With 4 barrels left to fill, we reached out to some of our more wild brewing friends at Plan Bee Farm Brewery in Poughkeepsie, NY and Kent Falls Brewing Co. in Conneticut. Evan at Plan Bee has one of the most unique breweries around in that all of his fermentation is carried out first in a coolship, where he allows his native farm yeast to inoculate the beer, and then in oak tanks, and finally in barrels. Derek at Kent Falls is something of a wild-yeast-guru in these parts (he has runs a brewing/fermentation blog—bearflavored.com—and, somehow, finds time to write books—look for The Fermented Man out now), and his brewery at Kent Falls uses a repurposed dairy tank as a coolship to catch wild yeast for lambic-style beers.

In February our brewer Michael took two barrels in the back of his truck to Conneticut to brew with Derek. The beer was inspired by Lambic tradition and used a long, complicated, “turbid” mash process with raw wheat and buckwheat, and aged farm-grown hops in a long boil. The beer was transferred out to the coolship and cooled overnight in the freezing winter air. In the morning, we racked the with beer into our barrels and brought them back home. This very wild beer is slowing fermenting in our brewery now: we plan to make this beer with Kent Falls each year and hope to release a gueuze-like blend in a few years.

Traveling Barrel Program - Kent Falls