Estate Ale

We’re incredibly excited and proud to announce the release of our Single-Origin, 100% brewery-grown Estate Ale series. This is the culmination of a passionate project by owner & head brewer Will Tatchell that’s been progressing for just shy of three years from the Van Dieman Farm Brewery.

All the ingredients – malt, water, hops & yeast – have been grown, sourced and brewed from the brewery farm, resulting in a product that uniquely conveys a sense of origin, time, place & people - the liquid summation of “terroir.”

“This is the pinnacle of farm brewing – being able to produce a beer from entirely on-farm grown or sourced ingredients in incredibly rewarding. We’re one of only a handful of breweries in the world able to achieve this single-origin process”

The malt – a brewery grown Westminster variety sown in Spring 2015, malted by Not For Horses formerly operating in Launceston, was malted to a Pale malt specification. The water was drawn from on-farm springs, which supply a majority of our brewing requirements. The hops are of a Super Pride variety, in their 6th season, and are normally grown for a wet-hop Harvest ale at the brewery, but the 2017 harvest was anchored for use in these upcoming Estate Ales.

The yeast is what we perceive as the critical & underlying element in this Estate Ale process. Wild yeasts are inherently surrounding us, and in brewing, mixed fermentation creates what an individual beer is. We’ve successfully established a house yeast strain we’ve dubbed ‘Everton’ after isolating two Saccharomyces strains from a spontaneous capture at the brewery almost 3 years ago. A systematic process of isolation and identification ensured to establish and ultimately establish our ‘Everton” yeast, and it’s these two strains that have enabled the commencement of our Estate Ale project.

We absolutely adore the ability to control the brewing process from the ground through to the glass, and the final product is testament to this ‘ground to glass’ process.

“Most consumers would be aware of the concept of food miles. Well with beer – we’re taking it a step further! The furthest an ingredient has travelled for the creation of these beers is 435 metres”

The Estate Ales are named after owners Will & Kalie Tatchell's three sons, Edward, Oscar & Max.

• Max - Spring Saison Estate Ale; entirely brewery grown barley, hops, spring water, indigenous yeast with lemons
• Edward - Hoppy Farmhouse Estate Ale; entirely brewery grown barley, hops, spring water, indigenous yeast.
• Oscar is a 2018 upcoming release.

The Estate Ales will be launched on the 25th of November at the renowned gastronomic Tasmanian restaurant Geronimo, along with a plethora of new releases from Van Dieman in time for the festive period.

Along with the two estate ales, we’ll also be launching 4 other new beers as an early Xmas present to drinkers.

• Loquacious – Loquat Wild Ale; aged 3 years in oak barrels on Loquat fruit blended with Estate Blonde ale.
• Duchess – New World Barrel IPA; ale fermented in oak barrel fro 18 months with Brettanomyces, dry hopped with Galaxy & Enigma hops.
• Tetu – Farmhouse Grisette; Farmhouse table beer fermented in oak barrels with fresh Raspberries & Blackberries
• Hedgerow (2016) – Flanders Red Ale; a 1, 2, & 3 year blended barrel-aged sour on Hawthorn berries, Sloe berries & Rose hips

If you’re unable to attend the launch dinner, or would simply love to purchase the beers we’ve brewed, we’ll be releasing a mixed carton in time for Christmas through out website, that’ll include the releases launch at the Geronimo dinner.