The 12th Labor

12th LaborIt’s hard to believe it’s been 2 years since our one and only release of The 12th Labor. That wasn’t really the intention, but some things take time. The upcoming release is blended from a couple batches brewed December 2015 that spent 16 months in assorted bourbon barrels. From these barrels we’ve already blended Abandon All Hope and Ye Who Enter Here, but for The 12th Labor we wanted to reserve the *best barrels and give them extra time. There’s nothing added to the stout except for the barrel, so in a world obsessed with adjuncts in stouts, we needed the base beer to stand on its own.

The resulting beer is decadent and pillowy, with rich, sweet chocolate flavors that are just barely restrained by some bitterness and a touch of smoke. We think it was worth the wait.

*We shot this fun video with our good friend Ale Sharpton in which we tasted a couple barrels before blending. We were pulling samples beforehand, but I hadn’t actually tasted them before shooting. The one that he describes as being like red wine didn’t actually make the blend, but I expect to be a great part of the blend of our old ale that’s been aging in barrels for almost 2 years.

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Year Three

18119181_1148876158545879_8415407198312350180_nIt’s the year of the Swan! We’ll have the full set of Bourbon barrel-aged stouts (The 12th Labor, Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here), a new blend of Even the Furies Wept, the release of a new pineapple sour, a fresh batch of Truth.Body.Soul., and lots more! We’re really excited about the release of Like a White Curtain Blowing in the Draft From a Half-Opened Window Beside a Chair on Which Nobody Sits, which along with being on tap, will have bottles available (edit: bottle release will be delayed several weeks). This wild ale aged for a year in wine barrels is bright, tart, and full of lemon and stone fruit character. Tour cost is $24, which includes 9 4oz pours and a commemorative glass.

The following food trucks will also be making appearances throughout the weekend: C’est Tout Bon 2 Eat Teranga Catering Without Borders

On Sunday, 5/28 we will also host a special Anniversary Orphism #11 with Chris Neuenschwander of Noosh Studios. Chris will be live screen printing t-shirts with a design he made of a sleeping Cerberus. Shirts will be $20 or you can bring your own shirt and pay $10.

With 4 sessions to choose from, we’re not going to do tickets – just show up when you want. Sessions:
Saturday 5/27 – Session 1: 12-4, Session 2: 5-9
Sunday 5/28 – Session 3: 12:30-5
Monday 5/29 – Session 4: 12:30-5

New:
Again and Again – Pineapple sour, 4%

Hop Experiment #3 – IPA featuring Denali and Huell Melon, 7%

Truth.Body.Soul. – Double IPA with 60% more hops than Transmigration of Souls. Not really new, but we change the hops every release and this one features Denali and Mosaic, 8%

Barrel-aged:
Like a White Curtain Blowing in the Draft From a Half-Opened Window Beside a Chair on Which Nobody Sits – Wild ale aged a year in wine barrels, 6.85%

Even the Furies Wept, Blend #3 – Wild ale aged 12-32 months in Sauternes casks and wine barrels, 7%

The 12th Labor – Imperial stout aged in Bourbon barrels for 16 months, 13.9%

Abandon All Hope – Bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout aged on vanilla beans, 13.9%

Ye Who Enter Here – Bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout aged on coffee, chiles, and vanilla beans, 14%

Sykophantes d’Or – Golden Fig Sour aged in Bourbon barrels with apricots and currants, 9.5%

The Raving Ones – Native yeast Tripel aged in Bourbon barrels, 10%

The Sirens – Spontaneously fermented wild ale with green strawberries and aged in wine barrels, 5%

Noise and Flesh – Wild ale aged in wine barrels

Favorites:
Transmigration of Souls (Double IPA), 10%

Serpent Bite (Dry-hopped sour), 6%

Atalanta (Tart plum saison), 5.25%

Lyric Ale (Saison), 6.5%h

Keep up with exciting updates on Facebook.

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Like a White Curtain Blowing in the Draft From a Half-Opened Window Beside a Chair on Which Nobody Sits

White Curtain

Sometimes beer from a particular barrel really hits you. This time it was actually two barrels, and they had both previously held our spontaneously fermented green strawberry beer, Sirens. With very few exceptions, I don’t generally find single barrels to be good enough to release, but these were that good even after only about 6 months in the barrel. We gave it another 6 months and they were even better, but we still thought they’d be improved with a blend, so we found another couple barrels that we had inoculated with one of our favorite blends, Even the Furies Wept, and blended them. The resulting beer is bright and light despite its high acidity, full of stone fruit and lemon character, like a white curtain blowing in the draft from a half-opened window beside a chair on which nobody sits.

Which is quite a coincidence, because that’s also how Margaret Atwood describes Eurydice’s state of being while in Hades when Orpheus comes to get her, on the journey that was the beginning of the Orphic rebirth mythology, which is what Plato refers to when Er describes seeing Orpheus transformed in to a swan in the transmigration of his soul. And that’s why we put swan wings on all of our barrel-aged labels, to represent the transformation that happens in the wood. This is just the first time we’ll be putting Sam Parker‘s beautiful swan on a label – expect to see it on many of our upcoming small blends.

Ah, beer. We’ll be pouring this for our Year Three celebration Memorial Day weekend, and also have a limited number of bottles available during all sessions. We’ll be allocating around 100 per session, first come first serve.

Cheers
-Jason Pellett, brewmaster

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#dontlookbackOB Photo Contest

15384363_1039055859527910_4501163485972292247_oPhoto: @colin_murphy_photo

Share your favorite way to enjoy Orpheus beers and you could win one of three grand prizes from the brewery!

