Next Friday, June 1 we are releasing The International, our first collaboration beer, at our cellar door and online store at 1pm.
The International is a collaboration ale fermented in oak barrels and hopped with Hallertau Blanc. Its recipe was designed by the Saison, Bière de Garde & Farmhouse Ale Appreciation Society Facebook Group and brewed independently at 10 breweries in 8 countries using local ingredients and individual house cultures.
Our version was brewed on February 2nd, 2018 with NSW grown malted barley and rye from Provenance malt and wheat from Voyager craft malt. It was hopped heavily with Hallertau Blanc as well as Strisselspalt and Motueka. Our house culture fermented it in six French oak barriques where it aged for just over a month. We racked it from barrel on March 13 and dry-hopped it with Hallertau Blanc. It was packaged on March 15th and allowed to mature for 3 months in bottle and keg before release. At packaging it was 5.0% ABV and 1.8 P (1.008 SG).
At release, its aroma is hop driven and punchy, showcasing the strong Hallertau Blanc dry-hop. Younger and fresher than the blends "The International" has a compact powerful palate with a firm bitterness giving wonderful structure and cleanliness.
This beer is the first in a line of more bitter beers for us. These beers will be packaged in a traditional green bottles and bear a different, brown label as they are a distinctly different focus from our more acid-forward blends. This bitter line of beers will give us room to play with and explore the flavours and fermentations of our house culture in a higher-hopped wort. As a higher hopping rate stalls the development of acid in beer, these green-bottle beers will bear similarities to clean fermentation yeast driven beers while still having lower levels of funk and acid from our house culture. They will spend less time in primary fermentation, hold higher carbonation levels than our acid beers and will all age for three months of more in bottle and keg before release. This line of beers is sort of like our table beer with higher ABV’s and changing recipes. We are super excited about them.
It has been a great joy for us to collaborate on this beer with Microbrasserie Pit Caribou, Brasserie Thiriez, American Solera, Strange Brewing, Deep Dark Wood Brewing Company, Block Three Brewing, Cloudwater Brew Co, Alefarm Brewing and Brauerei Kemker. We are overjoyed and impressed with the result and the series of bitter beers that this commences.
The International is best enjoyed when decanted off a settled natural yeast sediment at cellar temperatures (8-10°C).
-topher
