So Much Vanilla

Tomorrow (Saturday, December 5th), we’re releasing cans of two beers! They both contain vanilla beans, but the results are completely different! One is a 10.7% ABV Imperial Stout with coconut, the other is a 5.5% ABV bright holiday pale ale with fresh citrus zest: pre-order here

Flaked (2-pack/$14) is our first Imperial Stout in cans! We took the base recipe from Timestream, but backed down ~15% on the roasted malt. From there we scaled-up our favorite stout variant combination with 200 lbs of flaked coconut (a mix of toasted and untoasted) and 2 lbs of Madagascar vanilla beans for 300 gallons of beer. It’s sweet, but not cloying. Strong, but not boozy. The adjuncts pop, but they are real (no extracts or flavorings) so it tastes a little like a Mounds bar… We’re offering it in 2-packs because we realize a beer this big isn’t something everyone needs lots of, but you are welcome to buy multiple if you do!

Single Citrus Sorbet (4-pack/$17) is a scaled-down version of Double Citrus Sorbet from earlier this year. Rather than use a DIPA base, we infused a pale ale. Still loaded with vanilla beans along with freshly zested oranges, grapefruit, lemons, and limes. The adjuncts mingle nicely with an already citrusy-vanillay base from the hops and fermentation.

Both new beers are on tap right now if you’d like a preview. For the Saturday release, we’ll have two special stout variants on tap too in celebration of Michigan State playing Ohio State (friendly rivarly between Spencer and Dave, a loyal supporter). The “green” version is inspired by a smoked mojito (with spirulina, mint, and smoked malt) the “red” version is inspired by buckeye candy (peanut butter, chocolate, and vanilla). Indoor and outdoor seating is available Friday-Sunday every week. Oh, and Saturday just also happens to be Spencer’s birthday… 

We still have 4-packs of The Dragon left from our last release, along with a few others available here. Our next can release is scheduled for 12/19: Snip Snap Max (a 9.3% version of our favorite DIPA with more hops) and Cheater Hops #15 with Strata, Simcoe, and Mosaic!

2021 Club Update

If you’ve been considering joining either the 2021 Wood Club or Sap Club, memberships are starting to run low! We’re down to just 10 (of 150) Wood Club memberships and 21 (of 125) Sap Club memberships!

For $300 the Wood Club includes 16 bottles of barrel-aged sour beer (with six months to pick-up each release), $2-off any additional bottles ordered, and travel tasting set (two exclusive Sapwood tasting glasses, a bottle opener, and something to hold it all).

For $200 the Sap Club includes 10% off all pours, cans, crowlers, and growler fills. Plus the ability to pre-order variant crowlers and can releases with extended pick-up windows. 

More details on each are on their respective order pages!

New Barrel Wearhouse

Scott and Joe spent their weekend doing some “light” demolition on our new suite. To allow us to stack barrels higher than the drop ceiling would allow! The next step is to replacing the aging and undersized HVAC system so we can adequately temperature-control the barrels.

We’ll need some new tanks and other equipment to fully take advantage of the space, but we’ll keep releasing sour beers during the transition. The last bottle release of the year is Stallion Cover on 12/26. It is a blend of 45% rye saison we aged in stainless steel, and 55% old pale sour aged in wine barrels. The name is a reference to a phrase in a knock-off version of Mike’s American Sour Beers. The “author” ran the book through a word replacement, changing for example “sour beer” to “acrid lager” and the flavor descriptor for funky Brettanomyces from “horse blanket” to “stallion cover.”

Cheers,

Mike & Scott

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