Wild Heaven Craft Beers

Avondale Estates, Georgia

Posted in Beer News, Coming Soon, Wild Heaven Craft Beers

Wild Heaven Punched Up Fruited Sour, Version 2

Wild Heaven Punched Up

Wild Heaven Punched Up Fruited Sour with Raspberry, Guava, Passion Fruit, and Pineapple debuts Friday, February 7th.

This latest Punched Up was slated for late fall of 2023, but apparently life got a bit in way of its release. nevertheless, this tart fruit blast drops Friday.

Wild Heaven Punched Up joined the brewery’s lineup as a spring seasonal nearly a year ago, featuring peach, orange and mango. For the colder winter temps and shorter days, the brewery went with a more tropical fruit theme – namely raspberry, guava, passionfruit and pineapple.

12-ounce cans of Punched Up, along with its draft counterpart arrive at both brewery locations on Friday, January 7th. Perfect for drinking while you procrastinate taking down the Christmas decorations.

Style: Sour Ale (w/ Raspberry, Guava, Passion Fruit, Pineapple.)
Availability: 12oz Cans, Draft. Seasonal Release.
Debut: 1/7/24

5% ABV

Posted in Don't Miss This, Wild Heaven Craft Beers

Wild Heaven Crab Fest brought a little bit of Maryland to Atlanta

Wild Heaven Crab Fest 2023, Sarah Young

Wild Heaven held their first Maryland-style Crab Fest in late July.

Have you ever befriended someone because of a body of water? In my case, it’s the Chesapeake Bay. Let me explain.

I grew up in Delaware. For those of you who are terrible with geography, Delaware is a state. It is actually the first state to ratify the Constitution. They’re pretty proud of that. Sarah Young, the VP, and co-owner of Wild Heaven Brewery in Atlanta, grew up in Maryland. (7th to ratify.) We’ve always talked about growing up in the mid-Atlantic over beers, which actually prompted us to make a Chesapeake Bay-themed beer (aka Old Bae), a saison with Old Bay seasoning. Folks loved it, McCormicks told us to stop. Oh well.

With that over, Sarah wasn’t ready to pack up the seasoning just yet, as it were. Sarah loves beer and crabs and Long John Silver’s drive-through wasn’t going to cut it. We were talking full-on “Bay-Style” crab boil. She brought Maryland to Atlanta in the purest form she could and did it up right.

Young sourced over 800 fresh Maryland Blue Crabs from Harbour House Crabs, which were overnighted to Wild Heaven’s Garden Room at their West End location. Tables were lined up end to end, covered in brown paper, and stacked eye level with Old Bay, crab seasonings, and wood hammers for a cracking good time. Live music started when the first crab hit the table and didn’t stop until the last one was shredded. Beers were cold and plentiful. There was enough low country boil to serve half of Maryland. By the end of it all, couples were dancing along with the band.

All Young wanted was a true-to-life Maryland crabfest in Atlanta and she freaking killed it. ATL’s finest crab-eating pros lined up before noon and when the doors opened, did what came naturally. Hopefully, this will become an annual event for the brewery.

Check out the day below 🦀

Posted in Wild Heaven Craft Beers, Seasonal Return

Wild Heaven Fest Beer, Year 6

Wild Heaven Fest Beer Can

Wild Heaven Fest Beer returns for a 6th time (if our drinking memory serves us well) this weekend. 

A few years ago, brewery co-founder Eric Johnson debuted Autumn Defense, a creative rendition of the popular fall lager. In that case, [Defense] was actually ale, with “pronounced bright citrus flavors, brewed heavy-handedly with Munich malt.” A festbier in spirit, but as Johnson admits – not very traditional. “You’re not a brewer if you’re not experimenting I guess,” Johnson once told us. “It doesn’t always work out.”

Wild Heaven Fest Beer follows a much more traditional path since its inception. Fest Beer now is  true marzen lager, officially leaving the idea of an “ale festbier” behind for good. To get here, tweaks to the recipe (and yeast) had to happen.

 Johnson used Gungeist hops in years 1 and 2 of this release – a European hop of Hallertauer parentage. These hops did make a good lager, but ultimately traditional brewing just wins out. (Another revelation that happened, later, the Gungeist hop flavor wasn’t the same 4 weeks later.)

These days, the lager is brewed completely with classic Noble hops from Germany. 

The path from Autumn Defense to Fest Beer was a  journey unto itself. What fest beer is today is quickly becoming a fall tradition for Wild Heaven and their fans. 

Wild Heaven Fest Beer is available on draft and 12-ounce cans seasonally starting this week.

Style: Festbier/Marzen

Availability: 12oz Cans, Draft.
Debut: 9/22/18
Latest Return: August 2023

5% ABV

Image: Beer Street Journal

Posted in Beer News, New Beers, Wild Heaven Craft Beers
Posted in Beer News, New Beers, Wild Heaven Craft Beers
Posted in Wild Heaven Craft Beers, Headlines

Wild Heaven & Bulliet Bourbon release 5th collaboration

Wild Heaven 5 Points can

Wild Heaven Beer and Bulliet Bourbon release 5 Points Doppelbock, the fifth installment of their ongoing barrel-aged series.

