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Auroch’s Horn
Topic Started: May 31 2011, 06:18 AM (112 Views)
brenda
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I’ll have an Auroch’s Horn, please. Yes, it's a beer
BREWER TAKES MATTERS INTO OWN HANDS

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ROLLINGSTONE, Minn. — Local residents ready to embrace their inner barbarian and swig from a large bottle of old-fashioned ale have brewer Joe Pond to toast. Those beer lovers might also want to raise a glass of the homegrown ale to jet lag.
Pond wasn’t originally into brewing. He started out as a chemical engineer in the pharmaceutical industry. But all the air travel wore him out.
A phone call to Goose Island Beer Co. in Chicago landed him his first work in the industry, and he also worked a year at Summit Brewing in St. Paul before he settled outside Rollingstone to raise his family — and open his own brewery.
Pond named his brewery Olvalde, the name of a frost giant who brewed ales in old Norse sagas. His first brew, “The Auroch’s Horn,” is named after the drinking horns of northern barbarians and fashioned after the barbarians’ favorite drink: a strong ale made from barley, wheat and honey.
Strong may be an
understatement, at least for anyone without a barbarian’s liver: The ale boasts an alcohol content of 10 percent.
To make the ale, Pond mixes malted barley with water, boils the mixture and adds hops, and then allows it to ferment at room temperature for over a month.
He then fills each 750-milliliter bottle and corks and labels them by hand.
The ale is uncarbonated and unfiltered, with leftover yeast continuing to flavor and carbonate the brew long after it’s bottled.
“My product is a living beer,” Pond said.
The process takes nearly two months.
“We take our time and focus on the flavor of fermentation,” Pond said.
Pond is both brewer and distributor: He drives his ales to liquor stores and bars both locally — including Warehouse Liquor and Third Street Liquor in Winona and Ginny’s Supper Club in Rollingstone — and in the Twin Cities.
The ale, which sells for around $9 a bottle, has received rave reviews on noted beer-rating websites and moves quickly off local shelves.
“We sell two to three cases per week and get lots of repeat sales,” said Ken Siebenaler of Third Street Liquor.
Pond said his business reflects his passion to return brewing to its roots.
“I really want to showcase beer as an agricultural product and not an industrial one,” he said.
His barley grows in a nearby field. Next to the brewery is a small garden where Pond cultivates his hops, as well as a selection of herbs and spices for future creations, which may include sour ales and ales aged in oak barrels, he said.
Pond also hopes to add a malting house to the brewery, so that every step of his process — from growing grain to corking bottles — happens at home.
“There is a buffer between the field and brewery today,” he said. “Brewers used to prepare their own grains and malt. It’s something I want to get back to.”
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
~A.A. Milne
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
Back to old ways. Good. Local libations are a fine thing.
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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brenda
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I'd like to try one. Might have to split one with hubby. Ten percent (20 proof) beer could get a person into trouble. Half of one is probably enough for me.
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
~A.A. Milne
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