Nebraska Makes Delicious Beer: Boiler Brewing

This summer’s CornNation "Nebraska Makes Delicious Beer" series, renamed for this year, begins with Boiler Brewing Company in Lincoln.

This series began last summer, and we are not going to revisit last summer’s profiles, but you can find them here. It includes updates on the breweries covered last summer.

As an investor in Blue Blood Brewing in Lincoln, the addition of another craft brewery locally is very exciting.

Background

Tim Thomssen is a partner and brewmaster at Boiler Brewing Company. He has won homebrewer of the year in 2013, 2014, and 2015 as well as being named the 2014 Masters Championship of Amateur Brewing Grand Champion. Tim had his Raspberry Weiss picked as one of three winners of the 2015 Samuel Adams Brewing Longshot Award.

Boiler Brewing was opened in 2015 and has 24 tap handles with their unique beers on draft. Tim settled on 24 because he had 23 at home, and wanted one more at the brewery.

The brewhouse at Boiler Brewing Company is a ten barrel system, but many of the fermenters are smaller than that. This system allows Tim to take the wort (beer before fermentation) and split it up to try different yeasts, fruit flavors, or dry hopping in the same base flavor. This is what allows Boiler to have so many different varieties of beer available in the tap room.

Location

Boiler Brewing Company is the old boiler room of the Grand Manse in downtown Lincoln. It’s hard to find with the main entrance on the south side of the building at the bottom of an inauspicious looking staircase.

The tap room is open Monday - Thursday from 4 - 11 pm, Friday from 4 pm - midnight, Saturday from 1 pm - midnight, and Sunday from 1 - 8 pm. Along with their beers, they offer a limited menu of food from The Single Barrel.

Boiler Brewing Company specializes in small batch beer, meaning their beer is limited in availability, but unique and robust in flavor, as is obvious by their vast selection filled with fruit and floral taste.

Availability

Boiler Brewing Company’s beers are only available in their tap room currently. You can take your favorite to go in either a 16 or 32 ounce container.

Beers

Boiler Brewing offers a great selection of unique beers that changes regularly. They keep an up-to-date list of available beers here.

• Raspberry Tart
• McLaughlin’s Scottish 70
• Hop Heaver Double IPA
• Strawberry Tartcake
• Cheech & Chong Pale Ale
• Cheech & Chong Black Pale Ale
• Cheech & Chong Overdone Pale Ale
• Oatmeal Stout (Also available on nitro)
• West Coast Wheat
• Violet Beauregarde
• Mild Obsession
• Mango Reinhardt
• Summer’s Eve Hibiscus Saison
• With a Cherry on Tart
• Beastie Belgian Tripel
• Erroneous Barry
• You Got Peanut Butter in My Chocolate
• Orange You Thirsty?
• Parallel Universe
• Boiler Light Cream Ale

If you don’t like beer, Boiler Brewing Company also has a selection of wine available, but you owe it to yourself to try the beer, especially the fruit varieties.

Thoughts on the Beer (Last Summer’s "Verdict")

*I changed the name of this section because it’s not really about critiquing the beer. Few are truly qualified to do this effectively and objectively. Additionally, my spirit of these pieces is not to pit the local breweries against one another, but to draw attention to the delicious beer being brewed in Nebraska.*

The Hibiscus Saison had great fruit notes, light without being overwhelming. While the Raspberry Tart has a great raspberry character throughout, with just a touch of a tart finish. The West Coast Wheat is a wheat IPA that has a light flavor and a great hops finish. It’s a fantastic summer beer.

All of the Pale Ales and IPAs that I sampled at Boiler had a great, balanced hops character. None were overwhelming or powerfully bitter. This included the Cheech and Chong Overdone and the Hop Heaver. The Oatmeal Stout is one of the best I’ve had in this style, coffee and vanilla notes perfectly balanced with the maltiness of the stout.