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The guys at (512) Brewing shared a bottle of the soon to be released Wild Bear with us to preview last week.
Before we share our thoughts on it, here are some details about the beer. (512) filled four new, medium toast, oak barrels with the 2010 batch of Bruin (their hoppy brown) and inoculated the barrels the wild yeasts brettanomyces and pediococcus and laid them to rest for 11 months. You may recall them talking about it 11 months ago.
So of those four barrels, they have bottled two of them at this point and will release ~480 conditioned bottles in the very near future here.
YAY!
For the other two barrels, their destiny lies a few six to eight months in the future.
So here is what we thought about the Wild Bear first release:
We liked it. The aroma had completely taken on the wild brett horse-blanket-y character. It had that classic “wild” smell so much it even had hints of tart in it. The beer was lighter in color than the Bruin and only had a slight head. The flavor was great with classic brett and hints of fruit, while the mouth feel was semi-effervescent. It finished nice and dry, prepping your palate for more.
This first batch had a lot of the classic wild barrel aged flavor and characteristics going on, but was not yet tart or sour. The second release (six to eight months from now) should have more of the sour/tart thing going on.
As soon as word gets out that this beer is on shelves run, don’t walk, to get a bottle or two. Maybe open one now and put the other to bed to condition in the bottle for a while. Or do what you want, they’re your beers at that point.
