NRG Announces “Four-Headed Beast” of Exclusive Beers for Snallygaster

The beer ,set to be released on August 21 according to Bluejacket, is "a funky ale that will end up being a 7% golden farmhouse-style ale, brewed with 30% wheat (a portion of which is malted and a portion unmalted), hopped with New Zealand-grown Southern Cross and Oregon-grown Horizontal hops, then fermented with a blended culture of Brettanomyces (Bruxellensis and Lambicus strains), Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces (saison ale yeast). Each of these strains was cultured and propagated in Bluejacket's lab and chosen for the promising flavors exhibited during the propagation. The strains were then blended and added, en masse, to the brewed wort."

This base beer was brewed about three weeks ago, and the brewers will likely dry-hop it after fermentation is complete. This decision will be based on the flavor development as fermentation finishes. The beer will continue to ferment and mature until mid-August. Greg Engert notes that he expects the finished brew to be dry with a complex funky, showing balanced acidity, earthy-rustic aromatics, hop-driven hints of citrus, fresh-cut flowers and spice, and a melange of green strawberry, guava and cherry pie in the nose.

A portion of this base beer has already been transferred to thre separate 60-gallon oak barrels in Bluejacket's sour barrel-aging room. Each barrel was dosed again with the aforementioned Brett-lacto-yeast culture once they were filled with the base beer and further funky fermentation has already begun for the three barrel-aged versions.

Here are the three barrels filled, with their expected flavor evolutions, courtesy of NRG:

• Grgich Hills Chardonnay, Napa Valley, California: American oak barrel-aged Chardonnay will lend bright flavors of lemon, pear, vanilla-cream, and subtle spice.
• Larkin Cabernet Franc, Napa Valley, California: Larkin's Cabernet Franc-soaked French oak barrel will impart notes of flowers, raspberry, black pepper, black cherry and forest floor to the base Snallygaster beer.
• Barboursville Octagon, Piedmont Region, Virginia: This French oak barrel–which previously housed the locally-produced Octagon Bordeaux-style blend (primarily based on Merlot)–will layer flavors of plum, cassis, tobacco and cocoa into the base Snallygaster beer. 

The brewers worked with Stephen Corrigan, their farmer at Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food and Agriculture, to harvest three interesting fruits from the new Arcadia farm grounds in Middleburg, Virginia. Over the next week, they will be incrementally adding each Arcadia-grown and harvested fruit to a specific barrel, reaching 100 pounds or so of fruit in each barrel. 

These three fruited, barrel-aged versions will have about two months of maturation before being debuted, and exclusively-served, at Snallygaster, alongside remaining kegs of the base beer previewed during DC Beer Week.