Wildflower Patronus

Please note, there is a 2 bottle limit per person. 

Patronus is a very small, limited release blend made for our friend Luke Robertson and his podcast community. The blend is only available to Patreon supporters of Luke and Dave's podcast 'Ale of a Time'. The word patreon was way too close to a Harry Potter spell, a 'patronus'. For any muggles amongst this community, a patronus is a positive force, a projection against the very things that Dementors feeds upon – hope, happiness, the desire to survive. The intention for this beer is quite the same, to be a positive, lighthearted symbol that maybe brings a smile to your face.

Patronus is a blend of beer from two barrels. The first is an 18 month old, very oaky barrel we call eta brewed in April 2016. Part of a series of beers we made in order to test a number of different yeast blends before we started, we actually didn't inoculate this barrel with anything. It came to us as a no-rinse ex-Chardonnay barrel from a very minimal intervention winemaker in Orange and we wondered if the microbes in the oak would lend flavours themselves without pitching yeast. In the end, we didn't perceive a measurable shift in the profile due to any resident microbes but it did over time pick up a broad, pronounced oak profile.

The second portion of the beer is from one of our mother barrels. For a time when our culture was younger, we brewed a specific wort called our 'Mother' wort that would assist brett and bacteria growth in the culture. These barrels became extra funky and sour which we would blend them into each batch of Gold and Amber after primary fermentation. After a few months, our house culture grew strong enough on its own and we stopped brewing and blending in these barrels. However, there are still a couple hanging around in the cellar... so we used some for this blend. On its own, it had a pronounced sharp acidity and wild nose quite distinct from any of our other beers.

The blend is 50/50 of each. It was packaged on 6 December 2017. The thought is to contrast two barrels and in time allow them to merge. By their 9th week in bottle, they have integrated well and are an interesting expression of that unification of two unique barrels in our cellar.