From core range to limited edition

Here, at Oriel Beer, we like to play with recipes and because of that we decided to change a little our base recipes of Oriel Blond and Oriel Dubbel.

Let’s start with the blond one because everyone likes blondes. We brewed it like the basic one with a primary fermentation of two weeks using a Belgian yeast strain. All good and nice until now. After the primary fermentation, we moved the beer into a second tank where we added Brettanomyces Bruxellensis, a spontaneous yeast, that is naturally found in the air. The strain of this wild yeast was isolated from brewery cultures of Brussels and it’s commonly found in lambic-style beers.
For the second fermentation we kept the beer for a month and then we bottled it and let it rest for three months.
With this type of yeast is all about time because it eats slowly and it will continue to eat and break down sugars long after packaging. Beers fermented in secondary with Brettanomyces will change over time, often becoming dryer and continuing to produce esters and phenols.
One famous trappist beer, Orval that is seconadary fermented with Brettanomyces is sold at the brewery aged in bottle for three years. And the taste is just wonderful.

Don’t be afraid of this kind of taste because it is normal to be slightly sour, funky and with an earthy character. Some have described it as having a “barnyard” or “wet horse blanket” flavor. Don’t laugh, is normal.
That’s how it was with the Blond so be wild, drink wild.

Let’s continue forward with our second limited edition, Dubbel Maris Otter.
For all our beers we use a base malt that is Pilsner malt and specialty malts. Well, for this beer, we changed the base malt and we went for the English Maris Otter, that has superior malting characteristics.
Maris Otter is considered a very “malty-tasting” pale base malt, which has made it a favorite among traditional cask ale brewers for decades. Using Maris Otter, brewers are able to create beers of relatively low gravity and alcoholic strength, such as “ordinary” bitters, while retaining a genuinely malty flavor profile. After its introduction, Maris Otter quickly became popular with brewers because of its low nitrogen content, excellent malting homogeneity, and good enzymatic strength, which makes it easy to malt and mash.
For our Dubbel , Maris Otter added unique flavour to the beer, that is rich and slightly nutty. After three and a half months of maturation in the bottle, all the flavour profile is enhanced so you can feel all the richness of this malt.

This two beers will be released for the first time at the Bucharest Craft Beer Festival at Verde Stop Arena, on 31st August – 2nd of September. Search for them at Berero x The Real Beer Shop booth.

Keep drinking good beer.

Cheers,
Ioana