Homefront IPA is a West Coast style IPA, brewed with orange peel and aged on Louisville Slugger bats donated by none other than Louisville Slugger. After the beer is brewed, the bats will be dried and auctioned off. 100% of the proceeds for the beer and the auctioned off bats will go to Operation Homefront. Last year, with the help of 6 participating breweries and other organizations that donated the hops and grains used to make the beer, Hops for Heroes (the name of the organization in charge of planning and coordinating everything for Homefront IPA) was able to raise $165,000 dollars for Operation Homefront. [Read more about the beer here].

Because this beer is baseball themed, we’re releasing it on Thursday, May 23rd at the Flying Squirrels stadium in Richmond followed by a tasting on Friday at Whole Foods and an official party at COTU on Saturday. Here is our line-up of events.

Homefront IPA Release at the Diamond

Date: Thursday, May 23rd

Time: game starts at 6:00 pm

Location: The Diamond

3001 N. Boulevard

Details: Homefront IPA will be on tap at the Taste the Local stand. There are also fireworks scheduled for that night, and there will be some military presence to help celebrate. [More details here]

Homefront IPA BBQ and tasting at Whole Foods

Date: Friday, May 24th

Time: 4pm-7pm

Location: Whole Foods Glen Allen

11173 W Broad St

Details: Meet us at Whole Foods for BBQ, live music and a Homefront IPA tasting. Bottles of Homefront IPA will be available for purchase that day. More details here.

Homefront IPA Party at COTU

Date: Saturday, May 25th

Time: 4pm-9pm

Location: Center of the Universe Brewing Company

11293 Air Park Rd.

Details: Live music from Tristan Thorndyke and his band, and food trucks (Curbside Creations and Slideways Mobile Bistro).

Homefront IPA is a collaborative beer brewed for the sole purpose of giving back. All of the ingredients needed to brew Homefront IPA, as well as bottles, labels, tap handles, and other supplies were graciously donated. This beer is being brewed by a total of 9 breweries nationwide and 100% of the proceeds will go to local chapters of Operation Homefront – a military charity that gives back to military families in need.

Want to know the story behind Homefront IPA and the other 8 breweries participating? Check out the Hops for Heroes website here.

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We have heard your demands, and we agree. Sundays aren’t just for brunch, sweatpants, and marathons of home renovation shows. No! Sundays are for fun. So, here at Center of the Universe Brewing, we give you Sunday Funday, starting June 2nd from 1pm-6pm. Stop by the brewery, enjoy our great beer lineup, catch some sun in our beer garden, and let loose. Sunday is no longer that day before Monday, it’s that awesome afternoon after Saturday. Come on out and get a day beer for our weekly

Sunday Funday!

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Q: What are you doing with your Tuesday nights?

A: Playing Trivia at Center of the Universe Brewing Company!

First of all, congratulations on answering the first question correctly. Starting Tuesday, May 14th at 7:00 pm COTU will be having the first of our weekly trivia nights. Questions will cover all topics, so wear your smart shoes and show off your big brains for a weekly prize and enjoy some amazing beers while you’re at it. I know we have the smartest customers in Virginia, so come to the tasting room and show us what you’ve got between your ears. You can team up, or go it alone,but no smartphones. As with any competition, teamwork, safety, and smack talk are thoroughly encouraged. See you Tuesdays, starting May 14th!

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by Mike Killelea

Eighty years ago on this Sunday, April 7th, our long national nightmare was over (at least for beer drinkers). On March 23, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison Act into law. Why should you care about the Cullen-Harrison Act? Because it was the beginning of the repeal of Prohibition. The Cullen-Harrison Act allowed the sale of beer up to 3.5% alcohol by weight. I know it sounds ridiculous, but during Prohibition, the limit was 0.5% alcohol. So 3.5% must have tasted like something BrewDog would make. Americans lined up outside breweries all around the country for a sip of real beer on April 6th, 1933. Beer began flowing at midnight. This is why we celebrate National Beer Day every April 7th.

