Blanche de Braunfels is a pale beer brewed with a modest grain bill of 6-row barley and pilsner malt. The grains were selected for fermentability and flavor-we wanted a light body and a clean finish-a beer that is truly refreshing.
What makes this beer unique is the local TX hay we add directly to the mash tun during brewday. The hay offers a crisp minerality that gives the beer a depth of flavor and a tie to the farms that inspired its creation. This technique is inspired by the white beers of Northern France, which is about as close as we get to 'brewing a style'. We also never make beers with 100% barley and almost never use late-additon hops, but that's a podcast for a different day.
For late-addition hops, we selected Crystal for the spicy and flowery notes they bring to the beer. We felt it offered an intriguing counterpoint to balance the Earthy notes of the hay, giving a balanced drinkability and refreshing finish.
The morning of packaging we added dextrose sugar to the tank and racked 100 cases of 750ml bottles, 16 1/6BBL kegs and 8 half barrel kegs. After a few weeks of sugar conversion the carbonation of the beer is now complete.
Release in our downtown taproom will be in two parts with draft Thursday, August 30 at 4pm continuing through Sunday, September 2 at 7pm and bottles on Thursday, September 20 at 4pm through Sunday, September 23 at 7pm. Please come spend your Labor Day weekend with us.
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The week following bottle release we'll be shipping Blanche de Braunfels around TX and to Louisiana with a very small amount making it to Oregon, San Diego and Florida.
Barrel-aged wheat beer refermented
with Valley Lemons and tellicherry pepper
Saison de Poivre Citron Blend2
(click here for printable product info sheet)
Our second release of our barrel-aged lemon pepper sour saison is ready to share with you.
Saison de Poivre Citron was absolutely inspired by one of the great saisons of Belgium, Saison DuPont. The yeast those Belgians use throws off flavors, among others, of white pepper and lemon. So we set out to create a beer using those influences but turning the volume up quite a bit.
We started by driving to the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas and sourcing Valley Lemons from Texas Valley Lemons. A Valley Lemon is a Meyer Lemon that has acclimated to the crazy TX weather and the resulting fruit is highly unique. Originally a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange, the citrus is low in acidity and rich in flavor. We sourced them at the very start of the season so they are slightly higher in acidity, which is perfect for our sour beer.
Once the Valley Lemons were back at the brewery we set about zesting them. About 350lbs of the lemons were zested by hand before juicing each. It required a little less than 60 man (and woman) hours to first zest and then juice each lemon by hand. But we've learned that the pulp and inner peel don't give us flavors we like so the extra work needs to be done. By zesting and juicing we only end up with the pure expression of the 420lbs of unique Valley Lemons.
The juice, barrel-aged Blondine (our wheat sour) and the zest were added directly to a fermenter and allowed to ferment the small amount of sugar in the lemons. A week prior to bottling we added fresh cracked tellicherry pepper directly to the tank and allowed the alcohol in the beer to extract flavor and aroma from them. The pepper is subtle and intended to balance the finish, not to overpower the mid palate.
The morning of bottling we added fresh, unfermented Blondine wort directly to the tank and recirculated to blend completely. 60 cases of 500ml bottles, 23 1/6BBL kegs and 2 half barrels were racked out and allowed to carbonate in the final serving vessel.
Release in our downtown taproom will be Thursday, September 20 at 4pm and will continue through Sunday, September 23 at 7pm. Distribution to Texas will begin the following week with each of our distributors outside TX being allocated a small amount.
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TX-grown rose wine blended with salty wheat beer.
(click here for printable product info sheet)
Our fourth release of Jose the Rose Gose is ready to share. Blend 1 and Blend 1.6 were both brewery-only and very small releases, with Blend2 being our first big release. Blend3 is 750 gallons and is the closest to our original vision of what Jose the Rose Gose was intended to be.
The concept for this beer was inspired by Chris Brundrette at William Chris Vineyards in Hye, TX. As one of the largest purchasers of TX grown grapes in the state, Chris was able to source some unique flavors of grapes for us. Our final blend of Rose came to 5 different grapes, some white and most red.
We brewed an 85% wheat beer at 3.8%abv fermented with our mixed culture of wild yeast and bacteria. It's tart, dry and funky. For Blend3 we blended the beer roughly 65% beer to 35% wine in stainless steel. Blend3 was the first release in which we added 15 gallons of inky red wine lees to the tank to add flavor and color during the final fermentation.
Blend2 also had some issues off-gassing sulfur from the winemaking process that wasn't an issue with Blend3.
Prior to bottling we added salt to Jose. The salinity we targeted is intended to be towards the top-end of balanced but to add to the final blend, not overpower it. For Blend3 you'll notice a slightly more pronounced salt character. On the morning of bottling we transferred fresh, unfermented wheat wort to the tank to provide natural conditioning sugars for the bottles and kegs.
Jose is bright, crisp and acidic with a distinctly pink hue. The salinity enhances the dryness and the fruity aromas of the TX grown wine. A lively carbonation fills the glass with great bubbles, head and wine aroma. With a clean, salty finish our rose gose has a great drinkability in a memorable package. Jose appeals to both artisan beer drinkers and wine lovers, particularly those that support 100% TX wine.
For Blend3 we released 160 cases of 500ml bottles, 25 slim kegs and 25 half barrel kegs.
Release in our downtown taproom will be Thursday, October 4 at 4pm and will continue through Sunday, October 7 at 7pm.
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Distribution to Texas will begin the following week with nationwide distribution soon after.
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