"Critters" is the name of our mixed fermentation project! Each release in the series is different beer or blend, and super small batch (even for us). Mostly, we fool around with "wild" yeasts like our old friend Brettanomyces (known to her friends as "Brett") coupled with some long slumbers in oak barrels, which (due to the nature of our favorite microflora*) gives us sporadic releases of Mixed Fermentation Goodness.
This page is used as an archive to provide information on bottle releases of all our lil' Critters. Keep scrollin' for more!
This page is used as an archive to provide information on bottle releases of all our lil' Critters. Keep scrollin' for more!
2019
CRITTERS 1 - Grisette with Brettanomyces and strawberry
ABV: 5.2%
Barrel: Wheat Whiskey
Tasting Notes: Dry as heck with a pinch of funkiness and a smidge of tartness and a subtle-but-noticeable note of ripe strawberry.
Release Date: 7/25/19
CRITTERS 2 - Wild red ale aged in rye barrels with Brettanomyces
ABV: 6.5%
Barrel: Rye
Tasting Notes: Lightly malty-sweet with a solid whack of bright acidity, tempered by an undercurrent of oaky vanilla
Release Date: 7/25/19
CRITTERS 3 - Grisette with Brettanomyces, blackberry, and peach
ABV: 5.2%
Barrel: Rye
Tasting Notes: Dry and tart with some fruit flavors fighting for first place with funkiness from the Brett
Release Date: 7/25/19
ABV: 5.2%
Barrel: Wheat Whiskey
Tasting Notes: Dry as heck with a pinch of funkiness and a smidge of tartness and a subtle-but-noticeable note of ripe strawberry.
Release Date: 7/25/19
CRITTERS 2 - Wild red ale aged in rye barrels with Brettanomyces
ABV: 6.5%
Barrel: Rye
Tasting Notes: Lightly malty-sweet with a solid whack of bright acidity, tempered by an undercurrent of oaky vanilla
Release Date: 7/25/19
CRITTERS 3 - Grisette with Brettanomyces, blackberry, and peach
ABV: 5.2%
Barrel: Rye
Tasting Notes: Dry and tart with some fruit flavors fighting for first place with funkiness from the Brett
Release Date: 7/25/19
2020
CRITTERS 4 - Farmhouse ale with multiple strains of Brettanomyces
ABV: 6.9%
Barrel: Red Wine
Tasting Notes: The funkiest of the bunch!
Release Date: 1/4/20
CRITTERS 5 - Saison with ginger, wildflower honey, and Brettanomyces
ABV: 4.6%
Barrel: Oak
Tasting Notes: Floral, funky, and light-bodied with aromas of honey, ginger, and the right kind of funky cheese.
Release Date: 2/7/20
CRITTERS 6 - Grisette with plums and Brettanomyces
ABV: 4.5%
Barrel: Oak
Tasting Notes: Bright acidity with lots of funk and notes of stonefruit
Release Date: 2/29/20
ABV: 6.9%
Barrel: Red Wine
Tasting Notes: The funkiest of the bunch!
Release Date: 1/4/20
CRITTERS 5 - Saison with ginger, wildflower honey, and Brettanomyces
ABV: 4.6%
Barrel: Oak
Tasting Notes: Floral, funky, and light-bodied with aromas of honey, ginger, and the right kind of funky cheese.
Release Date: 2/7/20
CRITTERS 6 - Grisette with plums and Brettanomyces
ABV: 4.5%
Barrel: Oak
Tasting Notes: Bright acidity with lots of funk and notes of stonefruit
Release Date: 2/29/20
*For those of you who are lookin' for a bit more of a "deep dive" into what makes this series so special and so near and dear to us, read on!
Basically, Brett (which is our current critter of choice, though we'll likely be branching out to other yeasts and/or bacteria later on) can eat/ferment pretty much anything, but she likes to take her sweet time doing it. And what that means is when Brett is in a beer intentionally, you'll tend to get some wonderfully dry, funky, occasionally tart flavors that you wouldn't get from "clean" beer, though it often takes months if not years for these flavors to develop. But other than timing, the problem (well, one of them) is that Brett can be... tricky to remove from any equipment once she's gotten all nice and comfy in there, which in short means that we gotta have dedicated parts, plus a lot of dedicated/separate aging space for all our Critters beers, lest we find Brett turning up in places she's not invited (which would lead to some less-than-fun consequences). Anyway, we didn't have the parts or the space until recently, so it's been but a twinkle in our collective eye until late 2018 when we finally "bit the bullet" and started making some dang ol' wild beers and now they're here!
Speaking of deep dives into wild beers, we're gonna put on our Pedant Pants for a minute here to address a question we get all the time, that being "do you have sours?" It was an easy one to answer for a while (because the answer was "no"), but this series blurs the line a whole bunch because lots and lots of people tend to conflate "wild" and "sour." There's certainly a lot of overlap, but Brett beers are a bit of a distance away from, say, mega-tart fruited kettle sours (which, due do entirely different equipment limitations, we can't make).
And while we've got our Pedant Pants on, we might as well mention the use of the word "wild." To a lot of people, that conjures up images of us harvesting yeast out of thin air like the Lambic makers of old, and haha oh man that is definitely not what we're doing. We wish we were cool enough to do shit like that. Instead, "wild" is the term that gets applied to any non-"standard" beer yeast, thus applying all that evocative imagery to a bag of tan glop that we bought from a lab. Put simply, that ain't exactly the word we would have chosen, but that seems to be what the kids are doin' these days so we might as well just go along for the ride.
Basically, Brett (which is our current critter of choice, though we'll likely be branching out to other yeasts and/or bacteria later on) can eat/ferment pretty much anything, but she likes to take her sweet time doing it. And what that means is when Brett is in a beer intentionally, you'll tend to get some wonderfully dry, funky, occasionally tart flavors that you wouldn't get from "clean" beer, though it often takes months if not years for these flavors to develop. But other than timing, the problem (well, one of them) is that Brett can be... tricky to remove from any equipment once she's gotten all nice and comfy in there, which in short means that we gotta have dedicated parts, plus a lot of dedicated/separate aging space for all our Critters beers, lest we find Brett turning up in places she's not invited (which would lead to some less-than-fun consequences). Anyway, we didn't have the parts or the space until recently, so it's been but a twinkle in our collective eye until late 2018 when we finally "bit the bullet" and started making some dang ol' wild beers and now they're here!
Speaking of deep dives into wild beers, we're gonna put on our Pedant Pants for a minute here to address a question we get all the time, that being "do you have sours?" It was an easy one to answer for a while (because the answer was "no"), but this series blurs the line a whole bunch because lots and lots of people tend to conflate "wild" and "sour." There's certainly a lot of overlap, but Brett beers are a bit of a distance away from, say, mega-tart fruited kettle sours (which, due do entirely different equipment limitations, we can't make).
And while we've got our Pedant Pants on, we might as well mention the use of the word "wild." To a lot of people, that conjures up images of us harvesting yeast out of thin air like the Lambic makers of old, and haha oh man that is definitely not what we're doing. We wish we were cool enough to do shit like that. Instead, "wild" is the term that gets applied to any non-"standard" beer yeast, thus applying all that evocative imagery to a bag of tan glop that we bought from a lab. Put simply, that ain't exactly the word we would have chosen, but that seems to be what the kids are doin' these days so we might as well just go along for the ride.