We are excited to announce that Wildflower Too Easy: Motueka will be available at our cellar door and online (at 2pm) on 5 April 2019.
This beer is a combination of lessons learned. Too Easy is a mixed culture, barrel fermented bitter Australian Wild Ale heavily hopped with Motueka (NZ) throughout the boil, in barrel and dry-hopped before packaging. In previous attempts with hoppy beers, we have attempted these hop usage techniques individually. While The International featured a heavy dry-hopping of Hallertau Blanc... Slip, Slop, Sl*p was an exercise and attempt to understand the effects of biotransformation in mixed culture beers by hopping during fermentation. For Too Easy, I wanted to reign in on the hop volume of these individual techniques while merging their usage and stymie our house culture's souring nature by hopping the wort in barrel at the same time as pitching our yeast slurry.
It was brewed with malted barley, wheat and rye in January 2019. We hopped it across the boil and in whirlpool to 40 IBU before barrel fermenting it and dry-hopping in barrel immediately at fermentation. After a monthlong fermentation, we hopped once more and packaged it in green bottles and allowed it to condition for two months.
At release in April, the beer shows strong resinous aromas of pine and spicy herbs that are lifted and completed by sweet citrus and pear drop. The hops really shine on the palate, with mojito flavours of lime and mint upfront before more classic WF flavours of mandarin and spice. The noticeable bitterness gives the beer a clean dry finish.
The base beer is brewed entirely with New South Wales cereals: Single Origin (S.O.) Moree, NSW grown Gairdner ale malt thanks to Provenance Malt as well as S.O. malted wheat and S.O. mlated rye from Voyager Craft Malt (Riverina, NSW). It is made with filtered Sydney water and Motueka (NZ) hops. Finally, it was fermented with our house culture: brewers yeast, foraged wild yeast and naturally occurring souring bacteria native to New South Wales. It was bottled on February 2 2018 and naturally conditioned through refermentation for 8 weeks. At bottling it was 5.0% ABV, 40 IBU and 1.4°P (FG= 1.004 SG).
Like all our beers, Too Easy is best enjoyed when decanted off a settled natural yeast sediment at cellar temperatures (10-12°C).
