What began as a birthday gift took on a life of its own.
David Walker asked our brew team to create a sour cherry fermented beer for his 50th birthday. A handful was sold at a release and our customers demanded more. Behold Krieky Bones!
Krieky Bones Batch No. 5 began when Crooks and his team secured 10,000 pounds of tart Montmorency cherries from King Orchards, a family-owned farm in Central Lake, Michigan.
The pitted cherries were blended with a Flanders red-style wild ale that had already been aged for 36 months in two vertical oak foeders. This blend was co-fermented with a proprietary house brettanomyces yeast, then matured in foeders for another four months.
“We have embraced the Montmorency cherry variety because of its bright aromatics,” Barrelworks’ Master Blender Jim Crooks said. “It really jumps out of the glass.”
An ode to the classic style of Belgian Kriek made with our own unique twist.
“Krieky Bones is all about expressing this pure cherry character with a sense of style and funkiness,” said Crooks. “Batch No. 5 has all of this in spades.”
Finally, the beer was racked from the fruit, which was now blanched from the fermentation process. “It’s quite a sight to see the cherries after their color has been extracted into the beer,” Crooks said. “It shows you the power of bacterial fermentation, and how we can get all of this natural cherry quality into the beer.”
The final result is Krieky Bones Batch No. 5—a masterful wild beer with high-toned Montmorency cherry aromas, nimble flavors of pie crust and spice, and a noble touch of funk.
Krieky Bones Batch 4 and Batch 5 are very limited release beers, available online at our webstore. 6.2% ABV.
Also available our new Barrelworks bundle with six different wild ales from Barrelworks.
When rooting around our Barrelworks cellar, we found a small stash of Barrelworks beers from 2015. We intentionally cellar some of the beers we produce, knowing that our wild ales will mature for over 20 years. These beers have all been tasted for quality, and have taken on a new dimension – and you can now buy them in a bundle from our brewery.
The 2015 Barrelworks bundle of six wild ales includes:
- Peachy Bones – Wild Saison fermented with White Peaches
- Krieky Bones – Wild Ale fermented with Sour Cherries (and David Walker’s 50th birthday beer!)
- Feral Vinifera – Wild Ale Fermented with Grapes
- Agrestic – American Wild Red Ale
- Sour Opal – American Wild Ale
- Bretta Weisse – Berliner Style Wheat Beer
Bundles are very limited with only 120 available for $49.99, so purchase now before they’re gone for good.
Shop beers available on our webstore.
