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Dubbel Merlot and Tripel Chardonnay aged in Romanian oak barrels from Liliac Winery
That was the concept that we had in mind when we started to get in touch with a lot of wineries from Romania. Being a small microbrewery doesn’t give you an advantage and we received a lot of negative answers from wineries that we had a lot of expectations of. But as in the beer field, in the wine business is also complicated, therefore we kept trying until some open minded people were interested enough in this collaboration. After a lot of emails sent and phone calls, we finally received some positive answer and we were happy about that.
We got acquainted with the wines from Liliac a while ago, besides brewing and drinking beer, we were always passionate about wines and there is a joy in our hearts to find so many good wines on the market. We tried their wines, we loved them and praying that we receive a positive answer. We got our positive answer straight for the CEO of the company, Miron Radic, a really unbiased young man that was interested in this kind of eccentric collaboration. We told our story, our plans in developing the people’s taste and perception about beer and he agreed to give us three barrels that were freshly emptied, from one of their Chardonnay wine and two from their Merlot.
The beers that we were thinking aging were of course some from our existing range, we like to have the same beer over and over again and just change something about it, so it can become totally different. We chose half of a batch of Tripel for the Chardonnay and a batch of Dubbel for the Merlot version.
We were really proud to see that the barrels are locally produced in Transylvania, made of Romanian oak and the wine was being aged for many months, depending on the wine. We brewed the beers, fermented them in the primary, then transferring to aging in the barrels. The beer was aged for six months, after that we bottled and conditioned in the bottle for a couple of more months.
For the labels we thought a lot about the design and we chose a very talented graphic designer from Iasi, Cascavalul, who captured the very essence of the beer. We wanted to go in a different direction, choosing to have a woman as a main image, a woman that is powerful, she is sensual, like a goddess. Each bottle was carefully hand labeled and waxed and finally the design was complete.
The final result was beyond our expectations, the Tripel aged in Chardonnay had velvety textures, fruitiness, peaches and pineapple, all surrounded by smoothness, a slight bitterness and vanilla, woody notes and the Dubbel aged in Merlot had notes of blueberries, plums, malt sweetness, all surrounded by smoothness, woody notes and a slight tartness in the end.
Like a breeze of the summer, like a desire hidden in all or like a walk in the forest, like a delight in the sunset, these beers are more than just craft beers, there are specially made for you, for your moments of lavishness.
Many thanks to Liliac and Cascavalul.
Keep drinking craft beer.
Cheers,
Ioana
