Summer Festival Beer Blends

Not content with pushing the same cart at beer festivals and simply launching new beers, we thought we think outside the box for this years events - beer blending. WTF! you might ask, and rightly so, there’s some bad combinations that I can think of off the top of my head. However, rest assured we've produced a superb blending beer (awesome on its own as well) that pairs brilliantly with a range of our beers on offer this summer.

Beer blending has been going on for ages. In eighteenth-century England, savvy drinkers ordered half-and-halfs or three threads: old, stale beer livened up with some fresh from the brewery. (Porter started out as one of these mixes.) Flemish brewers carbonate their gueuze the same way, adding a bit of new beer to a flat batch of sour lambic to wake up the old yeast. Beer aged in barrels is almost always blended because each cask ferments a little differently. Germans—lest you think them Reinheitsgebot-thumping purists—mix their beers with Coke and banana nectar – go figure.

Beer cocktails are becoming more common, but beer blends are still underground. “We want consumers to go beyond just the beer in the glass, its about experimentation and not being afraid of something different” Van Dieman Head Brewer Will Tatchell says. “Not all blends are recommended, but with our new Summer Berry Grisette we’ve developed a superb blending base”. Our craft beer is perfect straight up, but a little alchemy can go a long way, and nothing is more exciting that discovering something new…

Here are the three we'll offer up this summer:

Before we see you at Festivale or the Esk Beerfest, why not try some blends for yourself, perhaps starting here:

Belgian Strong Golden + Pilsner

Wheat + Scotch Ale (or just Scotch)

IPA + English Pale Ale

Russian Stout + Pale Ale

IPA + Rye Whiskey

Wheat + Lemonade

Brown Ale + Port

IPA + Espresso