Having the opportunity to go out and visit different places has been a welcome byproduct of authoring a beer blog. It’s almost a certainty that we end up meeting interesting and different people every place we go. This weekend, Sammy and I drove down to Fresno to visit some good friends of ours. While in town, we were able to swing by one of Fresno’s two breweries, Full Circle Brewing Company.
To label Full Circle as just a brewery would be misleading. In fact, beer was the last thing Full Circle made. Homebrewers Don Anderson and William (Bill) McCory started off brewing mead. In fact, it’s their mead that brought Sammy and I to their brewery to begin with.
Full Circle has a sweet mead, an Orange Blossom mead, and a pomegranate mead. We tried samples of the three and brought home a bottle of each. The sweet mead is traditional, it is sweet and easy drinking.
Their orange blossom mead is probably the ugliest looking beverage in the world. In all seriousness, it looks like drain water, gray-ish brown, opaque and thick. Thank goodness it doesn’t taste like drain water. The smell of orange and honey is definitely apparent but the other aroma that caught me off guard was the smell of walnuts, actually, the coating of a wall nut. When you crack open a the shell of the walnut, there is a thin membrane that separates the nut from the shell. That membrane has a particular taste and aroma that I find in their orange blossom mead. I don’t think it detracts from the mead at all but I think it’s an interesting and unexpected flavor characteristic.
Their pomegranate mead is their best selling mead, and for good reason. The aromas and flavors of pomegranate are readily apparent. I even pick up some chocolate notes and maybe a hint of wood. It is sweet and tart but not unbearably so. The pomegranate flavors seem to dominate a little more than the honey. Depending on what you value more, this could be good or bad thing. At the end of the day, this is a good tasting beverage.
Most meadmakers tend to mix honey with water and then add whatever fruit or spices to the must, or unfermented mead, to flavor. Full Circle takes a slightly different approach. Brewmaster Bill McCory told me that when making their pomegranate mead, they basically blend honey with pomegranate juice. The same process goes for their orange blossom mead. If I remember correctly, Full Circle tries to source their honey from local producers.
In addition to their line of meads, McCory and Anderson also have a red wine they produce that is equal parts Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Zinfandel. The believe this blending and ratio of blending brings out the best in each grape. I can’t speak first hand about that since we didn’t try their wine.
What we did try was a sample of their pulque. Pulque (pull-keh) is pulque, to describe it any differently would be incorrect. Put another way, maguey is to pulque, as wine is to grapes, as honey is to mead, and as malted barley is to beer. It is the main agent of saccharification. However, Full Circle uses Agave to make their pulque instead of traditional maguey. The result is an interesting beverage with the aroma and flavor of tequila without the harshness of the alcohol
Despite the eight paragraphs preceding this one, Full Circle does brew beer, seven different styles to be precise. They brew a brown ale (5.5% ABV), an 1850 London Porter (5.5% ABV), red ale (5.3% ABV), a Russian Imperial stout (11% ABV), Cluster Fuggle Cream Ale (5.6% ABV), an American Wheat Ale (5.2% ABV) and their Badass Barleywine (11% ABV). Of these seven, we sampled their porter, the cream ale and their barleywine. They were out of the brown ale.
I didn’t take any notes so much of what I am writing comes from memory. Described as an “extra stout porter”, the 1850 porter is moderately roasty but not overwhelmingly so. It is medium-full to full in body with a bit of creaminess to it. Unlike other porters, there is no husky graininess, astrigency or bitterness in the flavor making this a smooth drinking porter. I did notice a slight sourness in the finish. While it is not uncommon to have some optional sourness in a dry stout, it is not normal in a porter. Some historical porter recipes were made with brettanomyces which may explain the sourness but I doubt that would be the case in this example. From another historical context predating the definition of the stout style of beers, English brewers would brew a porter of “stout” body and strength. So the “Victorian Age” 1850 Porter would today be defined as a dry stout, which would explain the sourness. Even though this beer was approximately 5.5% ABV, it was still too heavy for the hot Fresno afternoon and something lighter was called for.
Doing a complete 180 degree turn, I ordered their Cluster Fuggle Cream Ale as well. The cream ale is their best selling product and it’s easy to determine why. Fresno gets hot, triple digit hot. Luckily for us, we didn’t suffer through triple digit temperatures but it was still very warm. In a climate like that, you’ll need a cold, easy drinking beer and the Cluster Fuggle fits the bill. By all standards, it is a good example of the style. Neither the malt nor hop aromas dominate but there is a detectable sweetness in the aroma. The beer is straw colored with a lasting, white head. I don’t remember the malt nor hop flavors dominating, more subtle with low hop bitterness. The slight sweetness is apparent but far from cloying. The beer is light on the palette. By this point in the evening, I have a pretty good buzz because of the porter I drank combined with all the pulque and mead samples prior. Feeling warm, I lament nor ordering this beer first and sticking to it.