As our three-year anniversary quickly approaches, we have lots of exciting things happening here at Orpheus and want to hear from you! Starting Wednesday, April 19, through Wednesday, May 3, show us your #dontlookbackOB moments by snapping a photo of your favorite way to enjoy Orpheus beers (at your local pub, at home, while doing yoga, etc.) and sharing to Instagram with the hashtag #dontlookbackOB.

By participating, you will be entered to win one of the three grand prizes listed below. Winners will be selected by brewmaster Jason Pellett and announced on our social media pages on Friday, May 5.

Grand prizes:
– Private tour & tasting with Brewmaster Jason Pellett
– VIP tour passes
– Orpheus Brewing schwag pack

How to enter:
– Follow @OrpheusBrewing on Instagram
– Share a photo to Instagram of how you enjoy Orpheus beers and tag @OrpheusBrewing
– Hashtag your post #dontlookbackOB

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Transmigration of Souls

Transmigration of SoulsThe anchor of our IPA series. This was the first IPA I brewed as a homebrewer that I really liked, and in many ways, all of our IPAs are just variations on it. The original plan was for it to be just a part of a 4 IPA rotation, but it quickly became inevitable that it would become year-round. We had to improve as a brewery to get to that point though – it’s a beast to brew and puts a lot of strain on our systems. We couldn’t have done it before now. It’s a testament to the brewing team that they’ve grown to be efficient enough that we’re comfortable taking this monster year-round, so that’s what we’re doing. You’ve been asking for it, so we’re giving it to you!

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Serpent Bite

SAM_2628When we opened almost 3 years ago, 2 out of our 3 launch beers were sour: Atalanta and Serpent Bite. It seemed a little crazy at the time, but we were strongly committed to our vision of brewing the beers that we want to drink. Now we’re very excited that with Serpent Bite becoming year-round, we’re able to give you a choice of two sour beers all the time.

Serpent Bite is a dry-hopped sour, soured with our wild mother and fermented with saison yeast. We sour this one a little bit more than Atalanta and dry-hop it with Mandarina Bavaria for flavors of orange and lemon. The cans, featuring the artwork of Dosa Kim, are already heading out to stores.

Don’t look back.

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Maenads

SAM_2643We’re finally releasing bottles of Maenads Tripel. This is the first packaged batch of beer that uses the native wild yeast we isolated here that we affectionately call Maenads. I first noticed this yeast when doing spontaneous fermentation trials with a little coolship I’d bring here then ferment at home before we actually started construction. In summer 2015, when Taylor started doing a lot of lab work, we (mainly him) isolated dozens of cultures on plates, grew them all up, and eventually found the one I was looking for. We started small trials with the yeast in the tasting room (Maenads #1-#4) over the course of a few months.

I had always thought that I would avoid brewing any actual Belgian styles here at Orpheus, but #2 made me think this would be a great yeast for a Tripel, so #3 was a strong Tripel brewed with spelt. We liked that so much that we decided to ditch the “no real Belgian beers” rule, and made a version of Maenads Tripel for release last year. For a long time, Tripels have been a style that’s shown me what the art of brewing is really about – the depth, subtlety, and pleasure without any gimmicks is something that I always strive for, and drinking the great ones is always a good way to recenter my thoughts about beer. It’s very exciting to finally put our own twist, with our own yeast, into bottles for you. The bottles feature Sanithna Phansavanh‘s representation of the transformation of a Maenad into a tree.

-Jason Pellett
Brewmaster/president

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Don’t Look Back: Beyond the Zero

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Update 7/24: We’re really excited for our July 29 concert, which features spectacular soprano, Margot Rood, along with Chamber Cartel Artistic Director, Caleb Herron, presenting an intimate evening of music for Soprano and Percussion featuring works by Anthony Donofrio, Griffin Candey, Rick Burkhardt, Heather Gilligan, and Tan Dun. Doors open at 7:45 pm.

“Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation.” -Wernher Von Braun We’re very excited to present Don’t Look Back: Beyond the Zero, a contemporary music concert series with critically acclaimed local chamber music group, Chamber Cartel. Curated by Caleb Herron, this series seeks to find what’s beyond the known through contemporary music. All concerts are Saturday at 8:00 for $20+tax/fees and include our normal tour and beer tasting. Tickets are currently available through freshtix.

February 11 Dmaathen by Iannis Xenakis Lexicon by Marcos Balter Okanagon by Giacinto Scelsi Ciel Etoile by Kaija Saariaho The Avoidance of a Word by Scott Steele Everything is Sexual by Aaron Jay Myers Melancholia by Anthony Donofrio (world premiere)

April 22 Strange and Sacred Noise by John Luther Adams

July 1 Mouthpiece: Segment of the Fourth Letter by Erin Gee Trio Fluido by Helmut Lachenmann Tongues by Jason Eckardt

July 29 Silk Road by Tan Dun, and more

September 23 Pleiades by Iannis Xenakis

October 21 The Fifty Year Sword by Mark Z. Danielewski

From curator Caleb Herron: Since time immemorial man has wondered what is beyond. What is next, what is inside us, what is out there. We have sought answer to all facets of this question in Art, Science, and other subjects. Music is no different especially in these turbulent times from the late 20th century until today. The music presented through Beyond the Zero has tapped into something else. Something beyond empirical evidence of our everyday lives. Something that is not describable in words. By going beyond ourselves and through ourselves we then find what is beyond the zero; the infinite, the ineffable. We invite you to listen to what can’t be put into words; beauty, imagination, wonder, timeless time.

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