Everything Jester King

tried el cedro at the brewery last weekend and i liked it at first on the front end, but the cedar taste was really off-putting to me personally. would have enjoyed it a lot more without the cedar.

 

I actually didn't get a full case of El Cedro. Sam from Sunrise just wanted to mess with everyone and gave me the empty box to take the rest of my haul home in.

You're lucky - he was thinking of posting a picture of me with a full case on twitter and saying I won it and it's all gone...

 

This one didnt do it for me. I'm going to grab a few for a Chicago buddy who likes all the JK beers, but otherwise I think I'm sitting this one out. Can't love em all!

 

Hey guys, this is the thread where we post our not-full cases of El Cedro, right?

 

El Cedro surprised me. I loved it. But then again, I also like the smell of Cedar.

 

Mines full. Then again I'm buying for four.

 

Thanks. I bought one of each of the JK beers Whole Foods had, next time I'm in the area I'll probably load up. Or y'all could sell in NM and save me that 1000 mile round trip.

 

Nope. It all ours!!! Just kidding. Really though I'm sure some trading can be done.

 

I loved it. Huge aromatics of orange zest and pine. The head retention is unreal. I cooked dinner for about 15 minutes and the head on my beer was still as big as when I poured it. I can't imagine this being aged with all those hops.

 

Aren't you the same "dood" who bought a case full of Gotlandsdri-whatever... and then bragged about it here too? LOL, I so enjoy the comic relief this thread occasionally provides... . Congrats on that case, though...

 

Mwuahahhaha



I had this beer on tap in December and did not notice much cedar but got a lot of citra hops out of it. I guess the people getting more cedar out of this beer have tried the first batch. I will be on the lookout for batch 2 for the next (not actually full) case I buy.

 

El Cedro bottles being labeled the other day:



http://instagram.com/p/WNbRd8nZuj/

 

Yeah that's me.

 

Everyone gets cases of a beer here and there.. But Im the one to get shit for it, and I think I bought like 6 bottles of a release..

 

I really like Velcrow'ed better. It has a nice ring to it.

 

Idk, just makes me a tad bit upset when I meet people and I tell them I'm Azzy on the forums.. "oh you're the guy that gets everything", after they just told me they bought a case of Hellfighter, DR12, and Pumpkinator to trade.... its alright though. I believe I have mended my mistake. Plus, when you have tons of great beer to share, who doesn't want to be your friend?

 

The stars at night, are big and bright...


Via Jester King Blog: http://jesterkingbrewery.com/blog/

On Tuesday, February 26th we brewed our first 100% spontaneous batch of beer in our new coolship. It was a brewday we were looking forward to for quite a while, so we were very excited to have it happen.

Our goal is to make the most authentic spontaneously fermented beer that we can and ultimately to create blends that reflect the unique microflora of the Texas Hill Country. Eventually, we also seek to incorporate fruit into our spontaneously fermented beers to make our own versions of classic styles like Kriek and Framboise.

For our first spontaneous brew, we stayed as close to tradition as possible by conducting a turbid mash of malted barley and raw wheat, boiling for hours with aged hops, and naturally inoculating the wort by cooling it overnight in a coolship. No yeast or other organisms were pitched. Fermentation will be solely a product of the yeast and bacteria in the cool night air at our brewery, resident in our barrel room, and contained within the wood of the barrels where the beer will age.

We expect the beer we recently brewed to age anywhere from 18 months to five years depending on how it develops. In time, we plan to blend vintages from various years to make our own rendition of traditional Gueuze. We are committed to using our coolship several times each year at a minimum, so that spontaneously fermented beer becomes a major part of what we do here at Jester King. What happens from there will depend on how successful we are in making spontaneously fermented beer and our ability to harmonize our beer with the climate and environment at our brewery. So far all we know is that on a cool February night in the Texas Hill Country, our coolship successfully chilled down about 15 barrels of wort to 68 degrees Fahrenheit overnight.

Part of our inspiration to make authentic, spontaneously fermented beer is the disheartening fact that none is currently available for purchase in Texas. Some of our most pleasurable beer drinking experiences have been enjoying great, authentic Lambic and Gueuze from Belgium, but unfortunately beer from these producers is not available where we live. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) imposes very high licensing fees on in-state, out-of-state and overseas breweries (about $7K to make both “beer” and “ale”). These high fees serve to keep beer from small, artisan brewers and blenders of Lambic and Gueuze, who can easily sell all they make elsewhere without paying such exorbitant fees, out of the Texas market. The fees also make it difficult for very small breweries and nano-breweries to open in Texas. We wrote extensively on how the high licensing fees send a message that if you’re a small artisan, producer of beer that would sell less than 1,000 cases a year in Texas, you’re not welcome here. Regardless of our own efforts to brew and blend spontaneously fermented beer, we still hope that one day our laws will change and that beer from more small artisan breweries will be available in Texas.

Here are some photos and a video from our first 100% spontaneous coolship brew. We hope you enjoy them.







Our coolship prior to filling. We placed it in our barrel room and surrounded it with as much porous wood as possible to help inoculate the wort with the organisms resident in our barrel room.



The wort early on during the turbid mash had a milky-white, starchy consistency. The turbid mash produces a very complex wort of sugars, starches and proteins that provide nutrients for the yeasts and bacteria that will slowly ferment the beer over a very long period of time.

 

Bravo! I'm excited to see the good folks at Jester King doing this!

 

They did a second boil and coolship fill as well last night...

Gawd, now to wait "18 months to 5 years". They better make a lot if it's gonna take that long, lol.

 

This is awesome – they already had a small koelship I believe, they blended the results from that with some of their beer but never made a 100 % beer with it. That was what I was told by the brewer.

Does anyone know the weather conditions where they are situated – do they get real winters considering that this is Texas? How warm does it get in the summer – lambic in Belgium is quite dependant on atmospheric conditions. It needs cold to get going and warmth to thrive in the summer but not excessive one?

Either way this is quite exiting.