Walt is a dry-hopped golden barrel aged Australian Wild Ale made with a 19 month old barrel of fruit-heavy Black Muscat ferment and plumcots after making Kernel Stone 2021.

In 2020 we did a number of experiments with the fruit left over after making our whole fruit 'St' beers. Generally we will age them with some aged Gold to make one of our beloved 'second use' fruit beers. However, in 2020, we realised that we had ample tank capacity to hold onto the fruit in their secondary fermentation vessels for up to a year... essentially each 'St' has its own vessel to age completely.

So after we had made some 'second use' fruit beers (many of which now get blended with the following year's cuvee of the same fruit... i.e., a second use peach beer from 2020 goes into St Abigail 2021) we decided to cast out fresh wort on top of the fruit and allow the yeast/bacteria still on that fruit to kick off fermentation. The results were really quite fascinating, ranging from elevated herbal notes on some to more acid drawn out fruit flavours on others.

The majority of these, like the second use beers that came before them, went to barrel and became components of the next year's 'St' beer. However, this Black Muscat ferment found its way to barrel and rested there for many, many months before meeting the 'second use' plumcots from Kernel Stone '21. It was at last dry-hopped before bottling to uplift the already fruit-driven nose.

This is the only one of these wort-on-washed-fruit beers that we will release from these trials nearly two years ago.

At release the nose is deep and engaging. Muscat initially, bright and heady but backed by a dark stemmed spice. Red fruits and hints of blood orange. Potpourri and violets in reserve. The palate is vinous but has lovely rose water and earthy Turkish delight. There’s lovely spice throughout the palate also melding with the cranberry and apricot back palate. A beer to appreciate, take your time.