Recapping the project, Bulliet Bourbon was always stingy with their barrels in the past. As Tom Bulleit told Beer Street Journal during an Atlanta launch event more than a decade ago, all the distillery’s barrels were sent to Scotland for whisky aging. At the time he seemed almost confused at the notion that America’s breweries would want empty bourbon barrels. That would all change in 2020.

Bulliet did a little quiet research, looking for breweries with not just a robust barrel program, but breweries that really cared about barrel aging. Georgia-based Wild Heaven stood out to the Bulliet team and ultimately the Beer and Bourbon Series was born.

The idea behind this project is simple. Wild Heaven creates a beer and Bulliet overnights freshly emptied (wet) barrels from the distillery 437 Miles South to Avondale Estates, Georgia. Fill the barrels, and wait for the magic to happen. During one of the worst years in human existence, 2020, 95 Shilling Scotch ale kicked off the series. The alcohol by volume in that beer could never have been high enough for us considering the times.

RELATED: WILD HEAVEN’S BULLEIT COLLAB WAS WORTH THE WAIT

As fall descends upon Atlanta, the latest emergence is 5 Points – a German-style Dopplebock, aged in Bulleit Rye barrels. Let’s get straight to the point, this beer- much like this series- just keeps getting better and better. A Doppelbock may be a rarer style in the craft brewing world, but Wild Heaven’s head brewer Josh Franks has created a perfect reminder of how damn good they are. “I think it really turned out quite well,” Franks tells us. You’ll never hear the guy brag, but the smile on his face after a few sips of 5 Points tells us everything.

The fresh barrels from Bulleit really make all the difference world here. Vanilla flavors from the rye bourbon-soaked oak in 5 Points are fresh and bold, almost to the point of decadence. The creamy toffee and raisin flavors notes the dopplebock round out this cool weather sipper. More proof that this duo knows what they are doing.

Wild Heaven 5 Points Dopplebock debuts this week in 16-ounce cans and draft. Wild Heaven and Bulleit are already working on their next project.

Style: Dopplebock (Barrel Aged. Rye Bourbon.)
Availability: 16oz Cans, Draft.

Debut: October 2022

Posted in Wild Heaven Craft Beers, Don't Miss This

Wild Heaven Sunburst IPA is a juicy year-round addition

Wild-Heaven-Sunburst-IPA-Cans

Wild Heaven Sunburst IPA launches this, marking just the third year-round IPA the brewery has released in 12 years. 

More than a decade ago, Wild Heaven launched with just two beers – Ode to Mercy (Imperial Brown Ale with coffee) and Invocation (Belgian Golden Strong Ale). An IPA release by the brewery was years away from being brewed, even with strong consumer demand. According to co-founder Eric Johnson at the time, “we’ll make one when I think there is a recipe good enough.” 

Finally, in 2016, Wise Blood IPA hit the lineup year-round. A year later, and 100 test batches and water chemistry adjustments, their first imperial IPA – Good Vice hit taps. Wild Heaven initially intended it to be year-round, but the brewery’s passion for that recipe faded fast. Then came Altair IPA in 2018.  Each beer was a stop on a hoppy journey to now.

Wise Blood and Altair are now ghosts.

Here at the brewery, the canning line is busy filling cans of Sunburst IPA – a new and now only year-round IPA the brewery will have for the foreseeable future. It’s aptly named. Sunburst is every bit bright and juicy as it’s billed. A big flavor departure from the brewery’s IPA predecessors, it’s looking to be one of the premier southern IPAs.

That spawned a debate with Josh Franks, head brewer at Wild Heaven. Could Southern IPA be a thing? India pale ale is undoubtedly the style juggernaut of the craft beer world. Going back about 15 years ago you’d find popularity with the English IPA. Soon to be taken over by West Coast IPA. Then a steady sequence of hoppy variants- the Belgian IPA, the Black IPA (aka the Cascadian Dark Ale), the New England IPA, and lactose heavy milkshake IPA. Should The South have its own? 

Maybe they already do. 

It’s not an official style but perhaps it should be. Think of an IPA that’s hoppy and bright. Juicy like a hazy IPA but still fairly clear, still holding on to some West Coast IPA bitterness. A subtle hybrid of two dominant styles. Creature Comforts Tropicalia and Scofflaw Basement IPA would be great examples. A (highly theoretical) southern IPA would be bright and sunny. Just like the sun-soaked, pollen heavy, 3 weeks of cold weather region they were born into. 

Wild Heaven Sunburst IPA hits retailers this week year-round in 12-ounce cans and draft.  

Style: IPA 
Hops: Citra, Talus, Galaxy, Mosaic, Cascade, Chinook, Amarillo

Availability: 12oz Cans, Draft. 
Debut: 3/24/22

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