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Small batch special beers

I really enjoy brewing small batch special beers. I will either serve them on tap in the brewery, or bottle them – usually in champagne bottles. The bottles are individually numbered.

For these beers I will typically use the first runnings from the mash. I will collect 40 or so litres to boil and hop separately from the main brew. The first runnings are the most concentrated portion of the wort, and have the most intense flavour. Sometimes I will also blend in portions of aged beer.

I also like to use brettnomyces and/or wild yeasts for these beers as they bring complex and sometimes quite striking fermentation flavours to the beers. Some of the cultures I use I have had for 15 years or so. The use of these yeasts also looks back to quite old brewing traditions.

I currently have three projects underway.

  1. Brettanomyces stout – again a first runnings beer which has been fermented with a mix of saccharomyces and brettanomyces. This beer has been blended with a portion of an earlier brettanomyces stout. This beer was primed and bottled earlier this year (2025) and should be available for Christmas.
  2. Barrel project – I was gifted a 100 litre oak barrel earlier this year. I filled it with a blend of various amber coloured beers of differing ages, including some stock ale of around 15 or so years. At the time of writing I have some American Pale Ale wort kit first runnings (SG 1090). The plan is to boil and hop them with aged hops and then ferment with a Belgian yeast and brettanomyces. Once that is ready I will take about 30 litres from the barrel to package up, and add this new beer back into the barrel. I hope this will be some time in late January 2026. The longer term plan is to periodically repeat this procedure increasing the average age and alcohol content of the beer in the barrel.
  3. There is about 28 litres of yet another brettanomyces stout sitting in the back corner of the brewery. I was given some small kegs of an out of date Asian Tropical Stout, I will run a trial blend to see what I get.

For the original stock ale I brewed in about 2009 or so I used Wyeast Old Ale blend 9097-PC. It’s described as an attenuative English ale yeast with a small amount of brettanomyces. I think time and repitching have led the brettanomyces to dominate.

Brettanomyces Black Number Three

This beer was released December 17, 2025. It is a blend of worts, and with time in the bottle has an average age of three years. I have fermented these worts with a mixture of saccharomyces and brettanomyces in two lineages.

Serve this beer cool, not cold – around 10 to 14 degrees Celsius depending on the time of year. As of December 2025 the carbonation was light but quite sufficient which means this beer should keep for some years to come without becoming over carbonated. Store upright in a cool dark place.

Although ready and good to drink now, this beer will benefit from extra maturation. Another two to three years is probably optimal.