casual
    >Monday-through-Fridays.
    >Before finally settling in to the commitment of second-hand chic or
    fleeces
    >embroidered
    >with dancing bears, emblematic Birkenstocks and poser dreadlocks, or even
    >authentic ones, whatever that means. Yes, is it so far-fetched to think
    that
    >ours is a
    >backward reach, a relaxation or an exhalation-sometimes smoky, okay-and
    that
    >sure
    >we want tobe kids or kid-like and you know you do, too, right? It is
    >possible that
    >you know exactly what we're saying, and it's not so far off, come on, it's
    >what
    >you'd expect from the inheritors, the babies of boomer-hippie pairings,
    with
    >more privilege than perspective but admittedly, admittedly...and isn't
    that
    >a prerogative of youth that's been earned for us, however ungrateful we
    are?
    >Ours is a nostalgia not for the cause, the "day," the original scene, but
    >for ourselves. Look, we want to believe in karma, we really are a
    >can't-we-all-just-get-along crowd, and we're learning, hard, that it's not
    >working, that love isn't really free, but jeez, we're trying to keep the
    >cost down, and what if there is such a thing as a collective groove, and
    >it's not so complicated after all? Can't we live while we're young? Can't
    >we get off on that vibe, the community, the anticipation, the familiarity,
    >the
    >deviation, the sense-making-nonsense, the seeming spirituality, the music,
    >the expanding vamps that build and build and Oh my God where are we now?
    >And keep building, is it possible?! Outwards, onwards, becoming something
    so
    >far away from where we started that it just seems-it is possible, and
    >return,
    >just as we've almost forgotten how it began, to where we always were, to a
    >phriendly, remembered refrain.
    >
    >Sure, we can. We are the Phish Nation. Sure, we can.

    Friday, July 18, 2008

    Mountain Brew???


    Experiment fever has hit Natsmile Ales! We will be brewing a beer that contains a case of mountain dew in the finished product to be consumed at the Summertime Brews Festival right here in Greensboro.
    BYO.com claims: "The beer turns out light and crisp, with some aroma, but not much flavor from the Mountain Dew."
    We'll see about that!
    Our ESB is on tap and delicious, and more is certainly in the works here, so keep checking back!

    Sunday, July 13, 2008

    BJCP Beer Judge Here we Come!!


    Head Brewer Ben is on his way to Raleigh, NC to try his hand at becoming a BJCP certified beer judge this weekend. 60% of people who try fail the first time, but that's probably because they didn't watch The Big Lebowski for a week straight like Ben did.

    You scoff, but he got through both college and grad school that way. He'll pass, if the Dude abides.

    We've got cream ale in the works, as well as an old Favorite, NataliESB on tap right now. Up next is a slap in the face of the hop crisis Double India Pale Ale. Shall we use Magnum, Simcoe, or Nugget hops? All three? Whatever we decide we promise it'll kick your face in.

    We're also making an interesting beer for Summertime Brews Fest right here in Greensboro called Mountain Brew. Half Mountain Dew, half beer. This is either going to be horrible or kind of alright. You know if we weren't up for experimentation we might as well be (Earmuffs!!!) fucking Budweiser!

    So keep drinking, keep checking in, and keep supporting craft beer!

    Tuesday, July 01, 2008

    Beer, Babies, and Barleywine


    As you might guess from the title, Head Brewer Ben is getting ready for a new addition to the family. What does that mean for you, Natsmile Ales patrons? Why, lots and lots of great beer!


    The brewers will be working as around-the-clock as possible to deliver you all the variety and abundance of beers you've come to expect. Once the new year and new baby hits, things may slow down, but we'll keep our fingers crossed on that one.


    Thanks to everyone who came out to the first annual Natsmile Ales Cookout at the Brewery. It was a huge success which completely demolished our kegs of Cream Ale and Strawberry Wheat. We exposed a lot of people to our beers for the first time, and exposing ourselves to people is what we're all about here at the brewery. ;)


    On tap right now is a big brown ale that's full of caramel and coffee flavor with a 6.24% ABV kick. Coming up real soon is an English Special Bitter, or ESB, that's hopped exclusively with Fuggles to balance the big Maris Otter malt profile. Next up is a Cream Ale, an IPA, and then a big bad Barleywine to be laid down should there be desperate dry times once baby Boven hits the scene.

    Saturday, May 24, 2008

    Strawberry Wheat at Natsmile Ales!












