2019 by the Numbers!

Howdy and hello, friends and wellwishers, for the day is nigh upon us! Yes indeed, it's almost time for us to gather in celebration of a cartoon skeleton's birthday and - as is the custom - drink a bunch of barrel aged beer and eat bacon and donuts and just all-around live life to the fullest. And we've also got another much-anticipated yearly tradition for you today: The Year in Numbers! But we'll get to all that in a minute, because we gotta start with the here and now!

And starting here, though not quite "now" is this week's cask, gettin' tapped fresh on Thursday! This time around we took lil' ol' Mandarina Pale for a spin, and we predict tasty times!

And speaking of times, this Thursday is also January's installment of Audio Triviality! This time around the theme is Ozzy Osbourne, which should be interesting if nothing else, so come on out and get weird with us!

And then on Friday (Horatio's Eve, as it were), we're bringin' the heat so we can beat the pre-holiday anticipation and nobody brings the heat quite like Boston HotChix, so from 6-10 (or until they sell out), they'll be slingin' fried goodness in the taproom!

And then, on Saturday, is the day we've all been waiting for: Horatio Day! We're settin' up a buncha extra draft lines (one of which - barring some sort of catastrophe in the next couple days - will have a yet-to-be-announced secret beer!) and tappin' all sorts of barrel-aged and vintage goodies and we've got Speakeasy Donuts settin' up shop startin' right at noon and we've got the Bacon Truck hot on their heels at two o'clock and we ordered a cake and we got special glassware for you to drink out of if you so desire (and it's mighty nice glassware, if we do say so ourselves)! Oh! And! We're bringin' back the Horatio Costume Contest! So come on by dressed/costumed partly or entirely as your favorite dapper skeleton dude, and you might just win a prize!

And speaking of prizes, we gotta announce December's coloring contest winners! This was one of the toughest months yet as far as judging goes, but we made our call (congrats to @morgancat, pictured above) and here are the runner up entries, in all their glorious adequacy!

And.
Lastly.
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​We've got a year-end tradition that we've been doing for three whole years now, and we're stoked as heck to continue it! And to be more specific, that tradition is The Year In Numbers, wherein we look back on the past year and generate a whole bunch of ridiculous statistics for it. It's one of our favorite* things to write, so we hope you enjoy our numerical take on what all we been up to this past year!

*Jared legitimately looks forward to this every year because he likes numbers, like somebody who is definitely not a serial killer or anything.

2019 by the Numbers

Number of batches brewed: 95
Number of double batches: 18
Amount of beer packaged, in gallons: 10,857
Number of flights that would fill: 69,486
Percentage of total volume actually served in flights: 12%
Pints of cask poured (including half pints): 1,292

Number of different beers released: 70 (56 if you don't count flagships or other re-releases)
Number of collaboration beers: 19
Number of wedding beers: 4
Number of dog beers: 4
Number of beers made for/about buildings: 3
Number of contract batches: 2
Highest number of new beers released in one month: 6 (tie between January, March, August, and December)

Beer brewed most often: Key Lime
Number of Key Lime batches made: 7 (six of which were double batches) 
Number of key lime pies that could have been made with that lime juice instead: 416
Number of actual key limes it would take to produce that much juice: 7,987

Amount of hibiscus, in pounds, that was sacrificed to Loretta this year: 40

Number of funky beers aging at the beginning of the year: 9
Number of funky beers aging currently: 14
Number of those that are ready to package: 5

Amount of hops used, in pounds: 474.96
Average hopping rate, in lbs/BBL: 1.36
Percentage of hops that came from local suppliers: 55%
Percentage of hops that came from Michigan, of all places: 10%
Number of hop varieties used: 28
Most used hop variety: Masscade (69#!)
Height, in feet, that you would need to grow all those hops on a single bine: 3,565
Amount of time, in weeks (assuming a 40-hour workweek), it would take you to pick all those hops by hand: about 12, if you don't take lunch breaks

Amount of grain used, in pounds: 25,541
Number of individual grains that would be (approximate): 322,243,249
Total Amount of grain, in pounds, scooped by Scoopmaster G before he ascended to the Great Grain Bin in the Sky (approximate): 140,750
Percentage of grain that came from local suppliers: 21%
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Amount of oats used, as measured in bowls of oatmeal: 16,420
Amount of brown sugar used, also measured in bowls of oatmeal (but as a topping this time): 9,033

Amount of lactose used, in pounds: 60
Number of Lactaid pills you would need to neutralize all that lactose: 2,101

Amount of honey used, in pounds: 225
Number of bees it would take to produce that much honey: 124,866 (visiting approximately 449,000,000 flowers in the process)

