The Art of Blends

You may or may not remember from our early posts that the first beer we brewed on our brand new system has yet to see the light of day.  This 9% hoppy barley wine has been ageing nicely through our first year in Madiera, Rum, Tequila, Armanaq, Tequila & Brandy.  You may also have been lucky enough to try Odyssey 001 at the IMBC in October, which is to be our first blend of beers to be released shortly.   All this points, in case you hadn't noticed, to our love of big beers, experimentation and the impact of barrels and their original host flavours coming together to create complex one off beers.   Over the next few months we will release in limited quantities the first bottled examples of these.  First up will be Odyssey 001.  This started life as a beatiful 11.4% stout brewed with velvety sweet liquorice root and muscovado sugar.  Following a period of ageing in Bourbon, Banyuls and Brandy barrels for the last 6 months each barrel has imparted its character some obvious and other subtle differences.   Crafting the blend was a fun and exciting projecting but also challenging.  This was never going to be a case of throwing them all together.  It took a while before we were really happy with the quantities of each beer in the final blend and that we had created something unique.   The final blend we setttled on includes a percentage of a fresh hoppy beer from our core range which really adds a light berry jam quality to the beer.   Over the coming months look out for more information on both Odyssey 001 which will be released in special 375ml bottles and also more information on our plans to blend our anniversary ale.