American Wild Ales

Posted in New Belgium, Headlines

One of the world’s most exclusive coffee beans, a wood cellar, & New Belgium Geisha

Billed as the “loftiest sour” they’ve ever crafted, New Belgium Geisha debuts.

There are a lot of elements at play in this La Folie Grand Reserve release. First, the name “Geisha”. It comes from the highly sought after Geisha coffee bean that hails from Ethiopia. It found international fame after the bean was imported to Panama and produced by Hacienda La Esmerelda. The family-run coffee grower submitted the bean to the Best of Panama Auction in 2004, winning first place. The Geisha bean continued to win five more times from 2005 to 2010. Basically, it’s a badass.

New Belgium Wood Cellar Director Lauren Woods Limbach’s vision was to blend the Geisha bean’s delicate aromatics with the brewery’s sour beer Oscar. Incidentally, Oscar is the base beer that is blended into famed La Folie Sour Brown Ale. In order to do so, the brewery needed another “threaded” beer to make Geisha work.

Local Fort Collins-based Troubadour Maltings provided a few special malt varieties for a special beer to thread into Geisha. New Belgium calls is a “smuggler” beer, bringing in the oils needed for beer head retention, bridging the gap between Oscar, and the Geisha bean.

“There’s this apprehension to do right by Geisha. I’ve thought more about this beer than any beer I’ve made in my life. Not just because of the expense of the coffee, but because we’re attempting to put something that doesn’t have the classic coffee aroma—floral, tea, notes of citrus and stone fruit—into a coffee beer. – Lauren Woods Limbach

One of the world’s most exclusive coffee beans, an award-winning wild ale program, and an expert blender come together for what New Belgium hops is a truly unique and bold American wild ale.

New Belgium Geisha is available in 750-milliliter bottles in select markets, and both of the brewery’s taprooms starting November 3rd. There’s a price tag for this kind of sensory experience. A bottle’s retail price is around $48 dollars.

Style: American Wild Ale (w/ Coffee. Oak Aged.)
Availability: 750ml Bottles, Corked & Caged.
Debut: November 2017

7.9% ABV

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Carolina Bauernhaus Ales, Seasonal Return

Carolina Bauernhaus July Prince, with South Carolina peaches

Carolina Bauernhaus July Prince returns to the Anderson, South Carolina taproom for a second time on October 19th.

A follow up to the first bottle release in June – June Princess, Carolina Bauernhaus July Prince is an American wild ale fermented with peaches.

The base beer is the brewery’s golden rye ale, femented in Chardonnay barrels with SouthYeast Labs strong ale yeast for seven months. Then the brewery added 200 pounds of peaches and aged it another two months. Finally, July Prince was dry-hopped With Hull Melon and Aramis hops.

The finished beer has a subtle acidity, juicy peach notes, and a light hop note balanced by a dry oak barrel character.

Carolina Bauernhaus July Prince is a 750-milliliter bottle offering. Limited distribution to local area and Atlanta.

Style: American Wild Ale (w/ Peaches. Wine Barrel Aged.)
Hops: Hull Melon, Aramis
Availability: 750ml Bottles, Draft.
Debut: 10/29/16

Latest Return: 10/19/17

8% ABV

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Blackberry Farm Brewery, Beer News, Burial Beer Co

Burial Beer Jealous & Murder, a collaboration with Blackberry Farm Brewery

Burial Beer Jealousy & Murder, a collaboration with Walland, Tennessee based Blackberry Farm Brewery, debuts on September 30th.

This release is actually the second of three installations in an on-going collaboration with Blackberry Farm. The base beer is a saison brewed with North Carolina barley and spelt, Saphir hops, and fermented on a mix of Brettanomyces and Lactobacillus bacteria.

Secrets are hard to keep and jealousy has no bounds. Part 2 of the story told with our good friends at Blackberry Farm Brewery is a mixed-culture saison make with NC barley and spelt, hopped with Saphir hops and aged with Brettanomyces and Lactobacillus.

Burial Beer Jealousy & Murder is available at the brewery starting September 30th. Limited distribution to follow.

