Valley Beer Vintage 2019
Year by year and season by season, we have been brewing and blending Valley Beer: a changing expression of place and time in our brewery. Before we even had our brewery set up in Beacon, we were out brewing an early version of Valley Beer. In 2016, our friends throughout the Hudson Valley let us pop in and use their breweries to make sour farmhouse ale, fill barrels, and take them away in the back of Mike's pickup truck. While some of these early barrels still haunt our facility, it’s safe to say that our processes, techniques, and Valley Beer itself has since come a long way.
Valley Beer Vintage, right out of the barrel
Valley Beer Vintage Bottle
In 2017, in our effort to create a beer that is specific to where we live, we began to source all of our ingredients from the Hudson Valley. We’ve been able to work closely with local farmers like Stone House Grain and our local maltsters at Hudson Valley Malt to help support and strengthen the agricultural backbone of our beer. We’ve dialed in Valley Beer’s recipe too: it’s now brewed only with regeneratively-grown, organic 6-row malted barley and raw hard red wheat.
Photo of Matt from Stone House Farm, Michael and Dennis from Hudson Valley Malt
Barley growing at Stone House Farm
In 2018, we expanded our sour farmhouse production to a new facility in Poughkeepsie, New York. We lovingly call it “The Nest,” and it’s where we ferment and age all of our sour farmhouse ales in a growing assortment of over 300 oak barrels. Each beer is fermented in one of two foudres, the same ones that we rehabilitated and inoculated in 2016, with the original mixed culture of yeast and bacteria that we’ve been brewing with for nearly a decade. Perhaps most importantly, this expansion has allowed us to be even more patient with Valley Beer and to mature the beer in oak for even longer: some parts of Valley Beer blends have been in barrels for over 2 years. We also expanded the Valley Beer portfolio to include new releases with each season, all of which are blended and bottled in the same season of the previous year.
“The Nest” our barrel warehouse in Poughkeepsie, NY
In 2019, we embarked on the newest chapter in the Valley Beer story and began to reserve one barrel of each seasonal release. These barrels are aged for yet another year, and when they are ready, we blend them together to create Valley Beer Vintage: an annual blend of all four seasons.
Valley Beer barrels from each season of 2019
Now, on the brink of our fourth anniversary, we are beyond excited to introduce Valley Beer Vintage 2019, which has been aging gracefully for just over a year in the bottle. It’s taken on a life of its own, at once recognizable as and wholly different from our beloved Valley Beer.
Labeling Vally Beer Vintage
Waxing Valley Beer Vintage
Naturally carbonated in 375ml bottles with a waxed crown cap, Valley Beer Vintage 2019 drinks wonderfully today, but will also find a perfect home in your bottle cellar. We hope you enjoy Valley Beer Vintage as much as we have enjoyed the time spent making it.
Valley Beer Vintage 2019
Valley Beer Vintage 2019 is a cuvée blend of all four seasons of Valley Beer 2019. A portion of each seasonal release was returned to oak to mature for another year before it was blended and bottled.
Available now for curbside pickup
$18 per 375ml bottle