Maiden Voyage: Our First Two Coolship Bottles

It’s been tough to wait, but our first two coolship beers are finally ready. Spontané and Spontané: Bramble are 100 percent spontaneously fermented wild ales that were inoculated overnight in our custom-made coolship. The open fermentation added wild yeasts and microbes from our barrel room to the beer, which were then aged in oak barrels for more than a year.

Spontaneously fermented beers take as much patience as they do work. The degree of uncertainty with the open fermentation means we never know how long it’ll take for a beer to be ready. While all the work and waiting that goes into these beers is hard, it’s absolutely worth it. The funk and depth of flavor is unmatched and since each batch will pick up a completely different set of microbes in the coolship, no beer will be the same as the last.

Our first two coolship beers are the blend of a traditional and non-traditional coolship brewing styles. The traditional style used aged hops from our brewer’s personal garden with an extra low boil and a turbid mash. The non-traditional part of the blend was made with a single-infusion, high-temperature mash and a 90 minute boil.

After boiling, the wort was transferred into our coolship in our wood cellar room. Outdoor air was blown into the room to bring the temperature down to 40°F. Over the course of eight hours, the wort was cooled from 212°F down to 70°F, and during this process, the beer picked up local microbes from the air. After cooling, the wort was transferred directly into barrels where no additional yeast is pitched — the small amount of microbes picked up in the coolship started to ferment the wort in just a couple of days. Over the course of the past year, the yeast continued to ferment and develop in a variety of barrels to add a diversity of notes.

A truly wild ale, Spontané was refermented in the bottle and has notes of stone fruit and honey to go with a strong base of barnyard funk. Our second coolship bottle available, Spontané: Bramble, was fermented on blackberries, cherries, and boysenberries, which added fresh berries and dark currants to the coolship beer’s funky flavor profile. Bottles are $18 for Spontané and $20 for Bramble Spontané with a limit of 2 of each per person.

Spontané and Spontané: Bramble are our two most exciting beer releases we’ve had so far, so of course we’re going to release them at the 2nd Annual Festival of Oak, our most exciting event so far, on October 14. Visit this page for more delicious details on the event and make sure you mark your calendars. It’s going to be an extra wild good time.