So, this Sunday – or perhaps Saturday at midnight – celebrate your right to drink beer. And not just beer – good beer. Celebrate with something with flavor. Celebrate with something American. Celebrate with a craft brew. COTU anyone?

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Elizabeth Van Lew, also known as “Crazy Bet”, is a unique figure in American history.  A prominent Richmond resident during the Civil War, she was also a Unionist and ardent abolitionist.  Ms. Van Lew built and ran an intricate spy network in Richmond and used secret rooms in her Church Hill mansion to hide escaped slaves and Union prisoners-of-war.  Legend has it that she hid her activities by muttering to herself and acting strangely in public.  After the war, she became a pariah in Richmond.  We only hope our version or Crazy Bet is as memorable.

Our Crazy Bet is unique as well.  Is it a Barleywine?  Old Ale?  Imperial IPA?  Decide for yourself.  How about Imperial Amber?  That works for us!

English mild ale malts were the main building block for Crazy Bet.  Several different caramel malts were used, adding additional sweetness and a deep ruby color.  Numerous hop additions throughout the boil of Columbus, Mount Hood, and Nugget combine to add both a balanced bitterness and intense aromas.   Additionally dry-hopped in the fermentor with more Columbus and Nugget, Crazy Bet Imperial Amber is sweet upfront and bitter in the end.  Just like here namesake.  We think she’d like it.

The Info:

8.0% ABV

70 IBUs

Malts: Mild, Vienna, Caramel/Crystal

Hops: Columbus, Nugget, Mount Hood

October 25, 1818 – September 25, 1900

Buried in Shockoe Hill Cemetery

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Planning is in full swing for this year’s batch of Homefront IPA! If you haven’t heard about Homefront IPA – here’s the spiel:

Homefront IPA was developed back in 2011 – before we were a brewery. At the time, Chris was playing for the Seattle Mariners and wanted to partner with a local Seattle brewery to give back in some way. Enter Matt Lincecum and Fremont Brewing Company. Together, Chris, Phil and Matt developed the recipe that is now Homefront IPA and chose a charity to give it to: Operation Homefront.

Operation Homefront provides emergency financial and other assistance to the families of our service members and wounded warriors.

The beer itself is a West Coast style IPA, brewed with orange peel and aged on Louisville Slugger bats donated by none other than Louisville Slugger. After the beer is brewed, the bats will be dried and auctioned off. 100% of the proceeds for the beer and the auctioned off bats will go to Operation Homefront. Last year, with the help of 6 participating breweries and other organizations that donated the hops and grains used to make the beer, Hops for Heroes (the name of the organization in charge of planning and coordinating everything for Homefront IPA) was able to raise $165,000 dollars for Operation Homefront.

We are excited to announce the participating breweries for this year’s Homefront IPA! This will be the third year of production of the beer and the first year we get to brew it. Each brewery will brew their own batch of Homefront IPA – using the same recipe – and release it in their markets. Homefront IPA will be released on May 23rd, 2013 and all proceeds will go to Operation Homefront.

• Center of the Universe Brewing Company, Ashland, VA
• Fremont Brewing Company, Seattle, WA
• Sly Fox, Pottstown, PA
• Cigar City Brewing, Tampa, FL
• Perennial Artisan Ales, St. Louis, MO
• The Phoenix Ale Brewery, Phoenix, AZ
• 21st Amendment Brewery, San Francisco, CA
• Left Hand Brewing Company, Longmont, CO
• Stone Brewing Company, Escondido, CA

To read more about Homefront IPA, visit the Hops for Heroes website: www.hopsforheroes.com

News coverage from previous years:

Homefront IPA Beer Benefit America’s Heroes

Pitcher finds good use for mariners’ bats

A Review of Former Seattle Mariner Chris Ray’s Collaboration with Fremont Brewing

Slugger Bats 4 Mariner’s Chris Ray Homefront IPA

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- Round 1 will be at 6:00pm
- Round 2 will be at 7:00pm
- Championship round will be at 8:00pm

Leaderboard (updated 4.19.13)

The championship team will receive a special mug with their team name engraved on it. These 16oz. mugs will stay at the brewery to be used by the winning team only. All next season you’ll have bragging rights and a special mug that shows everyone how awesome you are at cornhole!

