Faqs

Where do you brew the beer?
Our business office is near Teele Square in Somerville and we are currently brewing at Mercury Brewing Company in Ipswich, MA. All of the recipe formulation is done by Jeff and then we work out of Mercury on the actual brew days and for the cellaring to produce the final product. This is similar to other gypsy brewers and is how we can focus on bringing our beers to market without the millions of dollars of upfront expenses and years of preparation to launch a full brewery. The beers we are able to produce at Mercury are of a very high quality, and any other facilities would be evaluated in terms of the ability to maintain our quality standards.

How do you go about recipe formulation?
Most of the time it starts with the ingredients. We get inspired by what can be done with unconventional ingredients in the brewing of beer. For instance, Happy Sol started with the distinctive tartness you get from blood oranges and how that adds a really refreshing layer on Bavarian style hefeweizen. The result of fermenting blood oranges with the hefeweizen made for a beer that is unlike most other wheat beers on the market. We also source as many other local ingredients as is possible. Taza cacao nibs are used in the conditioning of Porter Square Porter, and Massachusetts wildflower honey is brought in from Reseska Apiary (which produces one of the most flavorful honey we’ve tasted) in Holliston, MA. We are also sourcing other ingredients where possible from the rich agriculture community in the state. Mostly our recipes are just designed to provide a unique interpretation of beer. We’re less interested in producing classic styles and more into making innovative formulations.

Why is the Brewlab important to your process?
The Brewlab is like the R&D part of our business. Each recipe idea goes through a series of development brews to refine the process, mash temperatures, ingredients and fermentation. These are relatively small batches of beer and none of the product from these experiments is available for sale. In fact, most of this beer is dumped as our goal is just to refine the recipe and then scale up to brew the beer on commercial equipment.

Doesn’t the name Slumbrew cast Somerville in a negative light?
Well, if we were making yellow, fizzy swill and selling it in 40oz bottles out of a van at the railroad tracks, we might agree. For us, the brand name Slumbrew is a cheeky, irreverant reference to a bygone era. Looking around the city of Somerville today you see prosperity, happy people and a thriving economy. If you’re offended, it might be time to get out and see what's happening in our amazing community with groups like Groundwork Somerville and The Somerville Bulb Blitz, as well as all the restaurants and businesses that have flourished in recent years. Somerville has even been recently called the ‘happiest place in America’. We don’t see anything slummy about our city of Somerville and have happily chosen to call this place home.

Do you provide tastings and tours?
We do not have a tasting room or provide tours at the present time. We do, however, sponsor tasting events where people can sample our beers at various liquor stores and bottle shops. Check with our Events page or on Facebook for upcoming events. If you represent a reseller and would like to schedule a tasting in your store, please fill in our contact form to get more information.

Where is Slumbrew available in bottles?
The list of resellers is changing daily right now, but we are mostly available in Eastern Massachusetts at stores that specialize in providing craft beer. As we get a more stable list of resellers, we plan on adding a page to the website listing different locations. If you want to know if we are available in a specific location in the meantime, contact us through the contact form or send us a note on Facebook or Twitter.