I am lucky enough to have a friend who happens to be friends with Marty Velas, owner of
Fanatic Brewing, cover story subject of this month's
Tennesee Craft Beer magazine and pretty cool guy. He informed her of a current
Groupon deal for a private brewery tour and she made sure she lined up our visit to a time he would be there. Even without getting lined up via a friend, this tour is very much worth your time and you should jump on it yesterday.
There is not yet a tasting room or bar at Fanatic (although one is planned to be developed as soon as possible), so when you enter the tour the first thing you walk into is a sparse room with 4 taps ready to pour (from left to right) Fanatic Blonde, Fanatic Pale Ale, Fanatic Red and Fanatic Black. My wife and I arrived before our friends, so we introduced ourselves to Marty and he immediately set us up with a couple small glasses of Blonde to start with as we waited for the rest of our party to show up.
The Blonde is a lighter offering and not something I am likely to order on my own if given a choice. Despite that, I cannot express how good a beer it is. If you have not tried it, give it a taste next time you see it somewhere, it is a light ale but it tastes so clean and fresh and pure. I could drink this beer on a beach or golf course or anywhere else where a lighter, refreshing beer is just the right thing. My wife liked it so much she kept going back to it, when we were supposed to be trying the other options later in the tour.
Enough about the Blonde, our friends arrived shortly afterwards and we started our tour in the brewing area. Our first stop was the beginning of the brewing process where the grain is prepared to have the malt extracted from it to produce the sugars needed to produce beer. There are several smaller tanks and stages in this process in the back part of Fanatic's large space. While I do not have all of the steps down pat, Marty does and explained it all in detail. I probably should have taken better notes...or maybe just any notes would have helped.
We next moved on to the fermenting tanks. While the first steps going from grain, to malt, to wort all takes around 8 hours, the fermenting tanks is where the yeast is added and it becomes beer, this process takes 3-5 days for ales and longer for lagers.
Marty pointed out that a new fermenting tank, shown above all the way to the left, was the one they planned to use for a new beer they are brewing that will be exclusively offered at
Roosters in Rocky Hill once ready. If you happen to frequent Roosters often, keep your eyes open for it. Fanatic has also acquired a few of these tanks from friendly fellow brewers in North Carolina. The large one to the right just above is nicknamed Tankenstein and came from
Foothills, while to the right of it are 2 beasts affectionately referred to as Thing 1 and Thing 2 that had come from
Duck-Rabbit.
From here we moved on. A quick stop by the taps to fill our glasses, some of us moved on to try the Pale Ale, while some grabbed a Red and then we moved across to what will hopefully soon be the tasting room. Marty explained what he envisioned for the tasting room area and shared a few other ideas related to the tasting room experience that I am not at liberty to share, but which sound amazing and nobody will be disappointed with.
After the tour of the tasting room-to-be Marty grabbed a contraption and we headed back out by the fermenting tanks. He settled in at the front of one of the middle ones with a bucket and hose and proceeded to pour us what I believe he referred to as
Zwickelbier, which loosely translated refers to beer not clarified or pasteurised. This was straight off one of the almost complete Pale Ale tanks, and to say it was delicious is an understatement.
At this point we were probably coming close or at our half hour tour time, but it pays to have a friend of the brewer in tow as we headed back to the taps again to sample the Fanatic Black, which Marty described as his version of a
Schwarzbier, but all I can tell you is that it too was amazing. While tasting the Black, we also got a chance to meet Nate of Fanatic as well. He had just finished a tour with a Knox Brew Tours group that was in around the same time as us and he seemed like another great guy who if leads your tour would not lead you astray. Marty finished off our tasting by showing us a couple blends he enjoys, one of which was about 2/3 a glass of Red topped off with Black and the other was about 3/4 a glass of Blonde topped with the Pale Ale, which Marty said reminded him of a fine Pilsner (if you ever meet Marty go ahead and ask him his thoughts on Miller Lite being a
Fine Pilsner Beer, as their can suggests). My wife enjoyed this Blonde/Pale Ale blend so much we ended up filling our tour provided growler to go with that blend poured with care by Marty himself.
After grabbing a nice new t-shirt as souvenir, we ended our tour and time with Marty. We left with an appreciation of the Fanatic beers and their plans for the future. Their beers are excellent and Marty is such a smart, passionate guy I doubt we see this venture fail. I know I will now hunt out my favorite Fanatic beers in stores, bars and restaurants and keep my eyes open for new selections from them as well. I won't have many doubts on the quality after seeing the production and meeting the man behind the beers firsthand. I walked away from Fanatic more than impressed and I think anyone else would too.
