Something Big is Brewing

If you follow A Spoon Full of Hope on social media, you’ll know what we’re talking about! We’ve collaborated with our friends at Hourglass Brewing and recently learned everything that goes into creating a craft beer. And it’s not just any craft beer. It’s been named An Hourglass Full of Hope, and it’s a steam lager with honeycomb toffee, which includes our very own Orange Blossom Honey for Good!

The honeycomb toffee was made from scratch by Hourglass in Second Harvest’s Darden Foundation Community Kitchen last week. Two days later, it was an epic day for both A Spoon Full of Hope and Hourglass, as old-world brewing met a splash of modern techniques for the brewery’s take on a “steam” beer.

According to our friends at Hourglass, steam beer is a highly effervescent beer made by fermenting lager yeasts at warmer ale yeast fermentation temperatures. Using a Koelschip to cool the wort and employing a modern “hop stand” technique creates dramatic plumes of steam, lending the beer its name.

The “mash turn” is the first step in this process. It’s the vessel used for mixing the ground malt (or grist) with temperature controlled water to convert the malt starches into sugars, and the dissolved malt sugars (or wort) are rinsed into the kettle where the hops are added. Toward the end of this process in the malt turn, we were given the opportunity to hand pour 5.5 gallons (or 66 lbs.) of Orange Blossom Honey for Good into the mixture before it was transferred into the brew kettle for the next stage in the brewing process.

Nine hours later, including Hourglass’s technique to create “steam beer”, the steam lager is now fermenting for the next three weeks.

When will you be able to get your hands on An Hourglass Full of Hope? It will debut on Saturday, January 9, 2021 from 12 – 5 p.m. in Reiter Park in Longwood during Florida SMaSH Beer Fest. Presented by Hourglass Brewing’s non-profit 501(c)(3) Brewers Establishing Altruistic Regional Development (B.E.A.R.D), all event proceeds will benefit A Spoon Full of Hope, which is Second Harvest’s social enterprise program in support of the Culinary Training Program.

Tickets to Florida SMaSH Beer Fest will be limited. They range from $35 to $60 for a lineup of 20 breweries and can be purchased in advance here.