The Nutcracker is an Australian Wild Ale refermented with sugar plums.

It mirrors and is released alongside 'The Dance of the Sour Plum Fairy' by working with different varietals of plums (of which there are heaps btw) from Thornbrook Orchard in Orange NSW. Last year for the Collective, I first worked with Angelina plums and loved the soft, but apparent sweetness these fruits lended to the beer. In 2019, we set out to explore this further by testing out some more varietals.

Sugar plums are little golf ball sized, pink skin, yellow fleshed things. Their stone is reluctant to be freed from the flesh. We picked these up alongside the white peaches in early March and had them in beer the next day. We split the fruit, removed the stone and put them in a small 300 litre stainless steel fermentation vessel. We then racked on barrel #1804 of 8 month old Gold from Blend #23. The two were left to macerate and referment together for 3 months until packaging in early June.

This beer has a lot of Kernel Stone vibes for me. It has a super soft mouthfeel and plum flavour, which is more enhanced as the beer opens and warms up. It is fleshy but not jammy, very elegant. I tasted this with my wife Benny and she said it was a very comforting beer - not overpowering and slightly sweet but in a balanced moreish way. I cannot fault that. I would expect this beer to age quite well for 6-12 months.

I really like this varietal and will look to, if possible, work with it in the future again. The subtlety marries well with the focus of this brewery.

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We have an additional 100 bottles for Collective members to purchase. We have set the bottle limit at 2 per member from now until this Sunday and this beer will be sold on a first come basis. At 4pm Sydney time on Sunday 6 October, we will release any remaining bottles for purchase by Collective members with a limit to be based on availability.