We are excited to announce that St Phoebe 2019 will be available at our cellar door and online store (at 2pm) on 2 August 2019.
St Phoebe is an Australian Wild Ale refermented with raspberries. It is named for Chris and his wife's first daughter. Saint Phoebe was a 1st century deaconess from modern day Greece.
In 2019, the beer was made from 6 barrels of golden mixed fermentation, barrel aged beer; 1736 (10 month old Gold), 1738 (10 month old Gold), 1811 (a 10 month old barrel of our pilsner wort fermented with NSW yeast), 1602 (16 month old Gold) and 1759 (19 month old Gold) and 1833 (10 month old Gold) . On January 24 2019, 1736, 1738 and 1811 were racked onto 360kg of frozen raspberries from late in 2018 originating from Coffs Harbour, NSW near where Chriso is originally from.
The three barrels of beer were then blended into a stainless steel variable capacity tank with the raspberries and left in contact together for 11 weeks to allow for complete refermentation and maceration. On 18 April 2019, we blended in 1602, 1759 and 1833 based on the refermentation needing some aged structure. This is our preferred method to fruit referments. Overshoot the fruit rate initially, and blend to taste after the referment. It was packaged on 24 April and allowed to go through a tertiary fermentation for carbonation and conditioning for 14 weeks. At bottling it was 5.5% ABV and 1.5 P (1.006 SG). The spent raspberries were left in tank and allowed to macerate with fresh Table beer to then make Pheebs.
2019 reminds me a lot of the 2018 version. A bright berry flavour with a suitably soft acidity. Perfumey, blossom, whole fruit aromatics flowing directly to a clean, racy, bright palate reminiscent of summertime and biting into a handful of berries.
Like all our beers, St Phoebe is best enjoyed when decanted off a settled natural yeast sediment at cellar temperatures (10-12°C).
This beer, along with our other fruit re-ferment beers this year, was packaged in 375ml quarter-magnum bottles. There will be a 12 bottles per person limit to purchase online and at the cellar door. We will make around 300 bottles available online while the remaining 300 will be sold at the brewery. St Phoebe will also be lightly offered to our stockists in the country so you may see it in the wild.
-topher
