Winter Beer

Now that we're starting to see many breweries winter seasonals we figured it would be a good time to get ours going so it's ready in time, which for Upright means mid-December. After using a new yeast on our fresh hop brew we decided to give it a go on our winter beer, in the fermenter right now. We brewed a farmhouse-style brown ale with some light spicing from cinnamon, allspice and star anise and added some cherry juice as well from our neighbors at the farmers market, Cherry Country. Next week we'll pick up some freshly emptied wine barrels from Ransom Wines and transfer the bulk of the batch into those for a short maturation period with the hope that the wine character will play nicely against the cherry flavors in the finished beer. Expect to see it on tap close to winter!

As far as other seasonal releases go we'll be blending and bottling a second batch of Billy the Mountain Old Ale soon and have just bottled a second blend of the Late Harvest, conditioning now. The Billy should be somewhat similar (but smoother overall) to the first batch with no major recipe or process changes while the Late Harvest is only similar in color and strength. This newest blend uses 4 different barrels of the Six as a base. Three of those barrels have different ingredients - chocolate syrup, Tasmanian peppercorns and long pepper. It's spicier and more tart than the original and should cellar well for years as will the Billy.