Wildflower Brewing & Blending - Winter

Winter is a seasonal ale brewed with homemade shoyu kasu and foraged saffron milkcap mushrooms. Made in April 23 mashing regenerative organic heritage Schooner barley and regenerative organic Beaufort soft red wheat grown by @organically_greenwood in Coleambally, NSW, malted by @voyager_craft_malt in Whitton, NSW in our wooden ex-Foudre mashtun over a bed of wheat stalks. This 70% Vienna malt grist was filtered through this straw lattice to our copper and boiled in the 3,000 litre pure-copper kettle made by @burnswelding in Griffith, NSW while being hopped with NSW-grown Fuggle whole cone hops grown by @ryefield_hops in Bemboka, NSW. This sugar-laden, bitter wort was knocked out and further filtered through more whole cone hops and saffron milkcap mushrooms foraged by Wildflower warehouse manager and production assistant Dan Turner. It was then cooled and inoculated with our house culture of yeast and bacteria foraged from native flowers in New South Wales and allowed to ferment at warm temperatures for a fortnight in our wide-shallow ex-dairy vessel creating less hydrostatic pressure environment for the yeast and thus higher esterification. This seasonal ale rested in stainless steel for two months before maceration on 30 kg of pressed shoyu kasu (soy sauce lees) from an amino sauce made in collaboration with friend Chef Jeff Lusis of @poly_au. Winter is the first beer made with koji we have released outside of the Collective