table beers. and breads.
table beers. i've seen a little action on twitter about'm. like: some folks trying to make them a thing. or pretending they're already a thing. and i promise you: they are not! we've been making them for 5 years. and they ain't "a thing". they're delicious! they should be a thing! you should all immediately buy anything that says "table beer" on the label cuz it's likely the closest thing in the aisle to a platonic beer. after modelo. but they ain't quite there yet.
in any event, we're gonna take the liberty of calling our two way thanksgiving table beers "table beers". cuz there could hardly be anything better for your thanksgiving table. what all fatty and earthy and rich and FLAT. where's the acidity! where's the uplift! it's adorably beautiful, your casserole. and it makes my stomach actually smile. like, it grows in girth and looks kind of like a smiley face as my boxers and jeans fall down my waist a bit. it's so fucking homey and comfortable and good. but you need some brightness at the table! something to make you laugh! like, hard. so hard you burn them smiley calories right off.
*BLOOM*, the first.
the first beer we got for you thanksgiving table is *BLOOM*. as i just said. there in the title. it's so damn cool. we drove out to starved rock. and met w mark at illinois sparkling co. and grabbed a couple giant blue poly drums of his la crescent champagne grapes. and brought'm back to bungalow. and brewed up a quick half-batch of sour beer. and added the fermenting grape kiddos to the whirlpool. and sent the admixture over to our stainless tank-o. and voila!! out came our first co-ferment. *BLOOM*. part wine. part beer. all good. touch tart.
it's a beer brewed w grape must. green grape juice all over it. peachy. jammy. high acid. big summer. lovely autumn. solemn winter. only spring.
get it this lovely'n solemn autumn'n winter. for your table.
pre-orders end tonight. at midnight. but we'll have some avail next week for pickup.
*OTHER PEOPLE*, the second.
were any of you watching. or reading. when bryan and i traveled to sonoma. before all the fires? we went there to work with and visit martha stoumen and her team. that supernatural winemaker. that no-intervention winemaker, as she might instead put it. i mean: the wild embrace! the true earth wearer and wanderer! original wine. original beer. original, not unique. like socrates and his whip-smart friends who just happened to ask all the right questions to set plato up for perfect moralistic storytelling! perfectly weird and wild and natural stuff. middle brow's dreams.
so we went there. and we did that. and we talked like socrates's friends. and martha stoumen was the genius at the center of it all. the socrates. without the untimely ending. ... and as we pulled up from the airport, a truck of grapes was arriving. grapes, we'd later learn, for whom we'd take responsibility. who we'd guide to fruition. to a ... more timely... end. grapes we'd nurture into a weird-ass wine-beer beer. the second of our two co-ferments this year. the grapes: negroamaros. deep red. dark rose grapes. rich and spice-forward qua wan. almost exclusive to italy. but no no.. martha has her plot there in northern california. and she's makes a bômm wan out of'm. and she let us take a giant tote off her hands. over a thousand pounds. and so we sorted and processed them. and readied them for pressing by foot-stomping. you heard it. foot-stomping. the whole negroamaro haul. w martha and rosalind watching over us. and tim keeping records. all of them laughing at how quickly we got too tired to go on. tim coming to the rescue.
anyway. by the time the tote arrived back in chicago on a refrigerated truck, it was fermenting. almost aggro fermenting. so aggro, in fact, that we used our prepped yeast pitch on a different beer, and just knocked out a beer onto the aggro grapes. and the yeast present in them grapes just fermented the shit out of the whole solution. the whole admixture. dried it right up. and we got something way fruity. and funky. and ....... original. i mean: unique. just try to find it anywhere else in the world. you won't. but also: original. like, the way the oldens used to make drinks w alcohol in them.
*OTHER PEOPLE*. a natural wine-beer beer. zero intervention. pink funk.
order this one online too. for pickup tues or weds. limit: 3. very limited quantities available. for now, at least.
a table for 22.
hey! and did you know we also make bread?! i mean, the yeast makes the bread. like the yeast makes the beer. but we mix and haul and dump and measure and slide and plop and scrape and push and etc. we do all the other stuff. and the yeast and the heat make some beautiful lacto-fruity sourdough breads. we've gotten, like, massive attention for them. a lot of you beer fans might not even have it on your radar no. but yes. yes you should. if you're gona order beer to pickup, you might as well order some bread too. for your thanksgiving table. pick it up tues or weds. for a thurs dinner. just, you know, cut it up and put a little heat on it 5 minutes before dinner time. big hunks of it.
we like to cut our rounds into quarters. and then slice alllllmost all the way through them. standing up. 3 times. to make 4 tearable slices. warmed up w butter: hardly anything is more gratifying. especially before a sip of a lightly acidic beverage.
order these online too. but remember: the cut off is tonight at midnight.