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Live Culture: Cape Wild Ale

An old world Belgian Farmhouse ale, fermented in french oak and featuring flavours of spiced pear, citrus, and pineapple that finishes with a hint of fynbos.

Live Culture is a seasonal series of provisional farmhouse ales that express a deep sense of time and place.  These beers represent our terroir and seasonal brewing conditions.  We use locally harvested ingredients to represent what’s fresh.  These ales are fermented with a native mixed yeast culture, which uses wild yeast harvested from our environment. This mixed yeast culture evolves and displays different characteristics depending on the season.  Farmhouse ales are traditional Belgian ales that were brewed on the farm with whatever ingredients were available at the time.  They represent an old world and largely forgotten perspective on brewing, one that reflects seasonal ingredients and yeast expressions.  The brewer allows the ingredients and fermentation to develop in original ways rather than maintaining absolute control.

Our Spring 2017 edition undergoes a wild culture primary fermentation in a large french oak pinot barrel and then is aged in a special mixed culture tank. This blended fermentation creates fruity and funky pineapple and pear notes, spice and dry exotic flavours. We use a blend of malts that give it grassy malt undertones, wheat malt to give it a soft body and specialty oats from Simpsons Malting to lend a sweet granola middle. The fermentation flavours are rounded out by dry hopping with chardonnay-like Hallertau Blanc and woody Bravo hops. For an added bonus we also utilize late additions of local fynbos. Coastal Sage and Citronellum Pellargonium selected for us by our friends at the Cape Hope Nursery are picked fresh and contribute additional citrus and woodsy earth notes. All these flavours come together to truly represent a unique, seasonal offering.

 

Essential Info:

IBU: 15   EST. CALORIES: 201   ABV: 6.7%