Offshore Ale's goal is to make beer from scatch that distinguishes itself clearly from the mass-market brews we are all too familiar with. Instead of outlandish marketing campaigns, we choose to spend our resources and energies on making a range of beers full of aroma and flavor. We brew crisp, golden lagers, copper colored Pale Ales, highly aromatic IPAs, an award winning Nutbrown Ale, unique Belgian Style offerings, and coal black stouts. With 10 beer lines and two cask engines we can offer a lot of variety. Our Head Brewer, Neil Atkins, is known for making several different seasonal and special brews, along with regular beers of distinction.

To get the full range of color, flavor and aroma of the types of beer we make, it is important to understand the basic ingredients. Each brew is a blend of four items: malt, water, hops, and yeast. Varieties and quantities of each item will change the character of the beer. It is up to Joe, to ensure that the water for brewing is pure, that the yeast strain is healthy, and finally, to balance the malt body with the hop bite, with the freshest possible ingredients.
Malt

Malt-- "The Soul of Our Brews"

Malt is typically barley, a cereal grain, that has been soaked in water, germinated, and then kilned. During the malting process, naturally occuring enzymes in the barley begin to convert starches to sugars that will later feed the yeast used in fermentation. The amount of heat and water sprayed on the grain during the malting process also produces varying degrees of distinctions, with further roasting giving the deepest colors and flavors. The blend of these various types of malt give beers their fermentable and non-fermentable sugars as well as color and body.

• Malt provides the color to the beer. Pale and Pilsener malts give us golden ales and lagers. We use Pilsener malt in our East Chop Lighthouse Lager. The Stonewall India Pale Ale has pale malt, and crystal (caramel) malt for its copper color. We use Pale, crystal and chocolate , a dark roasted malt, to give the Nutbrown Ale its distinctive deep brown appearance. Porters and Stouts have about 10% Roasted Barley or Black Patent Malt for their deep, black color.
• We also brew with specialty malt for certain beers. We blend in Pale Malt, Munich and Vienna malts for our Munich Helles. We also use various malts like Smoked Malt, Wheat Malt, Flaked Oats, and Rye Malt depending upon the brew.
• The amount of alcohol in the final product is directly related to the amount of malt in the brew. Malt contains sugars that the yeast converts to alcohol during fermentation. The unfermentable sugars from malt, dextrins, create the body of beer. Whereas the fermentable sugars are converted into alcohol.
  Our beers range in strength from 4% abv. [East Chop & Nutbrown] to 10% abv. [Imperial Stout].

Hops

"The Spice of Beer"

If malt is the soul of beer, then hops are the spice. Hops provide bitterness and aroma to beer. Hops grow on vines, producing tiny flowers that look like soft green pine cones. They are resinous and sticky. Once they are harvested and dried, they are vaccuum packed as whole hops or hop pellets. We use a number of different varieties of hops that are traditional with either ales or lagers.

• Cascades, Amarillo and East Kent Goldings varieties are used in the ales we produce for their floral and fruity aroma.
• Hersbrucker Halletau,Czech Saaz, and Tettnang hops are used in German lagers for their spicy aroma and noble character.
• Other hops we like to have fun with are...Crystal,Chinook, English Fuggle, Perle, Slovian Goldings, Sterling and Ahtanum

Hops are added to the kettle during the boil. The longer they are boiled the more bitterness is extracted. For flavor and aroma, we add the hops at the very end of the boil and into the whilrpool.

We add whole hops to the cellar tanks for the IPA and the other special ales to provide a more intense hop aroma. This process is called dry hopping. No bitterness is added when dry-hopping.
Water

Water makes up 92 - 95% of each glass of beer.

Our water on the Island of Martha's Vineyard is an excellent source for brewing.
Yeast

Yeast is a single celled microorganism that ferments various sugars in the wort in the presence of oxygen. The two main by-products of fermentation are carbon dioxide and alcohol. Keeping the strain pure and clean is the most important part of the process to ensure a repeatable fermentation and consistent final product.

White Labs also has an extensive laboratory of specialty strains of yeast our brewer finds interesting to brew with. Belgian yeasts from Trappist Monks and traditional German Hefeweizen yeasts are used for special limited release beers.
Brewing Process
Mash

Milled Malted Barley (or Rye, Wheat, sometimes even Rice and Corn) are added to the grist bin, which is situated above the MASH TUN. It is then dropped slowly into the Mash Tun where it is mixed with hot water, creating a mash. The Mash rests for at least 1 Hour so that all starches in the malt can convert to sugar. This sweet, fermentable liquid from the mash is called wort. The wort is recirclated in order to create a clean,clear wort. This is to vorlauf or turbwort. This sweet wort is then run off through the screened plates in the Mash Tun to the KETTLE where it will be boiled. While the wort is running off, we spray the grain with more hot water, a process called sparging. Once all the wort is completely run off, the spent grains are picked up by a local farmer, Elisha Smith for cattle feed. He also usually brings us fresh eggs and sits down at the bar to enjoy a half pint of Pils.

When the kettle is full, we start the boil, and add hops to the wort. We use a number of different aromatic hop varieties for our beers. After 1.5 hours of boiling, we cool the wort to fermentation temperature through a heat exchanger into one of our 10 bbl fermenters.

Ferment

While cooling into the fermenter, yeast is added through the manway, and the tank is then sealed up. Our ales are made with a top fermenting yeast strain that actually floats to the top of the wort as krausen, and our lagers are made with a bottom fermenting strain that settles during fermentation. Ales ferment at around 69° F for 4 – 7 days. Lagers ferment at a lower temperature of about 48° F for 10 – 21 days. At the end of the fermentation, the temperature is lowered to allow the yeast to settle out and be harvested to be pitched into the next batch of wort. Beer flavors mature at this stage, called secondary fermentation, during the 7 - 14 days of storage. We also "dry hop" some ales at this stage, adding hops to the cellar tank to give beer more aroma.

FOR CERTAIN LUCKY BEERS...we have Wooden Casks. Some are from Bourbon Distillaries, others are from Wineries. We age our Inkwell Imperial Stout and Kilt Lifter Scotch Ale in these casks. This aging process adds flavor rarely found in beer. Just try one and you'll be hooked.

Filtration and Serving

After aging at about 40° - 50°, the beer is cooled to 33° F in the fermenter. Under pressure, the beer is transferred through cellulose sheets in our FILTER PRESS and into a SERVING TANK. Once the beer is filtered it is then carbonated in the serving tank. It is now ready to be poured by one of our friendly bartenders, Glen, Shae, Sam, Brooke or John. Our beers are all natural and without preservatives, fresh, unpasteurized and delicious.

Note: Not all of our fresh brews are filtered. It is normal and expected to find a little cloudy appearance in some of our beers such as, the IPAs and Hefe-Weizens and any of our Vintage and Wood Aged beers. Enjoy them naturally!!!

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