St. Henry
Wildflower Brewing & Blending

"Barrel aged Australian Wild Ale refermented with apricots. It is named for Chris and Emily’s second son.

Made with both organic malted barley and raw wheat. Fermented with our house culture of brewers yeast, foraged wild yeast and naturally occurring souring bacteria from native flowers in New South Wales. After 7-19 months in barrel, it was refermented with fresh Trevatt apricots from Thornbrook Orchard in Orange, NSW.

ABV: 5.6%

Serving size: 250ml

Tasting notes: There's a wonderful purity to the nose of Henry this year. Ripe, fleshly, perfumed sweet apricots. However there’s Gold there too, citrus and spice, overshadowed but present. Intensely fragrant and lifted. Complex palate, apricot abounds, apricot skin, flesh and kernel weave in and out across the palate. Musk, citrus, fresh pineapple and spice add layers to the palate. Restrained yet lavish in its expression of apricot. Tempered acidity and fine oak result in a persistent finish to savour."

$12 AUD per 250ml pour at the brewery.

Dry, with oak wood lending woodsy dessicant and faint vanillin. Floral and fruity, not hitting on recognizable apricot per se but definitely something from the apricot/peach family that's aged and depleted. Subdued citrus. Acetic acid. Lactic acid.

Bacterial twang is mild and it's not puckeringly sour but rather pleasant to drink.

Stupidly drinkable with obvious microfloral and bacterial intricacy.

Another lovely sour ale from a brewery that only two beers in I'm prepared to declare possibly the best in Australia.

B / GOOD

750ml bottle at the bottle share part of the Manchester Home Brewers meeting for February at Cafe Beermoth
light in colour fragrance and flavour slightly sour nippy honey and very enjoyable

A 375ml bottle, 2020 vintage, packaged in June 2020, with a best before date of June 2025. Poured into a 3 Fonteinen stemmed glass.

Appearance: A hazy golden straw yellow colour with a one finger white head that dissipated fairly quickly while leaving some lacing.

Aroma: Lightly tart, apricot sour gummy candy, honey, green apple, oak, light funk.

Taste: Sweet and tart, apricot sour gummy candy, honey, woody, light funk.

Mouthfeel: Light bodied with moderate carbonation.

Overall: Enjoyable fruity apricot gummy candy flavours. Would be interesting if there was even more funk.

 

2019 white peach edition, the fruit has changed in this from batch to batch, they should probably be all listed separately here. this is a stunned, as good as all of their beers have been in my experience. super mature, fully wild, even lambic-esque, and with the right amount of fruit to define it without trumping the fermentation profile, ripe and real and rare and fancy to me, i am thankful to have had this so generously shared with me as part of one of the meals of my life this week, literally insane, life is good! its pale and a little cloudy but we take no precautions to keep the dregs in the little bottle. this smells like summer, honey, eden, just natural perfection, fermentation driven, but true to white peach specifically, no "orchard fruit" here, this is white peach through and through, just in the nose, and for such a mild fruit, i think thats amazing. its so cool with the yeast too, bretty more than sour by a mile, but both tang and funk are present, carbonation pushes it along almost too fast to fully appreciate, so i try to slow it down and let it warm up, but this is a beer that seems to want to drink, and sharing a little bottle just isnt working for me, i straight up need more of it, selfish as that sounds, im biologically in need of a bigger pour! the peach drips from this, the ferment is epic, and overall the beer is super tasty and different. these guys have made a name for themselves pretty quick it seems, but rightfully so. this is a treasure, and perfectly suited to coursed out heady fish!

 

375 ml bottle, packaged 02/03/18, $16 and some change.

Pours a hazy straw gold with a finger of foam that does shrink but not quickly and not all the way. Lacing is left behind.

Apricot sourness up front, funky like a monkey, barrel gives some woody notes.

Apricot dominates, light funk in the taste. Woody, mildly acetic, I've had Lambics that would be happy with this.

Low side of medium bodied, not overly carbonated.

Some of this brewery's beers appeared today at Liquor Shed in Casper and if this is any indication of their quality, I'm stoked!