Herevana – # 194 – Wilderness Brewing – Wild Fire

Here we have: Wilderness Brewing – Wild Fire. I generally like the Wilderness Brewing beers, and when they’ve joined with Cell Division, beer that you don’t see in Auckland, well the temptation was too much. These don’t last long on the shelf either, and whey they’re seen they have to be purchased, there isn’t often a second chance.

So, Wilderness Brewing make the Wilderness Wild Fire in Christchurch, Canterbury, 🇳🇿 New Zealand as a Sour / Wild Beer of 5.5% ABV, this is a A connection brew with Cell Division. In New Zealand this 375ml bottle is 1.6 standard drinks of beer.

Of course there is cheese and Crackers, and some salami, and hams, and a special bonus Zucchini pickle that was made in Paeroa, never look a gift horse in the mouth, the stuff is amazing.

Note: Requires a Corkscrew, which I now have after another lap of the house.

Finally settled… The aroma is soaring, sweet and fruity, a light cider type of thing for comparison.

The clearest palest yellow beer pours into the glass, there’s plenty of carbonation but no head forms of any note, it now sits lightly popping in the glass. The aroma in the glass that very familiar dusty musty note.

And boy that’s got some character, there’s an explosion and scramble of things, a brisk and sharp bitterness, a wave of sweetness, a lingering dryness, it’s rather giddying. But it is all together and there’s no real fight or winner over the flavours and profile, it is all quite orderly and in line.

I’m really enjoying this, it might be a bit of puff about the production, and it really is quite an effort and endeavour, but the resulting beer is rather easy, even and very enjoyable to drink, made the cheese and accompaniments rather elevated and all in all I’ve had a good old time. .

The Pdubyah-o-meter rates this as a 9 on the arbitrary number scale. A beer made with a difference in mind brings a beer that is very familiar and accomplished in taste and profile, and it is rather enjoyable as an experience. It isn’t however different in other ways that makes this stand out or different from other equally well produced wild/sour ales. But I loved it.

Music: Always happy to make time for some Vinyl music, and so I’m having a bit of Liam Gallagher, Why Me? Why not.

Herevana beers are those I drink at home, I’m not at some beer festival, like, for instance, Beervana, but am just in my kitchen, usually, dining room table, sometimes, or outside, occasionally, where I can take an average picture and write in real time about the beer that I’ve invested in, both in a monetary and emotional way.

Philip himself.

A connection brew with Cell Division. The concept was to brew a beer without gas or electricity. We crushed 60kg of grain by hand, heated 400L of water over a wood fire, lautered the wort through a bed of Hay and cooled overnight in our coolship. Following that it was barrel aged for 18 months and fermented out with a mix of microbes from the coolship along with a sourdough culture (Percy)

Sour / Wild Beer

The “Wild Beer” and the “Sour Beer” are catch-all styles for any golden to amber colored beer where the implementation of a microorganism other than traditional brewer’s yeasts ensures a drier, thinner, sour and/or funkier product. Such microorganisms includes Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces. Younger versions are brighter and fruitier, while older ones possess more depth of funk and may lose more of the base style character. The base beer style becomes less relevant because the various yeast and bacteria tend to dominate the profile. They are non-traditional beer interpretations or experimentations inspired by Belgian classic sour / wild ales. The “Traditional Wild / Sour Beers” are often the result of a Mixed-Fermentation Blend of beers aged in barrels and tend to have a complex funky taste acquired from the microbial flora. Wood or barrel aging is very common in this type of beers, but not required. The “Kettle Sour Beers” or “Quick Soured Beers” are generally soured using a Kettle Souring technique in a stainless steel mash tun and have a tartness taste similar of an unsweetened yogurt.