Tingha is a saison made with four very different ingredients from Chris and Sam Greenwood's farm just outside Coleambally, NSW. Tingha is the name of their property. We brewed this beer together with Chris and Sam in July 2020. They were keen to see the brewing process and understand better how the decisions they make in the field impacted us in the brewhouse.

For this beer, they brought with them a different wheat varietal than our normal one, Yipti. They grown this wheat mainly for Wholegrain Milling who use it in their sustainable flour range which is sold throughout Australia and makes the backbone of a great number of artisan sourdough bakeries bulk flour. It is a harder wheat than the soft red wheat we use and can lend a more steely, austere character to the beer.

Secondly they brought saltbush. They have quite a large grove of 'Oldman Saltbush' on their property which was planted as part of a government scheme many years ago as an initiative to assist the rising salt content in the groundwater in the Riverina. Rising water tables were a result of over-irrigation from flood irrigator farmers and created sections of land where cash crops would not grow. Planting arid varietals and saltbush, however, served to assist in soaking up that salt apparently. I'm not an expert in it, but basically they have a couple acres of the stuff interplanted with wattle and its a beautiful little patch that kind of has its own microclimate, kinda crazy actually. This was added into the boil.

And lastly they brought some freshly cut wheat straw, which we laid in the bottom of an open top puncheon and cast our cooled wort onto to commence fermentation. For two days, the beer fermented with straw before being racked into a neutral puncheon for six months before bottling.

This was the first beer that we fermented on straw, and followed that up with The Whole Sheaf which we made for the Carwyn Canvent calendar. There were people out there for that beer which I fear were not ready for that, whoops. That's too bad for them because Luke, Chase and I love the character straw gives and it will certainly be making a comeback. Either way, while Tingha has commonalities in the straw, the extended ageing plus a shorter contact time make for a gentler expression overall.

Its a delicious beer, tidal pool, mossy river stones and sweet grapefruit and melon on the nose. Straw characters of digestive, gin spice give great complexity. Oyster shell and nori upfront before a strong mid palate of poppy citrus. The palate is complex and evolving, constantly shifting between the familiar and new. Balanced acidity and bitterness result in a long integrated finish.

The artwork on the bottle is a photo I took of the active, humus smelling soil at the Greenwood's farm the first time I visited in April 2019. Over two years later that soil from their farm is a very important part of our beer, but none more so than this beer.