In January/February 2016, we did our second season of spontaneous, barrel-fermented beer in the tradition of lambic. That means that we used a high percentage of unmalted wheat, did a long, complex turbid mash to achieve high levels of complex starches, hot sparge to pull as much from the grain as possible, had a long boil with aged hops, cooled overnight in our open coolships, then transferred to oak barrels where they fermented spontaneously (all wild from the environment – no pitched cultures), and have been slowly maturing ever since. We’ve actually been brewing beer like this for 3 years and never touched a single barrel, until yesterday.

We blended several of these January/February 2016 barrels and added GA blueberries and blackberries. The beer will sit on the fruit for several weeks before packaging. We should have it on tap in the tasting room in September, and a limited amount of bottles in several months. Out of respect to the Belgian lambic brewers, we won’t be calling this lambic, but it’s the first glimpse of our take on the beers that most inspires us.

Cheers
-Jason Pellett, brewmaster