Tag: blending

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Spirited Brewery # 1 – Fermentery Form

This month I am going to highlight breweries in towns rich in distilled history as well as breweries, we start in Pennsylvania where Rye is king at Fermentery Form.

Slo Mo 2020 – “blended from 2 year old barrels from our Solera, and aged on cherry and blackberry purée. It tastes of bright, lush cherries, with just a touch of blackberry jam, finishing light and refreshing.”

Carménère – “a blend of 5 barrels that refermented on whole Carménère wine grapes for around 3 months. The resulting beer has a beautiful purple color, a lovely barrel aroma, and drinks like a wonderful marriage of the grape and the selected beer.”

Vieux Selection – “culmination of 3 years of careful beer preservation and maturation in oak barrels. We’ve been inspired to do much of what we do, but the tradition of Belgian Lambic. Our favorite being Geuze, the blend of 1, 2 and 3 year old barrel aged beers. While our process differs from traditional Lambic in significant ways, the inspiration still comes through in the bottle. This beer has complex layers of flavor that come from the careful selection of barrels to blend. The aroma is earthy, minerally and spicy, the taste is a balance of tart fruits, woody resinous sweetness, and pithy bitterness. While being one of the most complex beers we have ever made, it’s still easy to drink.”

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B2020

I scroll the haystack of Twitter so you don’t have to see all the crud that accumulates their because in between weird “hard” seltzer truthers and mudslinging there are gems, diamonds like…

Mark your 2020 calendars if you want to taste the end of one era and the coming of the new. From Santa Rosa to Windsor.

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Blending Season

It is that time up in Paso Robles….

From the FW Facebook page

First of all, just give me the gin barrel Helldorado now. Second, rum and gin? Wow. Those might have to be mutually exclusive. But I am anxious to hear what percentages is the latest winning blend. And more anxious as to when Firestone Walker will release it.

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Home Blending


A new little micro trend in #independent beer is the blending and mixed beers. Now New Belgium has made it super easy with guided recipes to use.

This variety box has the usual fare plus a newbie. Fat Tire Belgian White, 1554, Citradelic Tangerine IPA, Abbey, Trippel, and the all-new Cellar Blender.

This may be hit or miss but it would be a fun holiday party activity.

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Anvil & Stave

photo from AleSmith.
photo from AleSmith.

This month, AleSmith Brewing is opening Anvil & Stave: A Barrel-Aged Beer Experience inside their already open tap room. Once inside you will be able to blend your own barrel-aged beers.
Final details are not set in concrete but you be offered a menu from the vast stockpile of bourbon and other barrels and allowed to “design” a blend much like ordering a taster tray. Give me 25% of this + 30% of this + 15% of this, up to 100%.

The finished product would be handed to you from behind the bar and you would sit and enjoy. There remains the possibility that you would be able to do the actual pouring work at some point but that, of course, might require a different set of rules and procedures.

Either way, this is a great way to appreciate what the master blenders are doing. There will be trial and error which would be a good name for a blender, now that I think about it.

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Tusk & Grain

I saw the name Tusk & Grain when I was compiling last week’s LA Beer Blast (which you best be subscribed to). Confused by a name that was unfamiliar, I asked my contact about it and found out it is a Saint Archer barrel-aging project.
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T&G will be going by the creed of….”Our brewers hand select the most sought after barrels, and use only the highest quality goods in the design and execution of their vision for these beers. We hope you will enjoy the bountiful flavor, complexity, and texture in each pour.”

The first beer in the series a blend of stout and barleywine will be on tap at Blue Palms tomorrow night.

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Journey to the Center of the Barrel – Part 3

The last stop on the grand tour of Firestone-Walker that the brewery sent us humble L.A. Beer Bloggers on was in Buellton at the new in 2013, Barrelworks.

And at this stop, after another grand lunch with some really fresh and hoppy Pale 31, we had to do some (gasp!), actual work.  OK, that was bit dramatic but we did get to try our hand at blending a sour beer.

We were given four beers to play with and let loose to create our own sour masterpiece.

Blending FW

My partner-in-crime for this experiment was Craig Berry from LA Beer Blog .  We found a free spot and had to figure out how to blend the following:

Component #1 – Saison-Lil with Brett and Lacto in from an Opus One barrel

Component #2 – Saison with just Brett from a Viognier wine barrel

Component #3 – Saison with Brett and Lacto from a Viognier wine barrel

Component #4 – Bretta Weisse from a retired Union barrel

IMG_4179We then had to find our favorite by blending different percentages of each beer. Since I am a novice at this, it was a bit like playing Battleship.  Guessing which beer should be in lower amounts and which beer needed more and then having to go back and trying again.

IMG_4182We came up with five different blends and liked the last couple attempts better so we were learning fast.  But more importantly, I now know how hard it must be to do this and I have even more appreciation for “Sour” Jim who heads up the program.  To figure out which blend is best is not easy.

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