From new Braunfels:Saison de Pasteque Blend3
We're proud to share with you the next release in our fruited sour saison series, Saison de Pasteque.
Like all of the Saison de beers we produce, Mexican watermelons were cut into small chunks by hand and fermented in our open vertical barrel with aged Blondine. To enhance the watermelon flavor of Saison de Pasteque we only did two presses off the fruit, the first after 7 days and the second after 5.
After primary fermentation, both presses are blended together in a brite tank and allowed time to completely finish sugar conversion and secondary fermentation.
Watermelon is a challenging fruit to express post-fermentation and with Saison de Pasteque we sought to blend the best parts of the Blondine base wheat beer and the refreshing watermelon flavors.
The week prior to packaging we cut additional TX watermelon and allowed it a 7 day contact time with Blondine. The morning of packaging the beer was pressed off and unfermented wort was added over the 'spent' watermelon to allow it a short contact time. This was done to enhance the watermelon flavor even further by adding an additional fermentation layer to the final blend.
For our 2018 release we have 100 cases of 500ml bottles and 33 kegs available.
Release in our downtown taproom will be this weekend Thursday through Sunday.
Check out the Facebook event here:
Please put this beer in your face.
Barrel-aged amber refermented with brown sugar
and whole roasted Texas pecans
Bier No217 Blend3
Our third release of Bier No217 is ready to share with you and we've made some changes to the recipe. Blends 1 and 2 were both very small releases. The original recipe was conceived by Kelly back in 2013 while reading Dr. Sleep, the follow up to Stephen King's The Shining. Like many of our early attempts, it was long on inspiration and short on execution.
This year we decided to retool the finishing flavor to complement the oak, malt and brown sugar. Previously we had used juniper berries to contrast those flavors and the resulting beer, while interesting, lacked that 'fun to drink' component so important to us. After much deliberation and a couple failed attempts we centered in on roasted Texas pecans. They complement the caramel of the sugar, balance the oak and, surprising to us, really added a silky texture to the acid profile. In short, we really loved the sour pecan candy personality of this beer.
The beer starts as an 80/20 blend of Blondine, our sour wheat and Uber, our sour black wheat. Added to the barrel with brown sugar, the amber beer ferments and blends over 10-12 months with our house wild yeast and bacteria culture into a completely new beer.
Prior to bottling we racked each barrel over pecans we roasted ourselves. The roast was light, just enough to bring out the pecan flavor and add an earthy depth to the mouthfeel. After 10 days we added fresh, unfermented wort directly to the tank and racked out bottles and kegs today, May 30.
For our Blend3 release we have 60 cases of 500ml bottles and 16 kegs available.
Release in our downtown taproom will be the weekend of Thursday, June 14. The following week this beer will make it around TX and to our out-of-state distributors.
Please put this beer in your face.
No release date yet but it's coming
28 June 2018 Update from New Braunfels:
It is here.
Saison de Peche is created by barrel-aging our sour wheat beer, Blondine. For 2018 we were able to source fresh peaches from Vogel Orchards, operated by Jamey Vogel and his wife. The orchard had been in the Vogel family since 1951 and they are exactly the kind of people you'd expect to meet in Stonewall, just outside of Fredericksburg, TX.
The fruit was processed by tearing the flesh in half, leaving larger portions to break down slowly over the next few weeks of fermentation. The initial contact time was about a week, after which the juice was 'pressed' off the fruit and the barrel refilled. Second press was a little less than a week with a third even less than that.
We always do these multiple presses on the same fruit skins to extract the full flavor and sugar content of the fruit. Also because each of the 3 has a distinct and unique quality to contribute to the final blend. The first press is always all fruit and not much complexity, the final press is all funk and fruit tannin while the second is somewhere in-between.
The morning of packaging fresh, unfermented wort was added to the brite tank and recirculated to allow even distribution of the available sugars. 500ml bottles and slim kegs were filled directly from the tank and are currently conditioning before release.
Release in our downtown taproom will begin Thursday, July 5 at 4pm and will continue through Sunday, July 8 at 7pm.
RSVP on
The following week we'll be shipping Saison de Peche around TX and to Louisiana with a very small amount making it to Oregon and Florida.
We also have Uber sour farmhouse black wheat ale (8.4%-AbV).
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