Good luck everyone!

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I was in the middle of back to back Main Street brews tonight when I went to my office to check in on Hazel, my bull terrier.  I heard someone ask our bartender – “Hey, is that the Brewmaster?”  She said yes.  For a brief second, I started to look behind me.  Then it hit me – they’re looking at me.  The “Brewmaster.”  I hate that term.  Same with Master Brewer.

It’s not really that I hate them.  Hate is a strong word.  I think they’re misused.  And sometimes grossly inappropriate.  I am not a Master Brewer.  I am a brewer.  I sometimes call myself Head Brewer – in a brewery with one brewer.  Back in my Legend days, I used to jokingly call myself the Lead Brewer.  But really, I’m just a brewer.  And I’m fine with that.

I’ve been brewing professionally for almost seven years.  I went to brewing school (American Brewers Guild – which I highly recommend for all those aspiring brewers).  I did an internship.  I’ve attended conferences on brewing.  But I am not a “Master Brewer.”  And neither are countless others who use the term (you know who you are!).  My instructor at the American Brewers Guild (did I mention that I highly recommend that place?), Steve Parkes, he’s a brewmaster.  John Mallet of Bell’s, he’s a brewmaster.  The guys running the AB plant in Williamsburg – brewmasters (I know!  Sacrilege!).

I have not truly mastered all the minutia of craft brewing.  Lord knows I’m trying.  But I feel like I’m learning something new all the time.  Every time I talk about brewing with another brewer, I feel like I’m learning.  Every brewing book that I read, something new.  Sometimes it’s a little morsel from a brewing magazine.  Anyway, maybe I’ll feel differently in 20 years.  Till then, I’m happy with Brewer.

Actually, I stand corrected.  I am a Brewmaster.  Damn you Wikipedia.

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For about the past three years I have been serving as the Chairman of the Virginia Craft Brewers Guild.  The past year saw a lot of exciting things for the Guild.  One of them was the creation of the first Virginia Craft Beer Month in August (thank you Delegate Betsy Carr!).  The centerpiece of Virginia Craft Beer Month was our festival held out at the Devils Backbone brewpub in Nelson County (doing it again this year!).

I was working at Legend at the time.  I thought it would be cool if all the brewers got together to collaborate on an RVA brew that we could send to the festival.  Pretty cool – right?  Everyone was game for it – Hardywood, Extra Billy’s, Legend, Midnight.   So one day we put together a nice lemongrass wheat beer on the pilot system at Hardywood.  It turned out really nice.  As the beer conditioned and the yeast dropped out, the lemongrass became real prominent.  I really enjoyed it.

So flash forward a year.  I’m now at COTU.  Chris and Phil have pretty much given me the go ahead to pilot batch whatever I want.  I’ve always had that lemongrass flavor in the back of my head.  And I’ve always enjoyed Belgian-style tripels.  I was pretty familiar with them, as Legend has brewed a tripel for the past few years.  So I brewed a pilot batch with some dried lemongrass.  It was real nice.  We decided to make a larger batch.  However, I knew I wanted the lemongrass to be more prominent.  Enter my friend David Hunsaker.  David has a farm just down the road from the brewery (Village Garden).  And he grows lemongrass year-round in his greenhouse.  Awesome!

The recipe is mostly pilsner malt with a little bit of Vienna and Munich malts as well.  Belgian Candi Sugar, added during the boil, helps to boost the fermentables without adding too much body.   I bruised and chopped up the fresh lemongrass (just a few pounds) and added right at the end of the boil, so that the aromatics wouldn’t boil off.  I then fermented the beer on a yeast strain that originated from a well-known Belgian brewery.  I fermented it a little on the cooler side, as I didn’t want the phenolics and fruitiness from the yeast to overwhelm the lemongrass.  I’m real pleased with it.  I hope you are too.

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