Originally crafted by the renowned Seguin Moreau Cooperage in Cognac, France, this foeder was first purchased in 2005 by Mission Hill Winery. This award-winning wine producer is located in the heart of British Columbia's Okanagan Valley wine country. It was used primarily house Bordeaux Reds and the occasional Pinot Noir. In 2016, the winery switched to concrete tanks, giving us the perfect opportunity to acquire some of their foeders for fantastic beer fabrication.
This particular foeder arrived at the Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales loading dock the morning of August 8th, 2016. It was a gray stormy, foreboding day and the size of the foeder made the standard semi-truck trailer look like a toy truck. The dimensions of this beast are 84 ½ inches in height, plus a 12-inch stack on top, and 89 ½ inches in width. Once it was delicately lifted from the trailer we started spit balling possible names. Our cellarwoman Moragh, spat out the name Gertrude Stein, who was the famous 1800’s writer, poet, and playwright, and it stuck.
Foeder Gertrude Stein was then cleaned and our cellarmaster Kurt sealed off the glycol and did some minor repairs. After that it was time to fill. The first of our beers to be racked into Gertrude was our collaboration with Gigantic Brewing Company, Phuket: It’s Not That Far From Laos. This was a hoppy sour lime saison that aged for eight months in the oak before being packaged. The final beer turned out excellent, and we are only expecting Gertrude to continue developing our house funk in the future.
Once the first beer was out, it was time to reclean and then refill Gertrude with a collaboration between Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales and Stillwater Artisanal Ales, Losing Our Ledges. This beer is a sour hazy Monkish style IPA that has matured in Gertrude for a total of seven months before being racked onto hops in one of our bright tanks. This IPA is now ready to be packaged and will be available to enjoy in the coming months.
Gertrude is currently filled with Weizen Bam, a sour farmhaus wheat beer, that tends to suspend much of its yeast in transfer creating additional flavor. We are excited to watch Gertrude mature and see the developmental flavors that she creates in Weizen Bam and over the span of her long (we hope) life.
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