Lola, our bartender, mentioned in passing that they have a sour mash available for tasting as well. With our interest piqued, we ask Lola for a taste. While this our first time meeting with Lola, it may also be our last as it was her last night at work. With two other jobs, she didn’t seem heart-broken that she was leaving Full Circle but at the same time, when one of the owners is your father-in-law, I’m sure there will always be a light on for her. Lola returns with the sour mash sample. Not a fan of the sour ales, Lola can’t imagine why we would be into the sour ale. It was initially supposed to be a Red Ale but as with many unintentional sour mashes, infection got the better of the beer. The beer is a reddish amber with no head. There is a detectable sourness in the aroma but not as intense as other beers. The malt and hop aromas are low but that is within the style. I sample the sour ale and am disappointed in the lack of intense sour flavors. I think my palette is busted because I only enjoy strong flavors and this is more of a slightly sour ale. The beer attenuated well and was dry. Not too much residual sweetness left and I don’t recall tasting any strong malt or hop flavors. For whatever reason, Bill felt it best to leave the beer as is to see what would happen. Two silver medals laters, the sour ale seems to be doing just fine. From what Lola says, the beer has mellowed out considerably over the years
Sometime during the evening, Bill shows me his brewery set up. I am amazed at how relatively low tech it all is. Their mash tun is basically a wooden box. Built with a removable wooden lid, the mash tun is built onto a pivoted support system that allows Bill to easily empty the grains by tilting the tun onto its side, locking it in place and then scooping out the spent grains. Their boiler is steam powered. Unlike conventional boilers that are heated from below with open flame, their system relies on a built-in coil where steam is pumped in to bring the wort to a boil. Bill explains that this system is more expensive upfront but the long term savings are great and outweigh the initial cost. Having steam heat the wort also assures that the wort will never scorch. In addition, the bottom of the boil kettle will last much longer. Even the heat exchanger to cool the beer is home grown and was made for less than $1000.
For a special treat, Bill walks me to the back of the brewery and pulls out an old beer sculpture made from old kegs. I am awed as I look upon Full Circle’s first brewing set-up. The entire sculpture is built with metal pipes around a central support system. The mash tun on this system is also surrounded in wood and looses only 1° F per hour. Even in the beginning, on what looks like a, home grown homebrew beer sculpture, Bill was getting favorably comparable commercial efficiencies.
Even though they’ve been a commercial brewery for several years, I can’t help but feel as if the homebrewer in Bill never quite left him. One look around the brewery premises only proves this observation. A lot of the equipment Bill uses to brew were either repurposed from other defunct breweries, donated or built by Bill and Don.
None of the Full Circle Brewery products are filtered either. Bill prefers to let the natural aging process clarify the beers. Proudly he tells me, “None of our beers are two weeks old. I don’t filter because if you leave the beers alone, they’ll clarify on their own. I won’t server a beer until it’s good and ready”.
Yet the most damning thing about Bill is that he still uses 5 gallon corney kegs to serve his beer. In an age where 15.5 gallon kegs are industry standard, I see Bill on his way to change out a few empty taps with corny kegs in hand. I am told by Lola that they’ll eventually be switching the bar opposite of where it currently is and will connect all the taps to the bigger tanks directly.
As the night winds down and people begin to file out of Full Circle, Sammy manages to take a picture with George the Giant. George is a towering man. Standing at 7′3″ in height, he is the world’s largest sword swallowing. All during the night as Bill and I spoke, George was performing various “freak show” stunts on stage. Some of his stunts ranged from the previously mentioned sword swallowing, to spitting fire, walking and then jumping on broken glass. The number of kids and adults sipping on the house root beer was a testament to how relaxed and comfortable the atmosphere at Full Circle is.
Full Circle Brewing Company is old skool. They are the homebrewer who turned pro that never forgot his homebrewing roots. Despite their small size, they are not afraid to dream big. With a pizza kitchen to be added soon, Bill has his eyes set to brew sake next. Not many places can lay claim to having such a diverse portfolio of products. If you are ever in Fresno, I recommend visiting Full Circle Brewing Company. It is an experience unto itself.
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