Wild Heaven Craft Beers

Avondale Estates, Georgia

Posted in Wild Heaven Craft Beers, New Beers
Posted in Wild Heaven Craft Beers, New Releases

A day drinking stout: Wild Heaven Smiling Eyes

Wild Heaven Smiling Eyes

Wild Heaven Smiling Eyes, a dry Irish stout debuts Friday at both brewery locations. 

This lower alcohol beer is brewed with black and chocolate malts, for a pronounced roasted flavor. 

A super-abridged Dry Irish Stout history.

The Irish Stout started in London over 300 years ago. Then, it was called a porter, specifically a London Porter, not a stout. The base malt was a dry, acrid, low-grade brown malt that gave the beer a “smoaky tang” flavor, as described by writers at the time. The malt was placed on a metal floor and a fire was lit underneath it to roast it. The smoke would pass through it grain, and the metal would heat up and char the grain. The resulting roasts were inconsistent at best.  

The London Porter popularity spread to Ireland where for years, stayed pretty much the same until 1817. That’s when a man named Daniel Wheeler invented a malt roaster that would make bitter, dark roasts without a weird “smoaky tang” as the flavor was previously described. The malt was roasted in a metal drum, away from near direct contact to the flame. (Similar to coffee roasting.) The malts could be roasted darker and more consistently. 

Wheeler created “Black Patent” malt in his new kiln, still widely used today. Irish brewers adopted the use of Black Patent and darker malts, while English brewers continued with brown malt in the following years. The Irish Stout officially/unofficially born.

Interestingly, before stout became a beer style, “stout” was more of a beer descriptor. Stout basically meant “strong” to drinkers in British pubs in the 1700’s. 

In the instance of the Dry Irish Stout, the name is a bit contradictory – as they weren’t strong at all, most hovering around 4% alcohol by volume.

Wild Heaven’s Smiling Eyes keeps the style tradition alive ahead of Saint Patrick’s Day, minus the black patent malt, yet still dry and roasty. Available starting March 10th in 16-ounce cans and draft for a limited time.

Style: Dry Irish Stout
Availability: 16oz Cans, Draft. Limited Release
Debut: 3/11/22

4% ABV

Posted in Wild Heaven Craft Beers, New Beers

Wild Heaven 4 Stories Quad

Wild Heaven 4 Stories Quad

 

Posted in Wild Heaven Craft Beers, Coming Soon

Wild Heaven & Bulleit Bourbon partner again in 2021

While 2020 was basically a stopped-up toilet in a dirty truck stop for everyone, Atlanta-based Wild Heaven Beer and Bulleit Bourbon gave us something tasty to help us cope with the mess. It was the boozy goodness we needed to round out a weird year.

Since the beginning, Bulleit was stingy with their empty bourbon barrels, sending most, if not all, overseas to be repurposed for whisky. Craft brewers never had the chance to age their beers in Bulleit. All that’s changed now.

MORE: WILD HEAVEN’S BULLEIT COLLABORATIONS WERE WORTH THE WAIT

Building off of the success of two 2020 releases – 437 Miles South Imperial Stout, and 95 Shilling Scotch Ale will be two new Bulleit barrel-aged releases released by Wild Heaven this year. Brewmaster and co-owner Eric Johnson is going Belgian-style for these next two creations.

This month Johnson, along with brewer Josh Franks created the Belgian-style tripel, started aging in in wet 10-year Bulleit Bourbon barrels yesterday. “It came out a touch higher in ABV than I expected – 10.75% going into the barrels. So it will most likely be 11-11.25% coming out. But it already is pretty great,” says Franks.

Expect a Labor Day release for the first beer.

The second collaboration will arrive by Christmas, a quadrupel aged a blend of Bulleit Rye and Bulleit Bourbon barrels.

Both beers will be available in limited quantities in 16-ounces cans.

Wild Heaven Bulleit Barrels 2021

PIC: Beer Street Journal

Posted in Wild Heaven Craft Beers, Headlines

Wild Heaven & Bulleit’s first collaboration was worth the wait

The sun is setting over Wild Heaven brewery in Avondale Estates. It’s finally turning cooler in the south, which is perfect “beer and bourbon” weather. But then again, what weather isn’t.

This beer collaboration wasn’t easy to come by. Bulleit Bourbon barrels have never really been available to the broker market. You couldn’t broker a few barrels to age your beer of choice. The whole project exists thanks to industry networking, planning, discussions with the distillery, and of course, your PR push. Remember, beer is as much sales as it is an art form.

There’s Bulleit/Beer cocktails and food from Chef Shay Lavi cooking outside, but I’m here for the beer.

Drawing on something I said in part one of this series. Years ago, possessing a bourbon barrel-aged beer in your cellar meant you were winning. Being good at brewing barrel-aged beer meant understanding where the beer and barrel came together in a unity of amazing flavor. That means making sure it and doesn’t fall flat with no barrel notes, or worse the barrel overruns it. “Not enough barrel aging” was the “too hoppy” 1-Star rating on Untappd of a decade ago.

