While we wait on our brewery our barrel program is developing nicely. Two of our beers are nearly ready to bottle while another is ready to come out of the barrel and onto fruit. To mark out our mixed fermentation barrel aged beers as different from our conventionally fermented beers we have come up with the name Salt and Wood drawing on both the barrel aged and coastal nature of the beers.
The Salt and Wood beers won’t be canned but rather will start to come out in cork and crowned 500ml bottles. We are currently preparing for bottling by gathering the required bits of equipment to bottle these beers.

The first Salt and Wood beer to be released will be Rivage Brux Reserve, which started its life as our spring seasonal Saison before it rested in Sauvignon Blanc barrels for 5 months with a couple of strains of brettanomyces. The result is tangy , lightly funky with an underlying grapey note.

The second beer to be released will be Grand Cru our Flemish Red that has previously been released in its younger days as Baby Grand. Grand Cru has spent 9 months in cabernet blend barrels with brettanomyces , and acid producing bacteria. The result is fruity, vinious, and tart with an underlying lean malt character.

One of the exciting things about emptying barrels to bottle them is that it allows us to fill them back up again, now what to make next?