Abrikoos En Hop

For Abrikoos en Hop, we selected a single two-year old spontaneous MT barrel and fermented it on apricots for eight weeks before a light dry-hopping with Nelson Sauvin hops. It bursts with notes of stone fruit, tropical aromas, and herbaceous white wine flavors. This beer was inspired by one of the entries in our Staff Draft competition during Madison Craft Beer Week.

Yield: 139 bottles

Foeder Saison - Dry Hopped

One of our 40hL foeders (“Foeder Black”) was initially utilized as a Meerts foeder, but in October of 2017, it was converted into a fermentation vessel for beers that fill in the gaps between our Meerts and Méthode Traditionnelle programs. The 2018 “Foeder Saison” series represents the first beers to emerge from that switch, and this beer is the only unfruited and/or unblended product to be bottled from the first fill. It has a delicate mouthfeel from the use of white wheat and flaked oats, as well as a refreshing acidity and complexity from the saison strains and cultured microbes that accompanied the wild yeast already present in the walls of the foeder.

After six months of fermentation, this beer was dry-hopped with Amarillo which accentuates the fruity and earthy characteristics present in the base beer.

Yield: 564 bottles, 9 kegs

Mango-Pink Guava Meerts

After three months of fermentation in our 40hL French oak foeders, we refermented Meerts on over 2 lbs/gal of mangoes and pink guava for an additional six weeks prior to packaging.

Yield: 600 bottles, 12 kegs

Braambes en Vlier

This Forager Brewing collaboration began life as the spontaneous beer used in Glory in the Morning, a three barrel blend of different vintages of Méthode Traditionnelle (MT) beer. Prior to packaging Glory in the Morning, roughly 50 gallons was split off and transferred to a punchdown barrel where it was refermented on 2 lbs/gal of wild blackberries and a small portion of wild elderberries, both harvested in the woods of Minnesota by our friends from Forager Brewing Co. The barrel was punched down twice daily to re-submerge the fruit cap that floats to the top due to the CO2 produced during the refermentation, with the goal of increasing fruit contact with the beer. The result is a three-year spontaneous blend bursting with fruity, tannic, and subtly spicy flavors from Forager’s fruit contribution.

172 x 375mL taproom bottles will be available for on-premise consumption.

Framrood Vintage 2017

This release represents the third iteration of Framrood, our Méthode Traditionnelle (MT) blend aged on 2 lbs/gal of red raspberries from a local Wisconsin berry farm. The spontaneous barrels used in this blend were mostly 2-years old, but we also chose several 1-year old barrels, as well as a single 3-year old barrel. While blending, we aimed to build the complex flavor profile that’s become a signature of previous Framrood releases, but also sought out barrels with mellow acidity and oaky characteristics to balance the natural acid content of the fruit. The result is a conceptual continuation of prior batches that shares their vibrant fruit-forward nature and funky complexity, but also builds upon their successes by employing the blending experience gleaned from making this beer annually.

Yield: 1,667 bottles
“2017” indicates the year the beer was blended and the fruit harvest season.

Foeder Saison - Black Raspberry

One of our 40hL foeders (“Foeder Black”) was initially utilized as a Meerts foeder, but in October of 2017, it was converted into a fermentation vessel for beers that fill in the gaps between our Meerts and Méthode Traditionnelle programs. The 2018 “Foeder Saison” series represents the first beers to emerge from that switch, and this beer is the first fruited variant to be bottled from that fill. It has a delicate mouthfeel from the use of white wheat and flaked oats, as well as a refreshing acidity and complexity from the saison strains and cultured microbes that accompanied the wild yeast already present in the walls of the foeder.

After six months of fermentation, this beer was transferred onto 4 lbs/gal of the spent fruit used to make Framzwart (release coming December ‘18).  It is a misnomer to call the fruit "spent" as it imparted plenty of flavor, tannins, and color.  Additionally, the fruit carried over a portion of the Framzwart Méthode Traditionnelle beer adding additional depth to the already sophisticated saison.

Yield: 564 bottles, 9 kegs

Bière de Coupage

“Bière de Coupage” is a phrase that first shows up in French brewing texts from the 1800’s, and is used to describe the process of blending old and young beer together. Over the years, this method of making beer has taken many forms and has been utilized for a variety of reasons. One of the oldest notable examples comes from England and Ireland, where porter brewers would age a portion of their product in oak tanks until it developed vinous characteristics and reblend it back into fresh porter to add complexity. Another common example is the blending of darker sour ales around the Flanders region to control the acetic acid content and flavor profile. Perhaps the most well-known is the blending of old and young lambic in Belgium to deliver a consistent product and balance the complementary flavors present in different vintages of beer.

In recent years, “Bière de Coupage” has become synonymous with a style of beer as much as the historical method, and is most typically used to describe a blend of young, hoppy saison with older spontaneous beer. Because most lactic acid bacteria (particularly lactobacillus) is sensitive to the presence of hops in beer and will not produce acid when the IBUs are too high, the bitterness derived from hops and the complex flavors and acid profile from a mixed culture are rarely found together. One way around this is to blend a hopped beer (typically a saison) with a more mature sour beer (often a spontaneous one). This is exactly what we’ve done with our Bière de Coupage, and what others in America (Jester King, Perennial, Zebulon, American Solera/Evil Twin, Amos Browne, etc.) have been experimenting with over the past few years.

We are pleased to be part of the resurgence of this method, and are particularly excited about this one particular style of beer that it’s able to produce (and thankful we now have the barrel stock and foeder capacity to attempt it). For the blending, we began with 250 gal of our Foeder Saison and added to it a blend of four barrels of 1 year-old 100% spontaneous MT (Méthode Traditionnelle) beer, and a small portion of 3 year-old MT beer. The result has a fresh liveliness, brightness, and mild supporting bitterness from the young foeder beer, and a mature acid profile, musty oakiness, minerality, and overall flavor complexity from the old spontaneous beer. Despite being unfruited, we also get big notes of under ripe peaches, stone fruit, and a grassy earthiness. It should continue to develop for years in the bottle, and we hope you enjoy this beer as much as we do!


Yield: 1,278 bottles, 15 kegs

Release: June 8th 2018