WILD HEAVEN & BULLEIT COLLABORATE: PART ONE

That’s not the case with Wild Heaven 95 Shilling. It’s the balance of toasty caramel, and rich vanilla oak that blend together in a greater sum of the parts of the process. Exactly what it should be. This beer is an instant reminder of the well-made classics that got so many addicted to craft beer in the first place. Beer meets barrel extremely well with fresh Bulleit barrels for the win.

Josh Franks has been brewing at Wild Heaven for years. In my head, I’ve always thought of him as a quiet creative. A talented brewer that has neither a beard nor a cocky attitude. Franks worked hard creating 95 Shilling, and you can just see the pride beaming through his persistent humility as we talk about this new beer. “I can’t believe how this turned out,” he tells me, trying not to smile mid-sentence. “I was just shooting for it to be good.”

“For me, this is one of the more rewarding parts of what we do,” says Executive Vice President Sarah Young. “The more we can spread Wild Heaven around in front of more than just beer people, is always something we look for.” The list of local partnerships nearly doubled in just 2020 alone. To date, they have worked with Atlanta icons like Giving Kitchen, Mercedes Benz Stadium, The Fox Theater, 680 TheFan radio station, Atlanta Botanical Garden, Big Peach Running Co, CURE Childhood Cancer, Stuckey’s Corporation, and more. Basically, Young has been busy.

One thing I can tell you for certain. Not every bourbon barrel makes great barrel-aged beer, but after trying Wild Heaven’s and Bulleit barrel collaboration, Bulleit definitely does.

Standing here drinking this beer at the brewery’s bar, campfire smoke heavy cold fall air whips through the open garage doors. For a second it feels like a fun dream after the year we’ve all had. The excitement about beer releases has returned to me. I’ve missed this. 

Wild Heaven and Bulleit created a great beer here, with a second creation just a week away. Not everything in 2020 is terrible.

Posted in Headlines, Wild Heaven Craft Beers

Wild Heaven debuts a rare collaboration with Bulleit Bourbon

Wild Heaven Bulleit Collaboration

Nearly 10 years ago, the craft brewing world was just a fraction of what it is now. IPAs were see-through and the more bitter they were, the better. Beer style guidelines were still very much a thing, and barrel-aged beers were gold. “Bourbon Barrel-aged” was all you needed to emit a Pavlovian-style response to the thirsty beer geek. It proved your street cred.

A lot has happened since those days, besides the obvious 10,000 brewery swell from coast to coast. IPA has gone through quite a few phases. Sour beer has made a big name for itself. Food and candy now have a near-permanent home in many brew kettles. Barrel-aged beer never went away, but feels a bit like it’s not the cool kid in school anymore.

At Wild Heaven in Atlanta, barrel-aging was never a trend, it’s something brewmaster Eric Johnson just did. Quite artfully, I might add. Hell, the brewery was at least 3-4 years into operations before releasing their first IPA because Johnson wanted intention as well as science to have roles in the beer’s creation. Not some trend mandate. Simply stated, doing something just to do it isn’t in his vocabulary (unless it’s drinking).

A Bourbon Opportunity

Bulleit Frontier Whiskey has become a household name in Kentucky Bourbon over the past decade. You’d be hard-pressed to find a bar that doesn’t have Bulleit on their shelf. If you were a brewer hoping to snag some wet barrels to throw your imperial stout into, you were out of luck.  Years ago, founder Tom Bulleit told Beer Street Journal almost all of the distillery’s wet barrels were shipped to Scotland. Frankly, the idea of aging beer in Bulleit barrels seemed foreign to him at the time when we asked about it. Over the past year, that mentality has changed.

The distillery and the brewery incidentally share the same distributor in the Peach State, Georgia Crown. GC brought the barrel opportunity to Wild Heaven who eagerly agreed.

Other than collaborations with Guinness in 2019, this Bulleit and Wild Heaven creation is just the second barrel-aging collaboration that Bulleit has done (that we know of).

It’s 2020, and you COULD throw everything from chicken wings to gummy bears in a Bulleit barrel, rip off some throwback 90’s cartoon artwork, and call it a day. Again, that’s not Eric Johnson’s style, and probably not Bulleit’s either. “I wanted to go with beers that would really compliment the wood and the original spirit,” Johnson says.

The Beers

Two beers are born out of this collaboration, using both Bulliet 95 Rye and Bulleit Bourbon barrels. Each one a classic beer style crafted to express what beer and bourbon can create together. “I liked the idea of pairing a big Scotch ale that featured dried dark fruits, smoky peaty notes, and hints of molasses with the warm spiciness with the Rye barrels.” The original bourbon barrels were home for months to an imperial stout that leans hard into rich chocolate and coffee. 

“That one drinks like vanilla chocolate milk and is just downright dangerous,” Johnson adds.

The first of the two releases is 95 Shilling, aged in Bulleit Rye. 16-ounce cans and very limited draft debut this week.

437 Miles South Imperial Stout (the distance from the brewery to the distillery), aged in original Bulleit Bourbon debuts in December.

This is part one of a two-part series on collaboration. Image: David Cone Films

Posted in Wild Heaven Craft Beers, Coming Soon