We are excited to announce that Wildflower Foggy Morning Batch #2 will be available online and for take-away/collection from 12pm (Sydney time) on Wednesday 13 May 2020.
Foggy Morning is an Australian Wild Ale made with 100% Stringy Bark smoked malt from Voyager Craft Malt, Barellan NSW.
We first released this beer in October 2019 with, I'll be honest, great trepidation. Smoked beers are generally pretty polarising and while I had a feeling the lightness our house culture brings to our beer could brighten up the generally soggy, thick smoked beer category, I was still anxious about the response. I shouldn't have been so worried. This little guy carried on so well and was an unexpected love of our regulars that I realised we needed to make it again. This time with 4 months in barrel and another 3 in bottle under its belt, it's finer with a little more finesse than the first.
In contrast to our normal operations of restraint, we looked to the icons of this style, the smoked beers from Bamburg in Germany and make this beer entirely with smoked malt instead of adding it in as a percentage of the grist. I was happy to let time in barrel and then bottle do the softening of these flavours. It was hopped to 30 IBU with Saaz hops and fermented with our house culture in stainless before ageing in barrel for 4 months. We packaged it on 2 February 2020 and allowed it to condition in bottle for 14 weeks before release. At packaging it was 1.3 P and 4.9% ABV.
This second bottling has a familiar smoked smallgoods character at the start which quickly makes way for full smoke, campfire aromas, strong as well as subdued. The palate shows its age as it is creamy with lots of Wildflower house character, fresh crusty bread, glazed ham feels and smoked cheddar. A really nice follow up on the first release exemplifying what a little extra time can do to soften the overall flavours.
Artwork for the label was water coloured by my wife Bernadette.
Like all our beers, Foggy Morning is best enjoyed when decanted off a settled natural yeast sediment at cellar temperatures (10-12°C).
