Red Oak brewery tour

To help shake out the cobwebs of a rather nauseating week, and to help get my mind back on track, I decided to do something fun and head over to Red Oak Brewery in Whitsett for their weekly Friday 3:00pm tour. It didn't really completely reset the brainwaves, but it kept my mind free from otherwise shitty thoughts and moodiness for an hour.

Your basic brewery tour, complete with shiny stainless steel and a re-hash of the brewing process for my umpteenth time. But for as many tours as I go on, as many stainless tanks I see, as many speeches about the brewing process I hear, they're all enjoyable regardless.

The different aspect from this tour however is that Red Oak is strictly a LAGER brewery. No ales. So the brewmaster tainted his speech to the wondrous beer that is a lager and frankly poo-poo'd many aspects of the ale.

- They abide by the German Purity Law of 1516 (the Reinheitsgebot) and only use malted barley, water, hops, and yeast. There are over FOUR HUNDRED possible additives and preservatives in those ale bastards! Oh the horror! What poisons! What crap! Quick, someone inform the Belgians!!!!

- Lagers ferment at a cooler temperature, resulting in less characteristics like the warm-temperature ale's fusels and esters. And hangovers and that "blah" feeling are a result of the ale by-products. Really? Seriously? Ale fusels and esters? Not from dehydration? Really?

- Never mind that in 1516 not ALL beers were lagers. There were certainly some ales brewed at warmer temps back then, but you would think that the cold-fermented lager has been around for 500 years.

Aside from the "yay lager / boo ale" rubbish, it was a neat tour. I always marvel at the brewery when driving past at night with those tanks lit up behind the enormous glass wall. Their beers are "meh" to me, but the process and their commitment to all-lager brewing is commendable. And the new bottling line was neat to see. Red Oak had up to now been strictly keg/draft sales only. Now they are reaching out to the bottled market in only 12-packs to cut down on paper use. Also, the bottles will be UV-inked so that you won't have to become ill from seeing a crooked paper label on the beer you buy.

Even with the frankly anti-ale propaganda spewed forth making it a bit much to choke down, it was a nice hour to get away from the muddled mess that is my current psyche.