Here at OlyKraut, we've become rather inspired by the amazing combination of our sauerkraut with Elysian's beer.  In fact, we made a little movie about it and they liked it so much, they invited us on a tour!

Our pal and tour guide, Kyle Kuhnau was an excellent host, a wealth of knowledge, and most impressively, an enthusiastic sauerkraut fan.

The OlyKraut crew who made it over to Elysian for the tour was made up of Domonique Juleon, Shaula Massena, Chester Georgi-Dinsmore, and Sash Sunday.  The rest were toiling away at the kraut factory.  Thanks guys!!

We learned all about the ingredient sourcing, production, bottling, labeling, and quality control of Elysian Beer.  Now Elysian is a lot bigger than OlyKraut, but we are both manufacturers of fermented products and so there were a lot of really interesting things for us to look at. 

  Their gigantic fermentation tanks were impressive and still can’t figure out how we would get the sauerkraut out if we ever go that big.  

They have some pretty impressive software that they use to track all their batches and ingredients and I have to admit, I was really impressed.  I wonder if one day we’ll have the sauerkraut making database of my dreams…There are quite a few more steps in the brewing process than the kraut making process so I also breathed a little sigh of relief as I looked around.

We are very excited that Elysian buys all Washington grown grain and hops and that warms our Washington-agriculture-supporting hearts. 

Another exciting part for me was meeting Barbara, their on-site microbiologist!  She was performing some quality control assessments on a batch (read: drinking at work around noon) and showed us their tasting charts and cool software.  We also got some tips on a good pH meter.  Thanks Barbara!

Over all, we had a good time, we got to taste a 45 minutes old beer, learned a lot about the process and how Elysian has grown over time.  We were given a lovely parting gift (thanks Kyle – we had an official Elysian themed after work shindig the next week and will continue to fantasize about OlyKraut being served on the menu at the Elysian taprooms all around the land…  It’s a lovely dream.