    Recently pounds of strawberries were sacrificed (2 pounds per gallon) to give birth to Natsmile Ale's Strawberry Wheat. It's being lagered now in a secret location waiting to make its triumphant debut at our cook-out in mid-June at the brewery. If you're a strawberry fan, this stuff is not to be missed. Ben almost decided to leave it as a regular old wheat beer but was vetoed by the powers that be so the strawberries were added. He was pleasantly surprised, and we think you will be too!

    Wednesday, May 21, 2008

    Summer Beers!


    Like Will Smith says, summertime's a natural aphrodisiac and we here at Natsmile Ales have the beers to make the ladies swoon. Our Strawberry Wheat is making them woozy while our cream ale is the perfect ending to a lawn well mowed.

    Be on the lookout for more fruit-infused wheat beers, cream ales, and crisp, refreshing pale ales as the thermometer shoots up.

    Saturday, May 10, 2008

    We won our first ribbon!!!!!


    We won first place in the Old Ale category in Charlotte, NC!!

    The winner was, of course, our UBU clone that we've been brewing for Kevin's wedding in November. I guess we finally got it right this time!!!

    We've got more things on tap and ready for the competition season, so we'll see what else happens, but we are now the proud brewers of an award-winning beer! I guess this means we have to keep this one a regular, and at 7.58%, we're bound to pay our dues for many mornings to come.

    Thanks to everyone for supporting Natsmile Ales, especially our namesake Natalie, and we'll see you in the winner's circle!



    P.S.- Go Pistons!! DEEEEEETTTRRROOOIIITTT BASKETBALL!!!!!

    Wednesday, May 07, 2008

    The new Logo Unveiled!!!!!!!!

    There it is, at long last. The face of Natsmile Ales. It's a blank palate so we can color it to any beer we make. What do you think?

    Tuesday, May 06, 2008

    Coming soon- Our Logo


    Natsmile Ales has employed the help o f renowned artist and director Rick Boven to create our new logo and masthead. As soon as the prints get scanned, we'll have them up for you. They are exciting, though, let me tell you.

    Alright, there has been some news in the last month or so. Ben judged in his first BJCP national competition. He drew smoked and wood-aged beers. Whew. It was a great experience nonetheless and worth the experience.

    We've got Kevin's baby almost ready, and two bottles of the UBU have been sent to the 2008 US Open. We'll see.

    Our first summer beer, a strawberry wheat fermented with two pounds of strawberries per gallon, will be on tap soon for our Summer Gathering at the brewery. We've also got a great IPA on tap that we're tempted to call 'Grapefruit is for Breakfast!' which showcases carared malt. Ubu is also around as always this season, and coming up is some of Jamil's cream ale which will also be showcased this at the brewery's fling. Please email bovenb@gmail.com for tickets.

    Thursday, March 27, 2008

    Competition update and upcoming brewing adventures


    Well, Natsmile Ales got snubbed in our first competition. However, there is a ray of hope. We didn't know that we were supposed to name our specific herb, vegetable, or spice in said category, and if we had, our Juniper Red Ale would have scored in the high 30's, probably enough for a ribbon in that category. Guess what we're brewing again really soon? Guess who we're firing for clerical errors? That's right, Juniper Red Ale and the homeless guy we gave a fifth of Wild Rose to for filling out our boring comp paperwork. Bad Bum! No screw-top rotgut for you!

    One a lighter note, the pic in this fortnight's blog features a book I'm brewing with a lot lately. It's very good and I recommend it.

    Coming up, we're brewing a classic ESB from said book, more Juniper Red, and maybe another UBU clone. (Dammit, Kevin, quit your stupid weekend job!)

    Tuesday, March 04, 2008

    Competition Time!!!!





    As promised (and proven by the lack of information) we've been brewing like mad hatters high on Un-Birthdays in preparation for competition season here in NC. Up for judging is the always popular NATALIPA along with a fantastic rookie in our Baltic Porter, and our Juniper Red Ale, brought out of retirement by our best friend and patron Chris 'Dusty' Robertson.

    We've recently increased our capacity at the brewery to bring you more and various beers. That's right, we're churning out almost 17 barrels a year! Our first batch went almost flawlessly and yielded ten gallons of extremely drinkable Dry Stout that will no doubt be consumed in a single night of debauchery known as St. Patrick's Day. If you know the brewers at Natsmile Ales, now is the time to get in with them to taste this stuff.

    Up next? Glad you asked. Maple Brown Ale. UBU Imperial Red Ale. (if Kevin will quit his job and realize that he's a brewer at heart) Ben still wants to attempt a Belgian Triple. He also dared an NC tornado to arm-wrestle tonight, though, so we'll see. He's a crazy bastard.

