Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 13, 1991 TAG: 9103130192
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BETH MACY/ STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
They wonder about those huge silver tanks with the protruding hoses and numbered gadgets. And they ask, when is this brew pub on the market ever going to open?
In other words, they're doing just what the owners of The Blue Muse hoped they'd do.
At 23, owners Chris Muse and Ed Walker may be young, but they're no dummies. They know that 80 percent of all new restaurants fail, whereas only 5 percent of brew pubs don't pass the taste-test of success.
They know that the old European tradition of brewing your own is now the hottest concept in the nation's restaurant industry, with a new brew pub opening its spigots every week.
"Financially, it just makes sense," says Muse. "It's a flavor you can't reproduce in bottled beer, and it's a good marketing tool.
"People like the idea of drinking beer brewed right on the premises."
Barring last-minute construction delays, The Blue Muse brew pub is scheduled to open March 21. And with 1,085 gallons already chilling in the kettle, the owners have a lot riding on Roanokers' first tastes of their home-brewed light, amber and dark-wheat ales.
Like the room full of stainless-steel kettles and brewing equipment, all of it visible from the windows at Marketplace Center. It cost more than the rest of the restaurant operation.
"We want to get people to try this first," says brewmaster Mark Knopf, pointing to a glass of golden light ale. "The thinking is, once they realize what they're tasting, it'll be easy to get them into the darker amber and wheat ales."
An avid home-brewer, the 27-year-old Knopf has spent the past month learning how to use the new equipment. A Canadian microbiologist, Brad McQuhae, was brought in to teach Knopf and Muse how to brew en masse - that is, 217 gallons at a time. Each of the seven serving vessels holds the equivalent of 14 kegs.
The process isn't much different from the five-gallon process home-brewers use. In fact, in some respects, it's easier because the fancy gadgets measure the temperature and alcohol content automatically.
The quantities used here, though, add a whole new dimension to home-brew made atop a kitchen stove. On a recent brewing morning at The Blue Muse, six 50-pound bags of crushed malted barley were dumped into the water-filled "mash tun," the caldron-like brew kettle where the gritty base of the brew, the malt syrup, is made.
Then comes the hard part. Muse and Knopf have to use a canoe paddle to stir the gooey syrup, and it's a sweaty job. "I have no reason to join an athletic club anymore," Muse jokes.
The mixture, called "wort" at this stage, is then strained and boiled. A blend of hops - a 1,400-gram brick - is added to flavor the beer.
Hops are to beer what spices are to food. Different varieties of hops produce different styles of beer, and The Blue Muse guys are still experimenting with the hops they order from Washington state. They're also still experimenting with temperatures, recipes and alcoholic content.
A large part of brewing is trial and error, and the variables are enough to frazzle the most meticulous of the mechanically inclined. Take water, for instance.
"If you're making a Czechoslovakian Pilsener, you try to duplicate the water they have in Czechoslovakia," says McQuhae, who has trained brew-pub operators in 18 different locations in the United States and Canada.
"Here, we want to make ale that will be unique to this area. This won't be English ale or whatever; it will be Roanoke ale," he says, noting that the only thing being added to the water here is the softening agent gypsum.
Once the wort is boiled, it's cooled, strained and transferred to fermentation vessels via pump and hose. After it cools to room temperature, yeast is added, and for the next four days, the starches in the mixture are converted to alcohol. (The Blue Muse ales will have a 4- to 5-percent alcohol content.)
Once that's complete, it's strained again and transferred to the giant silver serving tanks, where the beer ages and is kept at a constant 42 degrees.
From there, hoses run straight to the bar, making each serving vessel a kind of gigantic keg. The entire process takes about four weeks per batch.
"You have to be a technician with this," says Knopf, who gave up a career as a systems analyst with Carilion to become the Blue Muse brewmaster. He plans to set up a program on his computer at home to record and compare notes on the various beers, which will sell for $2.50 per pint and $1.50 per half-pint.
To complement the drafts, Chef Molly Burnette is designing a menu of foods that are "conducive to talking and sharing, and eating slowly." She's planning to serve dishes in the Spanish tapas style, in which diners order and share smaller portions of a variety of foods. The menu will include Italian, Spanish, African, Southwestern, French and Oriental items.
Tapas are trendy in large cities. Dishes a la carte will range in price from $2.50 to $10. A lunch buffet, priced at $5.95, will be served daily.
The Blue Muse takes its name from the nine goddesses who presided over literature, art and science in Greek mythology. And from Chris Muse's last name.
"Blue Muse means tragedy," Muse says. "If I fail, they'll say the muse is blue. But if I succeed, they'll say the muse is anything but blue."
Muse is betting the brewery that it'll be a smash.
by CNB