In the spirit of play and experimentation, we’ll release more new beers in 2015 than we ever have before in a single year. Three of these new releases will come in the form of new seasonal beers meant to coincide more with seasonal flavor inspirations than holidays. The first new seasonal, Spring Belle, marries our love and mastery of the Belgian-style saison with citrusy hops, roses, chamomile and elderflower.

At 6.2 ABV and 35 IBUs, Spring Belle is composed of a fairly traditional saison malt bill of our two-row base pale malt and a touch of malted wheat. Magnum and Simcoe hops are utilized for bittering while late hopping with Calypso and Lemondrop lends bright, pear/citrus notes to the beer. During whirlpooling, the time when beer rests briefly after boiling before being cooled and transferred to the fermentation cellar, our brewers infused the wort with just over 70 pounds of a blend of rose petals, chamomile and elderflower. Infusing these flowers while the wort is still hot, but not boiling mimics the extraction you would see when brewing tea that incorporates these flowers. We find that this method lends subtle floral aromas and flavors that play nicely with the spicy phenolic notes contributed by fermentation with our house Belgian yeast strain.

Spring Belle is available in six packs of 12 ounce bottles and on draft throughout our distribution footprint. Stay tuned as we share more details for future new seasonal releases.

- Jeremy Danner, Ambassador Brewer