Grass Roots 2025 is a blend of organic ale, organic grape wine and cherry juice.

The ale was brewed with organic red wheat and organic heritage barley wholly fermented by a diversity of yeasts and bacteria collected from native flowers from NSW and blended in equal portions with organic fermented Shiraz and Grenache grape juice wines from our friends James and Sophie of Jauma Wines in the Adelaide Hills of South Australia in 2023.

These elements were then raised for 1.5 years in a single 2,200 litre foudre. In early 2025, a portion of the beverage was blended and bottled with fresh, unfermented Morello cherry juice and raw, unheated Blue Mountains Polyflora wild honey from naturally formed, bee-friendly Warré hives from Tim and Emma Malfroy and allowed to naturally condition and carbonate before release.

Made exclusively for Tasting Australia 2025 and The Collective.

Far out this beer has been fun to blend and taste. It's the first time we have a collective beer bottled in clear glass, and, well, its not surprising why... the colour here, heavily imbued with wine, is radiant. When James called to say that he had some very young wine that was exhibiting characteristics he wasn't happy with in 2023, I was more than happy to take the risk to blend it with young Gold and let it sit. Normally, I would be pretty hesitant about blending wine and beer, but this was an exception as the wine was organically grown without any additions to it of any kind and I had a hunch it would become something nice.

Over the year and a half of its maturation, we would taste it periodically and while at first the two drinks seemed to be quite out of sorts and on-top-of one another, but late last year they started to come together, posing an opportunity for this blend.

James and Sophie live on a cherry orchard and my first thought for refermentation was to use juice from their cherries to carbonate this beer at bottling. However, their harvest in 2025 was very, very small and that possibility did not present itself. So instead, we kept some free-run juice from the cherries for St Thomas this year and held it cold to halt fermentation. Once it was time for the bottling of this cuvee, we pulled it out and dosed the beer at a rate to fully carbonate the beer.

The result is a pure delight for now or later. It would be a lovely pairing with a white vermouth over ice to if you were adventurous.

The label for By and By 2025 was made by Florence (age 7) with watercolour inspired by the colour palate of Jauma wines.

750ml, ABV: 8.7%
Approximately 5.1 Standard Drinks
Bottled: Feb 2025
Best Before: Dec 2029

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Each member will receive 1 x 750ml bottle of Grass Roots 2025 as part of their membership.

We have an additional 83 x 750ml bottles available for Collective members to purchase on a first come basis from 12pm (AEDT) on Wednesday 25 June 2025. There is a 3 bottle limit per person.