This beer gets a little nerdy when we dig into the details, but to put it simply: it’s a super juicy ipa with some killer white wine aromatics. It’s got grape juice, powdered grape skin (phantasm), piquette, a crazy amount of hops, and was brewed with some real great pals from Willibald outside Ottawa, Ontario.
Skip ahead if nerdy stuff bores you, because this is a bit of a long-winded ride.We recently got access to a brand new & exciting product called Phantasm. Produced out of New Zealand in fairly limited quantities, it’s a powdered Sauvignon Blanc-derivative that can be used both in hot side and dry hopping, and is very rich in thiols. Thiols, along with terpenes and esters, are responsible for some of the lovely fruity-aromatics you get in hop forward beers.You know what is also rich in thiols? Wine grapes! We were also fortunate enough to link up with the fine folks at PEI’s Carmody Cove Vineyard, and went and hand picked about 500lbs of L’Acadie grapes (plus some others that will be appearing in due time). We let these grapes undergo carbonic maceration before pressing (thanks to Sourwood Cider for their press!) and fermenting the must with wine yeast. We also produced a piquette from the remaining pomace. All of that good grapey stuff got blended in with a super pillowy ipa we made with Willibald. Lots of mash hops, a bit of late hopping with Bru-1 and H Blanc, and intensely dry hopped with Nelson, Citra, and H Blanc + phantasm.
This beer absolutely sings. Such a cool depth of grapey aroma, think big gooseberry, citrus, and tropical punch vibes.If you wanna read more in depth about crazy thiol stuff and it’s future potential in brewing, check out Scott Janish’s latest post here, he’s a lot more succinct and intelligent about this sorta thing.