A surprise Monday double batch edition of beer notes. Here’s Part I.

See brief update on Deschutes Brewmaster, Larry Sidor’s new brewery-to-be below…

Deschutes Brewery:

Update: The Portland Business Journal reports, “Sidor and two business partners, including tbd advertising founder Paul Evers, have raised $1.1 million for a company called 856 Brewing Co. LLC.” The location appears to be about a block or two from Deschutes’ brewery. Hat tip to The Daily Pull.

Last week, we learned that he will be leaving Deschutes at the end of the year. Sidor is the third brewmaster in as many months to announce that he’s stepping down from the role at a top 20 regional brewery. The other two are Floris Delee at Dogfish Head and Greg Hall at Goose Island. Those are all some big shoes to fill. Brett Porter took over for Hall already though no announcements have been made at Deschutes or DFH.

Sidor was recently on The Brewing Network and revealed some info about a new fall release. The brewery is working on a fresh hop version of Mirror Pond Pale Ale that will be released in 22 oz. bottles around September 15th. As described by Sidor, when you plant new hops, old rhizomes aren’t always removed (as they try to re-grow, they have to literally be torched). For this batch, they did just that with a small plot of acreage, ensuring that the hops for this brew will truly be 100% Cascade hops. Sidor was clearly excited about this project. Update: Knew I missed something…from comments, “The important part about the Cascade hops that Sidor was going to use is that they are from the first Cascade plant. He felt that Cascade had changed so much over the years that he wanted to be able to show the original profile of Cascade.”

New Belgium: More expansion talk. Per The Coloradoan, “The brewery, known for such beers as Fat Tire and Sunshine Wheat, has submitted conceptual plans with the city to develop a 5-acre parcel of land south of Buckingham and east of Linden Street owned by the company. The proposed expansion is for offices, meeting rooms and small living quarters, said Bryan Simpson, spokesman for New Belgium.”

Founders Brewing: More expansion stuff… The city of Grand Rapids approved a 4,000 sq. foot addition to the brewhouse.

Avondale Brewing: An Alabama-based startup brewery had 40 kegs stolen on Thursday morning. The owner played the role of detective and located the kegs at a nearby scrapyard. Information for the guys who stole the kegs is now with police though it’s not clear whether they have been arrested yet. The kegs had cost the startup $120 apiece.

Brouwerij Bockor: Some Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge bottle news. According to today’s Artisanal Imports newsletter, “We will be offering this outstanding example of the Flanders Red in four packs of 330ml bottles sometime later this summer. August?”

St. Feuillien: More from the Artisanal Imports newsletter…meet St. Feuillien Speciale. “A beer so new we don’t even have a label yet! This is a sign from decades past, upon which the new beer’s label will be based. It’ll be available in the winter but won’t have any holiday or Christmas markings, and will be the same beer as Noël.”

Koningshoeven / La Trappe: Now, back in stock, La Trappe Isid’or! We are offering this wonderful Trappist ale in both four packs and 20l kegs. A very small quantity of never-to-be-repeated Oak Aged Isid’or is also in our warehouse now.”

Baying Hound Ale Works: Announced via newsletter the Imperial Draft Series this morning…”The first stop on this monthly tour of high octane beers is our ‘Sloppy Drunk’ Double Imperial India Pale Ale. It is generously hopped with Columbus, Tomahawk, and Nugget and a complex malt bill of crystal and other specialty malts.” No bottles or growler fills and launch is this Friday.

Bonus I: The video below shows New Brew Thursday interviewing Spike Buckowski of Terrapin Beer Co. recently. NBT is among several folks helping me to make this into a business and their support while I get things off the ground is hugely appreciated. Their videos can be seen each week on the New Brew Thursday site.