A year after launching its Lost in Leith barrel aged range, the Campervan Brewery to release the first two sour beers.
The Leith-based Brewery is releasing barrel aged sour beers with the launch of the Foeder Cherry Sour and the Jasmine Brett Berliner in collaboration with local tea merchant eteaket.
Those beers have been over a year in the making and have allowed the brewers to experiment with different oak formats, wild yeasts, and bacteria. As usual with Campervan Brewery, they have added a delicate twist to the two sours to help compliment and elevate the base beers.
Foeder Cherry Sour was aged then refermented with Scottish sweet cherries and Middle Eastern mahlab (ground cherry pits). The result is a deeply sour, red wine-like beer with cherries, plums and spice note.
A spokesman said: ‘The Foeder Cherry Sour is the second beer released from our foeders and is the first beer showcasing our house souring blend. There is a great depth of flavour, featuring a cherry-forward strain of brettanoymces, as well as a balance between the acidity and perceived sweetness from Scottish sweet cherries and baking spices.’
Jasmine Brett Berliner is a 4.7% ABV Barrel Aged Berliner Weisse that was aged in Burgundian Chardonnay barrels for 10 months with a single strain of Brettanomyces. The beer was then cold steeped in Jasmine Chun Hao tea from eteaket.
The result is a sour lemon beer with a bouquet of Jasmine, pome fruit and supporting funk.
Avid tea drinker, Campervan’s brewer Patrick Smith, has always admired the work of eteaket and when the idea of aging a beer with tea came to his mind, they were an evidence for the project.
He said: ‘We’ve been fortunate to work closely with local tea experts eteaket, to produce a delicately balanced Jasmine-infused Berliner Weisse. Working with Sam Holburn has been a pleasure and with his help and knowledge we’ve produced a collaborative beer that we’re very proud of.’
About the collaboration, Erica Moore eteaket managing director and Sam Holburn, operation manager added: ‘We love a great cup of tea but we also love to experiment and innovate with our blends to create iced teas, tea cocktails & mocktails, lattes and many more tea inspired delights.
‘We source and provide the highest quality award winning leaf tea and value local ingredients just as much, which is why we jumped at the chance to collaborate with Campervan Brewery. We felt we had a shared ethos for the value in handcrafted products and championing quality ingredients.
‘The collaboration process has been exciting learning all about beer production and the testing of our different tea varieties to get us to the end result!’
Alongside those two sour beers, Campervan Brewery is also releasing the Vintage 2021 of their already classic Brett Pils. This second vintage of the Brett Pils is a blend of three barrels. This vintage is a little drier and features more oak than the June 2020 vintage.
Patrick said: ‘It’s great to be able to see how beers evolve over time as we refill barrels and let the cultures strengthen and exert different characteristics.’
The beers can be found on the Campervan Brewery Web Store and in a selection of bottle shops.
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