Pastiche

In the last few years, Wild Arc Farm has reinvigorated an old world style of wine known as Piquette. It's made from a second pressing of grape skins after they are soaked in water to extract more sugars. It’s a low-alcohol, fruit-forward summer sipper, and Wild Arc’s Piquettes drink like the best kind of grown-up, artisanal wine cooler we could imagine. Piquette also shares a lot with our Kinds of Light series, in which we take pressed skins from wine production and re-ferment finished beer on top of whatever sugar and flavor is left in the grapes. The end product is a bright, sparkling middle ground between our sour farmhouse ales and the wilder side of wine.

So it made perfect sense for us to bring Todd from Wild Arc over, hundreds of pounds of Marquette grape skins in tow, to collaborate. For Pastiche I, instead of re-fermenting finished beer atop grape skins, a la Kinds of Light, we open fermented our farmhouse wort directly on the grapes, and we let whatever natural yeast and bacteria present on the skins spontaneously do the work. Once fermentation was finished, the beer spent 18 months in oak before being blended and bottled.

We brought Todd back down for the brewing of Pastiche II, a Sour IPA inspired by Wild Arc's work with NYS hybrid and labrusca "fox grapes." Pastiche II is a 100% NY Sour IPA with Finger Lakes sourced Concord Grapes, local wildflower honey, and NYS grown Sterling and Saaz hops.

Pastiche I

(6%) Sour Farmhouse Ale made in collaboration with our friends at Wild Arc Farm. It was brewed with 100% locally grown barley and raw wheat, and spontaneously fermented on top of spent grape skins used in the making of Wild Arc’s Carbonic Marquette. Pastiche was aged in oak for 18 months and bottle conditioned with local wildflower honey.

Pastiche II

(7%) Collaboration with our friends at Wild Arc. Sour IPA brewed with 100% NY grain, Concord grapes & local wildflower honey; hopped with NY Sterling & Zeus.