I'm Adam Thomas. I'm the director of
barrel operations at MobCraft Beer.
Today, we're going to be talking about
the wild and sour program
Today we're in the wild and sour barrel room
at MobCraft Beer and here we age most of
our sour beers in wooden barrels that
you can see behind me. During the brewing
process we will do a variety of
different things to the beer. Outside on
our main brewery we have just our
standard brewing operations just like a
regular day we'll brew a beer. After that
we will kind of split off in a few
different ways. We can either ferment the
beer out in the main brewery with what
we designate as clean yeast. After that
we will bring it into this room. It could
go into a barrel, it could go into one of
our stainless steel fermenters in this
room or sometimes we will use totes to
blend with fruit before packaging.
Another option that we do is still
brewing on the main brewery, we will
transfer directly into barrels where
we will pitch a variety of microbes and
yeast to ferment in the barrel.
Now, once the beer is in the barrel we
will age it for anywhere between 3 to 18
months sometimes there's a project going
that we plan on aging for 3 years.
So there's a reason that we're aging
this beer for so long and the microbes
that are in this beer will actually
start to create different flavors over
time, produce acidity, produce what's
termed as a barnyard funk if you're
using certain strains of bacteria and
yeast and that all culminates to a really
delicious beer at the end of the day.
It's a lot of work, it's a lot of waiting
but at the end of it it's it's worth it
The reason we like to use barrels is
kind of twofold. We'll use them for a
slow oxidation process that 1) keeps
the yeast kind of active and keeps
feeding it with oxygen so doesn't
starve and die but it also 2) allows the
beer to flow in and out of the wood
being porous. That process extracts, if
it's a new barrel at it'll extract
whatever spirit or wine flavor that was
in the barrel or as we use the barrels
over and over it'll still extract oak
tannins that add complexity to the end beer.
So some beers that we have
currently in the lineup...  we have a Sour
on the Vine in our brite tank right now
that's going to be aged in barrels and
will be released this fall and once we
have fresh grapes we'll blend that with
grapes before packaging and all of our
sour beers get bottle conditioned before
they get released to market. Another
really fun one that we're working on in
the fermenter behind me that's our first
lacto ferment
so for those of you don't know lacto you
might have heard it in yogurt or you
know different cultures like that.
Lactobacillus is a bacteria so we're
we're fermenting the beer with 100%
bacteria that will be later
blended for the most recent crowdsource
winner that was Sour Cherry Candy Sour.
So that's going to be fermenting right
now probably three or four weeks once
that gets done and has enough acidity
we'll blend it with sweet cherries
for about three more weeks
and then we'll release that to market as
well. Some other projects that we're
working on... we have a golden ale that was
a three year project that I'm working on.
We'll release it probably in August the
one year aged and then we'll brew it again
and do that three times and then
hopefully have kind of a Grand Cru blend
that will be one two and three year-old
golden ale blended together kind of in
the lambis tradition. Some other
ones that we've got working on Existence
we just released that just at the end of
winter this year we've got another batch
in the barrel so we should see that
coming out towards the end of the year.
And then we have Gentlemen S-Tart Your
Engines which is another crowdsource
winter a little while ago.
That beer will be hopefully released
here in a few months and that's the
thing with these beers is you can't put
a hard date on when they'll be released.
They can be finicky and once
they're ready they're ready. One that I'm
really excited about is the Black Whale
Project that we're trying to release
this every year but it's a different
blend of dark, tart, funky stouts that
have been barrel aged. Each year is going
to be a different blend but we hope to
release a limited quantity of that
towards the end of the year as well.
Right now in the taproom you can get our
Berliner Weisse style beer that's been
aging in wine barrels for about four
months and that's called Roundabout. Now
with this today actually I'm processing
fruit for two other variants of that
beer so we'll have Roundabout Raspberry
and Roundabout Pineapple. Those should be
available in about a month but right now
you can get the base beer on tap.
Another beer that's really really close
to being done is Sour Support which is a
sour golden ale that's blended with
raspberries and ginger so that's another
fun one that should be available soon.
Come on down to MobCraft Beer in
Walker's Point and try some of our sour
beers and keep an eye out for the
limited releases we have!
you
