Backstory
The Reub Goldberg Brewing Machine
Our Brew Machine is custom designed and built by beer nerds, for beer nerds. It has been specifically created to allow for maximum enjoyment of the brewing process - more hands on with visual and smellable action. It utilises gravity wherever possible, and, unusually for a commercial system all the valves are turned by hand. As well as allowing the brewer to feel immersed in their craft, the Brew Machine is designed to allow great flexibility and control over the brewing process which helps us to perfect our recipes or change it up as required.
The intricacies of the design were sprung from a year long cycling trip dubbed “Bike2Brewery” - nearly 10 000km’s of pedalling power creates plenty of time to elaborate on every nook, cranny, process and valve wanted in a small scale commercial brew system. It’s also an excellent way to burn all the beer calories ingested via the 150 breweries visited by RGBM founders Billy and Anna during their bike trip from Alaska to Costa Rica… all in the name of market research of course! Scroll down for more on the bike2brewery adventure.
What’s in a name?
Photograph: John Lindsay/AP
This handsome devil is Rube Goldberg. An inspiration to scientists, inventors, comedians and brewers worldwide. Rube was an American cartoonist famous for depicting overly complicated machinery that eventually performs a simple task. His name has evolved to be synonymous with fantastically complicated machines and processes, and examples of Rube Goldberg Machines and building competitions can be found across the globe.
The machines are often used as educational aids to explain force transition, and are usually incredibly entertaining to watch in action. The concept is also well known in homebrew circles where brewers often jimmy up elaborate contraptions to perform part of the brewing process. Our manually focused, visually complicated, yet functionally simple Brew Machine is an homage to science and beer lovers everywhere.
PS. Yes, yes we are aware the spelling is different. Ours is like the sandwich :)
Eco Ethos
Our goal is to provide quality, fresh beer in the most sustainable way possible. We are a small brewery with a hyperlocal focus - providing just enough great beer to service the thirst of our local area plus a couple of select spots beyond. Most of our patrons either walk or ride to the brewery, and as a venue we don’t even create enough rubbish to require a commercial bin.
Our spent grain is used by local farmers as feed for their livestock. Our hop and yeast waste, known as “Trub” (pronounced “troob”) is used for permaculture. Our process water is recycled as many times as is practical/possible, and our waste water is cooled, filtered and treated before discharging. Even our used grain bags are dropped off for reuse at our local homebrew store, Mars Brewing Supplies.
We are proud to run our brewery on solar energy, having made the switch to green in 2020. We always take care to use well sourced ingredients and our only packaged product is in stainless steel growlers which are infinitely reusable. Our growlers are counter pressure filled, which not only locks in freshness and full carbonation, but keeps our beer wastage to an absolute minimum. Cos we hate waste. It’s just...such a waste. We are committed to moving towards zero waste, closing the loop wherever possible and will continue to evolve our eco-credentials as we grow.
Have a practical idea to help us reduce our environmental impact? Let us know!
Reub - The Hop Pirate
Our original logo - Reub - was also a brainchild of the bike2brewery cycling adventure. Sketched between surf’s at the breakfast bench of a cute little hotel in El Tunco, El Salvador the hop-bearded Reub has come a long way. He’s a very versatile personality and has evolved into a range of rascally characters that represent different beers, themes and events at RGBM.
There’s Jack the RIPA - a deep, rusty red and very bold Red IPA with a rich malty backbone balanced by a firm resiny bitterness. Known for being dangerously delicious.
Davy Goldberg - a deep sea creature inspired by the Pirates of the Carribean Davy Jones character and representative of our Gose beer range. The Gose style is famous for its salty water profile - and Davy G has definitely come from the briny depths.
Uhtred the Viking - whose catchphrase is “There’s no such thing as strong beer, only weak men”. Uhtred represents our high ABV range of beers such as the Grand Reserve, Grand Cru and Helles Bock.
Iso Reub has been keeping you safe and well stocked with beer during a pandemic… Need Beer? He’s got you COVID.
There’s also Hans the Oktoberfest Host, Bad Santa Reub and a host of others - all created from the original Reub and all up for helping you have an excellent time… the best kind of friends!
Bike2Brewery
You know it’s kismet when you find someone who's mad enough to cycle half the length of the Americas with you, and then build a brewery from scratch. In 2014 RGBM founders Billy and Anna took off for their version of the quintessential brewery market research trip. Starting in Anchorage to stock up on bike touring gear we took a loop south and then up into the Alaskan interior. From there we pedalled through the Yukon then headed due South, hugging the West Coast of Canada and the USA - an absolute mecca for beer enthusiasts.
We then crossed into Mexico to cycle the length of the cacti highway on the Baja Peninsula, took a snappy ferry across to the mainland and continued into central America… we made it as far as Costa Rica before the breweries got slim on the ground and the motivation for hills in horrendous humidity ran dry. We switched to surfing, logo design and removal of bike short tans!
We did write a blog - mostly to keep our parents posted… they may even have read it, if you like you can too at bike2brewery.tumblr.com