Brew News: The ElderStone Pale Ale

written by Gavin

Producing the brew of the Gods (beer) has kind of consumed me lately.  The sound of several billion yeast cells happily processing sugar to produce a delicious elixir, that perhaps has never been brewed before, never fails to tickle me pink.  So being that it had been nearly a month (gasp!) since I’d heard that lovely sound, and that I just happen to have everything needed to brew a batch of beer with me here at StoneLake Farm, I decided to brew a farm beer.  yes.  delicious.

Giselle and I decided it fitting to brew this batch outdoors.  And seeing as there were no other options, that’s what we did.  We used an independent propane burner on a picnic bench and it went swimmingly.  I would have liked to have brewed over a campfire, but as that presents a number of issues (and it happened to be raining), I decided against it.  The brew is a liberty pale ale with a couple of twists.  The first is that, due to unforeseen circumstances, our arrival at StoneLake was postponed for a week.  I did my best to keep my little vial of pale ale yeast happy but to no avail.  Three days after pitching there was nothing doing.  Meaning that through negligence I had killed my poor defenseless little yeast.  I did not realize this though until a day or two after the beer was brewed and in the primary fermenter. Luckily, our comrade and (one) owner of this lovely farm, Melinda Stone, had some champagne yeast which I immediately pitched.  This was followed by a week of vigorous fermentation that made me very happy indeed.  The second twist on this otherwise run of the mill (although delicious) pale ale is that we made sure to include our hosts’ intuition of flavor in the recipe by adding their homemade Elderberry Syrup to the mix as well as a tincture of local herbs and spices.  yes.  delicious.

As I sit writing this the brew resides next to me bubbling away.  She sends her love, as I do mine, confident that few humans have ever produced or tasted anything like her.  We’ll bottle her in a week and after a month or so of aging, she’ll be ready for action.  We hope this letter finds you well, and know that the sound of yeast at work is keeping us tickled and pink here in the woods.

Love,
Gavin Lord, Giselle Kennedy, and The Elder Stone Pale Ale.

p.s. yes. delicious.