Wildflower Field Work: Manuka Blossom will be available online and for tasting and take-away/collection at our cellar door from 12pm (Sydney time) on Friday 4 November.
A trial batch of our Gold fermented with yeast from a singular source, this Manuka Blossom ale was fermented wholly from the yeast and bacteria foraged from one blossom in the Southern Highlands of NSW kindly and generously collected for us by Dan McCulloch just after we started having issues with our old house culture.
This is the second in a four part series of 'Field Work' beers which are made by changing a single variable in our Gold recipe, either a single wheat varietal or single yeast source to help us better identify and thus improve on this most beloved beer.
This one was made out of function for us to not only propagate but also to track the development of one of the yeast sources that would eventually become a component of our new house culture.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about here... the tldr version of this story is that we have a house culture which ferments our beer right... like a sourdough mother... but mid-last year it (we) had some problems with some of the flavours it was making so we couldn't make beer for about four months... it was really not fun. The only way we could climb out of it was to start over essentially and build/compose a new house culture out of newly foraged flowers. It was lockdown though so we relied on the goodness of friends who live regionally to collect for us. This is the product of one of those singular microbiological gifts.
At release it has an initial strong Gold-like nose, laden with yellow and orange citrus. There’s a depth to the nose, dark spice and heady honeyed floral tones. Oak blends with resiny pollen and gentle vanilla. Seamlessly integrated palate. Tight and lively, lemon soda, lemon barley and bitter lemon. The palates flows beautifully gaining some gentle dark herbal spice. Moreish acidity and phenolic bitterness give lovely length to the beer. Savoury white nut, white chocolate flavours linger.
The base beer is brewed entirely with certified organic cereals from Chris and Sam Greenwood's farm in Coleambally NSW. Organic raw soft red Beaufort wheat and organic Schooner barley malted to a pale roast by Voyager Craft Malt. It is made with filtered Sydney water and Motueka (NZ) and Saaz (CZ) hops. Finally, it was fermented with yeasts and bacteria foraged from Manuka blossoms. It was bottled on 27 July 2022 and naturally conditioned through refermentation for 14 weeks. At bottling it was 5% ABV and 1°P (FG = 1.004 SG).
Another rather small bottling like the other November release beers... just 90 bottles online and at cellar door with small distribution to Aus stockists.
Benny once again working some quick magic on the label.
Enjoy.
