NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas — Our third release of our collaboration with Guadalupe Brewing Company is ready to share with you.
Barrel-aged Sour Honey Wheat is a 50/50 blend of GBC’s rich, honey-forward TX Honey Ale and our crisp, wheat sour, Blondine.
Each year we plan to produce a few oak barrel’s worth of this beer. We love the collaboration, the process and we really dig the final flavor of the beer.
Barrels are half-filled with GBC Honey Ale and inoculated with our house wild yeast and bacteria culture to ferment. After 10 days the barrels are topped off with Blondine and allowed 2-3 months to ferment completely.
Release to our distributors begins today. Blend 3 yielded 25 cases and 4 kegs.
DasLokal Blend5
We are pleased to share with you our newest release from our barrel-aged TX red wine Sur Lees Series, DasLokal Blend5.
For DasLokal we barrel-age fine lees from a rotating selection of our favorite TX wines from producers we respect and are inspired by. The lees are added directly to the barrel and our 85% white wheat beer, Blondine, is added to fill the barrel. For most releases, barrel-contact is 3-4 months, after which the barrel and lees are transferred to a brite tank and blended with additional Blondine.
For this release, Blend5, the wine we selected was from Hilmy Cellars in Stonewall, TX. The inky purple Malbec lees contributed a dynamic flavor and color that added depth and complexity today but will continue to evolve in the coming years with proper storage.
Prior to packaging, we transferred the barrel to a brite tank and refilled it 3 additional times with Blondine, allowing all the flavor and color of the lees to blend deep into the beer. On the morning of packaging we then added fresh, unfermented Blondine wort to referment naturally in the bottle and keg.
DasLokal Blend5 is available in 70 cases of 750ml bottles, 12 1/6BBL ‘slim’ kegs and two half barrels at very select retailers.
Saison de Roncier
Our next release in our fruited sour saison series, Saison de Roncier will be packaged Thursday, November 2. We did a small batch of this beer 2 years ago and have been very excited about releasing a larger batch with you.
We processed this release a little differently than most of our Saison de Series to date. We had a third use port barrel from Das Lokal Blend 4.6 Reserve that still had a lingering hint of the rich port wine. We added raspberries and blackberries, favoring a higher raspberry percentage directly to the barrel and refilled barrel-aged Blondine right on top of the fruit.
First Press took roughly 2 weeks to ferment the fruit and extract the color. After which we pulled the beer out to a brite tank and refilled directly over the fruit with Blondine for the second press. Second Press took just a week, after which the two presses were blended together.
The morning of packaging fresh Blondine wort was added to the tank to complete carbonation naturally in the bottle and keg.
Only 35 cases of 500ml and 7 kegs were produced for Blend2 this year. Release in our Downtown taproom will be Nov 24 and to the greater TX area the following week.
About New Braunfels Brewing Company
New Braunfels Brewing Company is a small artisan craft brewery located in Historic Downtown New Braunfels, TX. We appreciate the freedom to express our art in whichever direction our imagination pulls us. Our beers focus on unique flavors with a slant to the contrarian. We don’t make IPAs or Pilsners, not because we don’t like to drink them but because they are someone else’s design and creatively we’ve chosen to leave it to them. Our downtown taproom, Das Lokal, is open Th 4-9. Friday 2-10, Sat 11-10 and Sun 1-7. Come #drinkoutsidethelines with us.