Rooster's launches Saison aged 15 months
Added: Monday, February 19th 2024
It’s good to find a brewery that’s flourishing. Rooster’s of Harrogate celebrated 30 years of brewing in 2023 and has exciting plans for new beers in 2024.
One of the beers is a new version of its Sour Saison, Wild Wild Life, first launched in 2021 and aged in both Pinot Noir and Chardonnay oak barriques. The Pinot version won several awards in competitions staged by SIBA, the Society of Independent Brewers.
The new edition, launched in February, is 7 per cent ABV and it has rested in French oak barrels for 15 months. It’s a kettle sour fermented with a Belgian Saison yeast culture and is available in can and keg.
Kettle Sour means adding friendly bacteria such as lactobacillus in the copper or brew kettle: lactobacillus is also used to make products such as yoghurt.
Stuart Goddard, Rooster’s production manager, says: “I spent 15 years in the wine trade and Wild Wild Life is a beer close to my heart. The fabulous fruity, vinous notes are down to the Premier Cru Pinot Noir barrels from Burgundy in which our soured Saison slumbered for 15 months.
“It’s a beer we expect to mature well and be equally enjoyable later in the year.”
The beer is pale bronze and has a tart fruit nose of lemons, sour oranges and blackcurrants with a hint of oak. The quenching palate has sour vinous fruit, oak and light hop notes. The finish is fruity, vinous and tart, with continuing hints of oak.
Other beers from the barrel-aged project include Hello Dimitri, a Bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout, The Garden of Earthly Delights, a Pinot Noir-aged barley wine, and Sidecar Cocktail, a sour aged in brandy barrels with fresh orange and lemon peel.