Style: American Wild Ale
Hops: Saphir
Availability: 750ml Bottles
Debut: 9/30/17

6.3% ABV

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Hi Wire Brewing, Don't Miss This

Three different barrels & a little crazy: Hi-Wire Sour Pumpkin Ale

Hi-Wire Sour Pumpkin Ale is all over the flavor map. That’s a good thing. There’s a lot going on in this beer.

As fall creeps in, Asheville, North Carolina based Hi-Wire Brewing has released Sour Pumpkin Ale. Put the pumpkin spiced latte down because things are about to get a little weird.

After spending time wandering around local Rayburn Farm, Hi-Wire was struck with the idea of sourcing a beer from a single farm source. Sure, this is a pumpkin ale so you’re probably thinking something with pumpkins, cinnamon, and cloves. Make it taste like pie and ship it, right? Wrong.

Let’s talk pre-barrel. The base beer spent time in stainless steel tanks, with roasted delicata pumpkins, cinnamon basil, and blue ginger. Blue ginger is a Hawaiian variety known for its superior flavor. Cinnamon basil is also called Mexican spice basil. Methyl cinnamate found in the cultivar gives off flavors of the cinnamon spice when the leaves are crushed.

If this beer is already sounding unique, Hi-Wire isn’t done yet. After three months in stainless steel, the beer was split into rum, whiskey, and red wine barrels for six months, then blended back again. There’s nothing “basic” about this creation.

At this point, it is downright impossible to use something as simple as “pie” to describe Hi-Wire Sour Pumpkin Ale. It just doesn’t fit. Sour Pumpkin is aggressively sour as you dive in, melding into a light wash of ginger and cinnamon. As the beer warms, the blend of barrels are fighting for palate domination. Honestly, we think the rum won. This is no simple wild ale, with typical flavors. Everything about this beer is unpredictable in the best of ways. Speaking in the spirit of Hi-Wire’s hometown of Asheville, “Keep Fall Weird.”

Hi-Wire Sour Pumpkin Ale is a limited,  375-milliliter bottle release. Not for the faint of heart (or palate).

Style: American Wild/Sour Alehttps://beerstreetjournal.com/tag/american-wild-ales/ (w/ Pumpkin. Blue Ginger. Cinnamon Basil. Barrel Aged. Whiskey. Red Wine. Rum.)
Availability: 375ml Bottles
Debut: 9/2/17

8.6% ABV

PIC: Beer Street Journal

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in SweetWater Brewing, Don't Miss This, New Releases

Foudre aged SweetWater Cherry Pit & The Pendulum debuts in Woodlands Series

Atlanta’s SweetWater Brewing Company’s first full production foray in to American wild ales happened a few years before their new Woodlands Facility. In 2015 to be precise, with the release of a Brettanomyces yeast heavy Pit & The Pendulum. That beer, brewed with fresh peach puree from South Carolina was so well received that it was made intermittently year-round. This year, a new Pit is coming – SweetWater Cherry Pit & The Pendulum.

RELATED: Sweetwater The Woodlands (PICS)

Arising from the brewery’snew foudres is SweetWater Cherry Pit & The Pendulum, that has been sitting for over six months on a blend of Montmorency & Balaton cherries. Chris Meadows and Nick Burgoyne, brewers overseeing the Woodlands, started fermentation on Rainy Day Acid Trip (the unofficial name for the base) in stainless steel in July, 016. It was transferred to oak foudres in December, where a blend of Montmorency & Balaton cherries were added to the oak.

The result is a delicate, tart wild ale that almost glows a pinkish-red. While The Woodlands program may be young, after tasting Through the Brambles, Cambium (foudre beer) and Cherry Pit – the word maturity comes to mind. SweetWater, being the biggest craft brewery in the state, doesn’t get the beer geek cred they deserve sometimes. For the past 5+ years, the brewery has put in some serious time internally developing a wild ale program.

Ultimately when comfortable, the brewery pulled the trigger on the wooden palace that is The Woodlands. The brewing team didn’t use their fans as guinea pigs in development. They left much of the triumphs and failures behind closed doors leaving to the public some of the best sour and wild ales the southeast has to offer. This truly is a new era for SweetWater.

