Beer – #673 – Wild Beer – Sourdough *Redux*
I had this not so long ago, when I thought it was interesting but not show stopping and this week it is the BeerJerk NZ beer of the week, so I get a 2nd chance. So I’m going with Natural beer, natural music, natural numbers and naturally.
Beer and Bread ..the magic of yeast.. we decided to combine the two.
This is a 330ml bottle, and the beer is 3.6%ABV, that would be 108 calories in the serve, and it is .97 of a drink unit.
Brewed by Wild Beer in the style that is Sour/Wild Ale and they are in the fine town of Shepton Mallet, England
Beer and Bread have been showing off the magic of yeast for thousands of years, we decided to combine the two.
The old and the new, contemporary ideas and historical techniques and ingredients, a very special beer that combines all these things and more.
Same Beer different day
6 months before we even had a brewery we started talking to Tom Herbert about the Hobbs House Bakery’s 58 year old Sourdough yeast, and whether we could use it to ferment a beer. Tom was excited, we were excited!
After a year of trials (each trial took a really long time to develop) we decided to loosely base the beer on a Berliner Weisse style – a historical Sour beer style from Northern Germany, but with a Wild Beer slant to it.
We have used the 58 year old sourdough culture and a little brettanomyces and put the beer straight into oak barrels for its primary fermentation.
It has been slowly fermenting, maturing and souring for 4 months in the barrels and will continue to evolve and develop in the bottle.
There is a lovely gentle rounded fruity sourness to this beer. It isn’t harsh, and its low alcohol makes it the perfect brunch beer to enjoy with smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on some Hobbs House Bakery Sourdough.
Serve chilled.
So, what could possibly go wrong? Going to make the same joke about always being chilled.
Sour, like an apple cider sour aroma on opening.
Pretty as a picture pour, hazy pale yellow.
Aroma in the glass much much softer, that nice head though disappears in a thrice, leaving a drink that could pass for champagne with a juice in it perhaps. It would indeed made a nice brunch beer on looks alone.
Sharply sour, much more so than you might enjoy, which might be sour but tart.
So whilst it could be called refreshing and cleansing it does come each time as a bit of a palate shocker, fortunately the tartness is quite short and abrupt it flicks and moves away quickly. This has the benefit of you forgetting what it tasted like and going in again for another sip.
Problematically this is an end of day experience, being BeerClub and everything, and daytime drinking frowned upon midweek, there is no scrambled eggs or salmon around, and potato chips are not really cut out for the task.
I also think that this looks elegant in the tall flute, rather than a wide chalice that might be the suggestion, then again who owns a wide chalice glass?
The pdubyah-o-meter rates this as 8 of its things from the thing. I was thinking idly that for a brunch this instead of cheap champagne might work out for me, I’d rather drink this and have the experience rather than drink cheap bubbles. But it’s not often I get asked out for such a shindig.
The double dip review
- Am I enjoying it? I find myself intrigues by it and enjoying it as an experience rather than as a beer.
- Would I have another? Sour beers are something to experience and enjoy, it might not be my first pick off a list though.
- Would I share with a friend on a porch and set the world to rights? You know this is very passable as a beer to have with company, in the sun, ideally with food, where company was a thing, but light alcohol was acceptable. If that’s your thing.
Music for this : ” Foreigner ” “Acoustique “ on Spotify. Foreigner is a British-American rock band, originally formed in 1976.
SOUR/WILD ALE
Sour ale is a broad spectrum of wild ales, from the fruity and acetic Flanders Red Ales and Oud Bruins, to the experimental ales gaining popularity in the United States which use lactobacillus, brettanomyces and pediococcus in new and wild ways
A life just as ordinary 