Since our last little secret rendezvous here in blogland, Astrid and The Stache have both gone to print, and Good Eye Sniper has run its course in the fermenter. This batch of Sniper is promising as ever, with a slightly lower ABV (8.3%) and a properly dank hops bill (including Citra, Sorachi Ace, Mosaic, et. al.). It will flow forth from the tap this Wednesday 10/28. We’re twelve days late of the release of “The Color Before the Sun,” but you can still consider this batch to be my celebration of Coheed’s first non-conceptual album. We have also racked our final batch of Freemang IPA, but we managed to keep that same yeast going for at least one more hurrah. The spawn of Freemang is a saison called Honeydripper, featuring an autumnal blend of honey from Bedillion’s Farm in Hickory, PA.
After Sniper, our next new tapping will be Blithe, a Belgian Strong Golden. Like Astrid, Blithe was part of our original trio of Belgians. The grain bill is slightly refined, the ABV is a tad higher (8.8%), and the hops are all Styrian Celeia in this version. We’ve prepared a small cask of Blithe (dry-hopped with Mosaic) exclusively for Caliente Pizza & Draft House in Hampton, to be tapped on Friday 11/6.
Beyond that, we have a batch of brown ale fermenting, which will eventually be spiced with a masala chai inspired blend. The base beer is so lovely that we may pull off a few kegs to serve sans spices. And later this week, we’ll drop in a new batch of Bruna, a super sexy Belgian Porter, to complete the hat trick of resurrected opening-week Belgians.
So far, the early November forecast calls for the return of Five Believers Blonde and the debut of Barley Storm, a strong dark ale that will be released in bombers. I’m also toying with the idea of a Chocolate Cream Stout, a Barleywine, and of course a Belgian Christmas Ale.
Peace.
-Steve