A golden ale soured with lactobacillus and fermented with three brettanomyces strains, then aged for 6 months in American and French oak with 3,000 pounds of Montmorency & Balaton cherries. Freshly harvested house brettanomyces was added for bottle conditioning, ensuring evolution in the cellar.

SweetWater Cherry Pit & The Pendulum is a 16.9-ounce corked & caged bottle release.

Style: American Wild Ale (w/ Cherries. Oak Aged.)
Availability: 16.9oz Bottles

Debut: 9/9/17

6.1% ABV

PIC: Beer Street Journal

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Jester King Brewery, Seasonal Return

Jester King La Vie en Rose shares fruit one of the brewery’s most famous releases

Jester King La Vie en Rose is back in action on Friday, September 1st. The farmhouse ale is fermented in stainless steel with raspberries. Those berries have a story though. Keep reading.

When these berries hit the beer, it’s not the first time they’ve touched a Jester King beer. “Rose” uses the spent raspberries from one of the brewery’s most popular releases – Atrial Rubicite. Taking a cue from Brasserie Cantillon, Jester King wanted to get a second extraction from the fruit. Why? After fermenting the first beer, the berries still had a lot of flavor and aroma that could be used during the fermentation process.

Taking a cue from Brasserie Cantillon, Jester King wanted to get a second extraction from the fruit. Why? After fermenting the first beer, the berries still had a lot of flavor and aroma that could be used during the fermentation process.

The base beer for Jester King La Vie in Rose was pumped into tanks that still contained raspberries and a little bit of fermented Atrical Rubicite. The brewery approaches adding fruit to beer the same way grapes become wine. Fruit (in this case, raspberries) is a part of the fermentation process, not added to the finished beer. The final flavors end of being very different.

For past releases, La Vie en Rose was fermented for four months. Month one was house yeast. After that, natural Texas Hill Country yeast and Brettanomyces, and other souring bacteria did the work.

Jester King La Vie en Rose will be available at the brewery on Friday, September 1st.

Style: American Wild Ale (w/ Raspberries)
Hops: Golding, Fuggles, Perle
Malts: Pilsner Malt, Wheat Malt, Steel Cut Oats

Availability: 750ml Bottles, Draft.
Latest Return: 9/1/17

5.8% ABV

La Vie en Rose translates to “Life in Pink” Artist Joshua Cockrell explains the vision:

“It speaks firstly to a mainstream ignorance of viewing what progress has been made as a confirmation that the struggle for gender equality is over or nonexistent, i.e. viewing the current gender equality climate through rose colored lenses. The literal translation transmits the idea of containment of the female role in society, and on a larger scale the burden of gender and beauty constructs. The color pink itself is a great and obvious example of gender confinement. I love that while drinking this beer you have the physical experience of rose colored lenses giving you a reminder again to reflect on the topic.”

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in SweetWater Brewing, New Releases

3 years & fresh blackberries. SweetWater Belgian Rose debuts

Atlanta's SweetWater Brewing took their time (and a few million dollars to do it right) building out their sour and wild ale program. You can see the result of that effort at the newest addition to their brewery – The Woodlands. On August 5th, the second release from The Woodlands debuts – SweetWater Belgian Rose.

This beer actually got its start three years ago, before The Woodlands was even built. Cabernet and Merlot barrels full of bacteria and yeast – Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, Brettanomyces Bruxellensis, and Brettanomyces Claussenii have been "funking" and souring a Belgian-style ale since 2014

See Inside SweetWater's New Sour Facility

In the months prior to the release, the brewery blended 1 pound per gallon of fresh Georgia grown blackberries to the base beer.

Flavor.

The wine touched oak, fresh blackberries, and sour tartness from the barrels are fighting for your attention, and that's a good thing. SweetWater Belgian Rose is a labor of love and the culmination of patience. Through the Brambles was a beautiful introductory lesson into what SweetWater can do on the wild side. Belgian Rose is like skipping a few grades and jumping right into the more advanced courses. Consider yourself lucky.

SweetWater Belgian Rose is now available at The Woodlands, part of the SweetWater facility in Atlanta.

Style:American Wild/Sour Ale  (w/ Blackberries)
Availability: 750ml Bottles
Debut: 8/5/17

7% ABV

by Reid Ramsay