Sunsets
Side Project Brewing

Collaboration with Sante Adairius Rustic Ales

Sunsets was brewed by drawing inspiration on the explorations and techniques in which Tim and I shared as homebrewers. As we did with Matrices - our Sante Adairius / Side Project collaboration brewed at their place - we wanted to reexamine lab-grade Brettanomyces strains (something that we rarely do at Side Project). We brewed a very lean, light base beer to let the Brettanomyces shine and provide the groundwork for the future blend. So, in 2017, we brewed a lager of 100% Pilsner malt which was cold-fermented with a lager strain. When it was time for a “diacetyl” rest, we racked the lager to French oak puncheons with a matrix of Brettanomyces strains.

After nearly 2 years of resting and maturing in oak, it was time to blend.

As both Side Project and Sante Adairius focus on mix-fermented saisons, Tim and I knew that once this base was mature, we would want to blend and balance the final beer with some of our best barrel-aged saisons. The lively, mature, Brettanomyces-forward hybrid was blended with one of our best barrel-aged saisons - Oude Fermier. The final blend was then bottle-conditioned with a blend of cultures from Saison Bernice and Saison du Fermier and allowed to develop for 8 months in the bottle before the release. These additions shifted the entire beer into a new saison realm for us, one which represents Side Project, represents the focus of this collaboration, yet with a beautiful touch of Tim and Sante Adairius.