We’ve tried their beers before, and maybe you have too.
But we wanted to know a little bit more about what the guys over at Lithermans Limited did when it came to making that delicious beer.
How much do they make at a time? What determines what kind they make next? Where are all the places around town we can find them if we’re thirsty for a super local beer?
Well, it just so happens owners and brewers Steve Bradbury and Michael Hauptly-Pierce really like to talk about beer – especially the ones they make over at their 126 Hall St. location.
They opened back in April, but are still some sort of a hidden gem when it comes to these parts (see what we did there).
“People are still learning about us,” Bradbury said.
They’re a little bit off the beaten path, although we found out it’s a hot spot for people getting off the highway when traffic is backed up who Google “breweries in Concord NH.”
The tap room, where they serve up 4-ounce tasters of their beers, is only open Fridays (4 to 7 p.m.) and Saturdays (noon to 5 p.m.), so people really have to plan a visit. There’s been talk of expanding to Sundays, but nothing is imminent.
You see, both Bradbury and Hauptly-Pierce have day jobs, so they make beer, do tastings and package it at night, and serve it up on the weekends. And they deliver it any time they can fit it in.
“The beer is fresh. It’s hitting the shelf within a few days of being ready,” Bradbury said.
Just in Concord, Lithermans is on draft at Area 23, True Brew, Vibes Gourmet Burgers and Cheers, and you can grab 22-ounce bottles at Barb’s Beer Emporium, the Concord Co-op and Cimo’s South End Deli. You can also find them outside of the city, but you know we can’t talk about anything outside the border (unless it’s in Bow).
“We want to stay local,” Bradbury said. “And we have lots of room for local growth.”
Lithermans has four staple beers – Simply Red Ale, Bow Wow Yippie Yo IPA, Tangled Up in Bruges and Crisped Cream Ale – and many others they have brewed in full batches or just small ones for the tap room. They even had a saison tap takeover with all kinds of funky flavors, including orange sour patch kids.
“We will occasionally do 5- to 10-gallon batches just for the tap room,” Hauptly-Pierce said. “Just in the tap room, we’ve had 25 to 30 beers on tap since we opened.”
And there’s more to come.
“We have recipes we won’t get to for a year,” Hauptly-Pierce added. “And we don’t make anything we don’t want to drink.”
For a full batch, they use a three barrel system that yields around 93 gallons in the end. That equates to about 18 logs (1/6 kegs) or 12 cases of 22-ounce bottles. In terms of pints, that’s anywhere from 600 to 650.
It takes about eight hours to brew a batch and three weeks for it to turn into drinkable beer. A typical week includes brewing and then sanitizing on Mondays and packaging on Thursdays. But sometimes there’s tastings to do or the beer just isn’t ready, like last week when they bottled on Saturday.
“Yeast is a living organism, so you can’t rush it,” Bradbury said.
In addition to getting 4-ounce tasters of each beer in the tap room, you can also buy or refill a growler, or buy bottles.
A brand new beer, Little Miss Strange, will be out very soon.
So go give them a taste some time, you won’t be disappointed.
August 30, 2016
Their “Simply Red Ale” is simply delicious! In fact, I haven’t tasted a single beer of theirs that I didn’t like. So happy they opened in Concord!