    Love you guys. Drink good beer. Listen to real punk rock.

    Sunday, February 10, 2008

    We accidentally made Malt Liquor!!


    Well, we set out to make a cream ale using a recipe from our good friend Jamil. To make a long story short, we made it a little too strong. While it's very delicious, it technically ended up fitting into the malt liquor category. That's right. We now have an entire keg of 40 oz'ers. It's actually really good, at just over 6% ABV, a little sweet with a nice hop bite thanks to a bunch of Crystal hop flavor. Definitely one that will become a regular in the rotation as the weather warms.
    We also have Natsmile Stout, a blend of American malts with English hops that produced a chocolaty and delightfully bitter pint. Good times.
    One of our flagship beers, NATALIPA, is going to be back real soon and due to an unprecedented popular demand, our Juniper Red Ale, which was thought to be a one-offer, is making a triumphant comeback in a couple of weeks. It's made with Juniper berries to give it a piney, slightly sour flavor. Stay tuned for more details as they unfold!

    p.s.- If you drink our malt liquor accident, this girl will totally dig you.

    Wednesday, January 30, 2008

    Competition Season is upon us!


    The Brewers at Natsmile Ales will soon be working double-time to produce both quality and quantity amounts of beer for the upcoming festival season. NATALIPA will definitely be riding the circut as well as our HOPESB. Others will be sent off when they are available. The first competition is Raleigh in March. Hopefully we can claim a blue ribbon and then brag about it for a hundred years like that other famous blue-ribbon beer. Just kidding. We'll never be as tasty as an ice-cold Pabst Blue Ribbon. Mmmhhh, mmmhhh.

    On a less sarcastic note, Head Brewer Ben Boven recently rediscovered true English IPA's and remembered how delicious they are, so we'll be attempting our first one real soon.

    Oh, yeah. The UBU clone we attempted? We found out the recipe was way off (who would've thought you couldn't trust the first hit google gives you?) It turned out pretty good; kind of an Imperial ESB, but definitely not the right recipe, which we discovered later we had all along. Oh well, it's on tap now and tasty, if not hazy as all hell.

    Cheers!

    Saturday, January 19, 2008

    Update from the brewery


    Whew. First, what beers are around?

    Well, Our Chocolate Raspberry Stout is on tap right now, but running out fast!

    Next up will be NataLIPA, which is of course a different blend of malts and hops every time until we get it just perfect, like our namesake. (shameless plug to score points with the wife)

    Next weekend we will unveil our first clone in quite a while, UBU Strong Ale based on the Lake Placid Brewery's flagship beer. Ubu is a very hoppy red ale. We had to use substitute hops as two out of the original recipe's three varieties were unattainable due to the crisis. Should turn into beer, though, by our calculations. (The squirrel we hired from the temp agency to run across the keyboard while our promash program was running came highly recommended) This is a beer made for a friend of the brewery to see what will work at his wedding. (Yes, Natsmile Ales is a friend with benefits. Walk of shame totally included.)

    We will be brewing a stout this weekend. It's a combination of a bunch of different flavorful American malts and classic English hops. Most recipes usually go with American malts and hops or English malts and hops, but we here at the brewery embrace all beer making countries. If we had a more eloquent marketing department we would come up with a catchy name, but we'll probably just call it Natsmile Stout.


    p.s.- Seeking marketing intern. Please forward resume to bovenb@gmail.com

    Friday, January 04, 2008

    Experimental Success at the brewery!!

    I was recently presented with three quarts of frozen persimmons, a fruit I had never heard of, and challenged to brew a beer with it. This fruit is not for the faint of heart, et me tell you.

    Persimmons are only edible when they are ripe, which happens about thirty seconds before they fall off the tree and the deer eat them. When they are, they taste like a weak apricot. Naturally I thought of a wheat beer for this experiment.

    These things have 4 huge seeds in the middle and a pulpy texture, making it impossible to cleanly de-seed them. I ended up with about three cups of tomato-paste like material which I flash-cooked to kill any undesirable bacteria and threw the goop in the secondary. I then went to Texas for a week.

    When I came back I racked the beer into a keg and prayed. Two days later I poured myself a pint of beer that looked like cloudy grapefruit juice. All the yeasty, slightly sour characteristics of a wheat are there, along with a faint fruit flavor I would never be able to identify if I did not know what it was.

    Bottom line, this turned into a great beer that I really hope to brew again some time. Even my wife, who historically has only liked our Apricot Wheat, voluntarily poured herself a pint stating "I like the fruity wheat beers". What else can I say?