If you’re an avid reader of our little spotlight corner, you’ll know that I am a VERY seasonally oriented imbiber. With spring time closing in (runs away to knock on every piece of wood in this brewery), we feel inspired to craft flavors and aromas of fresh blooming flowers and bright fruity characteristics reminiscent of melon, ripe berries, and light citrus. We’ll be delivering all of those hits in the forms of a new bright pale ale and and old favorite Kill Your Idles. Allow me to introduce you to Change Up #15 and Kill Your Idles: Spring Flowers!
First up, Change Up #15 marks the return of our experimentation into new hop forward and flavorful recipes. A simple grist starting with a base blend of American Pilsner and Pale Ale malts, it’s complimented with a dose of malted wheat for subtle notes of stone ground crackers for a bit complexity. Bitterness is kept restrained by only adding some Simcoe hops to the whirlpool in the kettle. It’s followed up by a hefty dose of the new age German aromatic hops, Hull Melon and Hallertau Blanc. Clocking in at a modest 5.9% abv, this is an easy drinking pale ale with notes of of melon, gooseberry and a touch of citrus zest. This is not meant to command your attention with intensity but act as a pleasant pairing to conversation and good company.
Secondly, this Friday will mark the return of Kill Your Idles: Spring Flowers! For our already out side of the box ale, we step outside even further by challenging ourselves to create all of those bright fruity characteristics that our Kill Your Idles series is know for BUT this time without adding any fruit. We take our same kettle soured ale with a touch of lactose sugar for some background sweetness, and hit it with a heavy addition of Loral and Mosaic hops instead of fruit puree. These provide delightful notes of fresh fields of flowers and acres of ripe berries, but we’re not done yet. We double down on those flavors and aromas of flowers and berries by conditioning on heaps of dried hibiscus flowers. The hibiscus also gives our ale a vibrant and springy pink color to match those can’t miss ripe berry and fresh flower inspired notes.
Speaking of Kill Your Idles, this Friday will be our first Idles of March event to celebrate this odd and uncharacteristic ale of ours. With the premier of Spring Flowers on tap and in cans, we’ll be bringing back such favorites as Undead Red, Crantastic, and Tropical. As an added boost, I’ll be tapping a very experimental cask for the evening as well. Continuing our inspiration of finding intense fruit flavors from ingredients other than the obvious, this special cask of Kill Your Idles: Spring Flowers will be blended with cold brewed coffee! Let me explain, we’re not just using any coffee. My curiosity piqued after having an eye opening experience of trying a pour over cup of unwashed and naturally sun-dried coffee for the first time from the good folks over at Pavement Coffeehouse and Roastery in Brighton. Instead of the typical chocolaty and nutty notes expected, it hits with an intense and bright berry character. After a few experiments, I’ve settled on adding some of their Jair Cubillos Natural which added notes of strawberry jam to the blend. Sounds wild, right? This might be our first time experimenting with this combination but I promise it won’t be the last. Come check it out for yourself this Friday!
Cheers!
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