We’re very excited to introduce Foudreweizen, our second collaboration with Live Oak Brewing Co. in Austin, Texas! Foudreweizen is a farmhouse wheat beer fermented in an oak foudre. It was created by taking Hefeweizen wort brewed at Live Oak, moving it across town to Jester King in portable tanks, racking the wort into an oak foudre at Jester King, pitching the wort with Live Oak’s Hefeweizen yeast, then allowing it to slowly transform and mature over the course of months in the presence of native yeast and bateria alive in the walls of Jester King’s foudre.
Foudreweizen took the DNA, so to speak, of one of our absolute favorite beers in the world — Live Oak Hefeweizen — and allowed it to fundamentally transform through mixed culture fermentation with brewers yeast and native microorganisms from the Texas Hill Country. The transformation was indeed dramatic! For the first few weeks, the beer was very reminiscent of Live Oak Hefeweizen, and had a lovely clove character. But as time progressed, and native yeast and bacteria became more dominant, the beer became funky and developed barnyard aromas. After two months in the foudre, a tartness began to emerge as lactic acid producing bacteria began to convert organic compounds into organic acids. Finally, Foudreweizen continued to develop more funk and acidity as it matured in bottles, kegs, and casks during the two months prior to release.
Foudreweizen, as well as our first collaboration with Live Oak called Kollaborationsbier, was born out of a desire to take some of the best made wort or beer that we know of, and take it in interesting directions through the unpredictable beauty of mixed culture fermentation with native microorganisms. Live Oak does such a number of things extremely well, quite better than us in all honestly. So it was an honor to work with them, and have the privilege of using their skilled creations as a jumping off point for some fun and exciting fermentation experiments.
Foudreweizen was brewed on January 15, 2015 with Austin water, malted barley, malted wheat, and hops at Live Oak Brewing Co. As mentioned, it was fermented at Jester King with Live Oak’s Hefeweizen culture and a host of microorganisms in one of our oak foudres. It was packaged on March 8th, 2015 and naturally refermented in bottles, kegs, and casks prior to release. Foudreweizen is unfiltered, unpasteurized, 5.6 percent alcohol by volume, 11 IBU, 3.3 pH at the time of packaging, and has a finishing gravity of 1.004 (1 degree Plato).
Foudreweizen will be released at Jester King when our tasting room opens at 12pm on Friday, May 22nd. We’re very excited that Live Oak Founder/Owner Chip McElroy and Head Brewer Dusan Kwiatkowski will be joining us at our tasting room the afternoon of the release. It will be available by the glass, as well as to go in 750ml bottles ($14/bottle, limit 2 per customer per day). Approximately 3,000 bottles are available, and at this point, we do not anticipate Foudreweizen being available outside of Jester King’s tasting room. The label art features Chip McElroy and Head Brewer Dusan Kwiatkowski, and was created by our own Josh Cockrell.
Below are some photos from the making of Foudreweizen:
Averie Swanson and Garrett Crowell brewing the wort at Live Oak
Garrett, Dillon, and Dusan
Hefeweizen wort being brewed at Live Oak
Wort arriving at Jester King for fermentation
Dusan Kwiatkowski and Michael Steffing
Foudreweizen during fermentation
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