Yeast used, in cells (approximate): 488,015,000,000,000
Average OG of beer produced (in degrees SG): 55
Average ABV of beer produced: 6.00%
Highest ABV beer produced: 8.7% (Ginger Spectacular)
Lowest ABV beer produced: 3.3% (Pat Signal)
Amount of vodka, in gallons, it would take to make the same amount of alcohol we produced this year: 1,629

Number of Big Stupid Cans filled (approximate): 3,465
Number of bottles filled: 1,247
Number of plastic folding tables used as part of our "bottling line": more than you'd think

Number of words written in the blog: 45,609

Number of pages that would fill in a paperback: about 165
Least verbose month: April (2,209 words)

Most verbose month (not counting December with its 3,000 word year-end wrap-up): November (4,878 words)
Top 3 most commonly used words in November (in order): time, Melvin, beer
Number of times we used the word "beer" in the blog this year: 362 (246 if you don't count variations like "beers")
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Number of times we manged to use the word "spooktacular" in the blog this year: 21

Number of cheeses offered throughout the year: 25
Number of local creameries featured: 7 (Grace Hill Farm, Grey Barn Dairy, Cricket Creek Farm, Robinson Farm, Couët Farm & Fromagerie, Jasper Hill Farm, Vermont Creamery)
Number of hot dogs served: 1,806

Number of beer and candy pairings that didn't make it on the menu: 21
Number of calories - in candy alone - consumed by each member of production when figuring out the beer and candy pairings: 2,282
Number of grams of sugar consumed by each member of production when figuring out the beer and candy pairings: 310
Number of Cadbury Eggs you'd need to eat to consume a similar amount of sugar: 15

Number of semi-major things that broke: 18

• The glycol chiller
• The actuator on our brite which also kind of broke the temperature control panel, the dishwasher
• Liz's brewing paddle
• Scoopmaster G
• The taproom floor
• The wheels of several production carts
• One of the taproom lamps
• The temperature probe on our other brite
• The sink in the employee bathroom
• The thermowell for the mash tun
• The autoclave, the dishwasher again
• The cold room
• Jared's spirit
• The air compressor
• The door to one of the lobby bathrooms
• Our "delivery van"/Jared's beat-up Volkswagen

Number of times Jared burned off all his arm hair lighting the burner under the HLT: only 4 this year!
Number of times Jared dropped his wedding ring into the mash tun while it was full: come on, man. Be cool. You said you weren't gonna tell anyone. ​

Number of drains in the parking lot at the beginning of the year: 0 (which caused Lake Horatio to form every time it was so much as humid out). 
Number of drains in the parking lot currently: 1
Number of functional drains in the parking lot currently: still 0

Number of brewery dogs we had at the beginning of the year: 0
Number of brewery dogs we had at the end of the year: 2
Number of brewery dogs that are hellbent on escaping the office and meeting every damn patron in the taproom: 1
Number of children who have been traumatized by that same dog stealing their hot dogs: 1
Number of dog costumes at our dog costume party: 22
Number of dogs who spent the entire time trying to destroy their costumes: actually only one, and it was our dog

New beers released in 2019:

January: Cryptic Nonsense, Best, Stone Valley, Lazy Pants, Bone Machine, Melvin the Mammoth
February: Four Star Estate, Haley, Oink!
March: Snail the Pale, Pat Signal, Royal Sampler, Big Boots 2019, Out of Bounds, On-On
April: Jeff, Dr. Dankenstein, Dance Bob!, Unholy Alliance, Chaos Reigns
May: Super Jeff, PRIDE, Elmo
June: Ocean, Shlem, Atlantica, Crystal
July: Smaltster, Shadows, Critters I, Critters II, Critters III
August: Benthic, Hoopin', Organ Meats, D 'n' A, Callisto, Ganymede
September: Biere de Melons, Champion of the Sun, Half the Time
October: Mandarinazacca, Rufus, BoNanza, Wellington, Los Aromos
November: Melvin the Mammoth (Goes to Belgium), Melvin the Mammoth (Goes to Kentucky), Melvin the Mammoth (Goes to Jamaica), Spruce Moose 
December: Skeleton Key, Fig Pig, Barreled Biere de Krampus, Mandarina, Life Sentence, Dobbie

Rereleases (not mentioned above): Joybringer, Joyrider, EPICS, Barreled EPICS, Biere de Krampus, Lawnchair, Loretta, Ginger Spectacular, Blood Built, Sunken Wit, Extra Naked, Key Lime, Wasted Life, Shut Up Kelly