Thomas Creek’s been on a bit of a releasing spree lately, putting out two new beers in recent weeks and getting ready to reintroduce an old favorite in a new format.
Tag Archives: saison
Freehouse labels approved, bottling begins this year
North Charleston’s Freehouse Brewery is planning to begin bottling some its beers later this year and has just received federal approval for one of its upcoming labels.
Westbrook hosting Meat Beer Fire Local
Back in April, Westbrook and Evil Twin teamed up to present Meat Beer Fire, a gathering in Georgia complete with a bevy of cooked meets, specialty brews and … well, fire. (It’s kind of self-explanatory.) The event was designed to be showcase for heritage breeds of livestock and meat. Also, there was awesome beer. And fire.
This weekend, they’re bringing that celebration back to the Palmetto State. Westbrook is hosting a local version of MBF at the brewery this Saturday, Sept. 7, from noon to 5 p.m. All the meat comes from LJ Woods Farm in Sylvania, GA, and Bradley Taylor of Revival Foods will be cooking a whole hog as well.
On the brew tip, the latest release in Westbrook’s Bearded Farmer saison series will be available on draft and in bottles for the first time. This release, dubbed “Taylor” (as in Bradley Taylor), comes in at 6.5% and is brewed with rye, Tettanger and Pride of Ringwood hops and fermented with a blend of farmhouse saison and Brett yeasts. Other special brews will be on tap as well, including the re-release of Citrus Ninja Exchange. Both Citrus Ninja and Bearded Farmer will distributed next week.
More information about the event can be found here.
Quest prepping 1st batch of pumpkin saison
My love for both pumpkin beers and saisons has been well-documented during the life of this blog. And while I’ve had plenty of both during the years, I have yet to try a combination of the two.
Fortunately, my friends at Quest know the fastest way to my heart as they announced on Thursday they had started brewing the inaugural batch of their fall seasonal Kermesse Pumpkin Saison. There aren’t a lot of details about it yet, but it’s a saison made with pumpkins, so it’s going to be awesome.
A release party will be held sometime during the week of Sept. 9.
Conquest constructs barrel room, installs new fermenters
Growth and expansion has been in the cards for Conquest for some time now, and while they’re this close to expanding their brewing capacity, the short term has left them time for smaller in-house expansions. Namely: The construction of a barrel room and the installations of two new 3 BBL plastic fermenters.
A couple of weeks ago, the crew used some spare materials around the brewery to build a modestly sized barrel room adjacent to their cooler. While not the scale of a Westbrook barrel room, it’ll still give the brewers a chance to experiment with some BA brews, with room for about a dozen or so barrels.
The room will also be the new home of Conquest’s new fermenters, each a 3 BBL plastic operation. Those fermenters will be used for smaller, more experimental batches of beer, including the brewery’s one-off Cyclops releases. The first two brews for the new fermenters will be The Finisher, Conquest’s behemoth 17.5% ABV imperial stout (which will tie up one of the fermenters for six months) and the saison I collaborated on with them. More on that later ;)
COAST releasing 1st saison
This past Saturday, June 22, was a busy one for the folks down at COAST. First off, the inaugural Pint Pedal event – where bicyclers rode from the Palmetto brewery to COAST and back again to celebrate the Pint Law – was held that day. But on top of that, COAST planned to release a brand-new beer in a style they’ve never done before commercially: the saison.
I say “planned” because according to COAST’s Facebook page, it’s hard to carry bottles on bikes. Therefore, more bottles will be released this Thursday, June 27.
Saison du Fus (pronounced “dufus”) is a 7.3% saison that is “funky, tart and dry” brewed with a helping of Brett and in conjunction with their former intern Shane (he of current Westbrook DIPA fame, I believe?).
The beer is bottle only and available at the brewery, and hopefully in other markets soon.
Westbrook releases Bearded Farmer: “Thomas”
“Thomas,” the third entry in Westbrook‘s Bearded Farmer series of saisons, was released at the brewery last week and began hitting store shelves across the state on Wednesday.
Following in the footsteps of the first two entries, Thomas is tweaked from the previous incarnation. This time around, the 7.8% ABV, 75 IBU saison is brewed with Pilsner and Munich malts; Wakatu, Motueka and Pacific Gem hops; and is fermented with a single strain of French saison yeast. Unlike Hughey and McCullough, Thomas doesn’t have any Brett in it.
Thomas is available in 750s and on draft. Greenville and Charleston already have it and it should show up in Columbia soon.
