Get to Know: Belle

This Fall, we are releasing Belle, a wild and tart blonde ale aged in French Oak barrels with Mirabelle plums. This beer is full of fruity and floral flavors thanks to our house mixed-culture of brettanomyces and lactobacillus — and of course the bounty of whole plums brought wild, naturally occurring microbes on their skins that changed the beer’s profile as well. Although the flavor of plum is often used to describe rich red wines, Mirabelle, a small and dense variety of plum, provides a soft, summery aroma of ripe cantaloupe, peaches, papaya and honeysuckle.

This beer is a testament to why we built our brewery and tasting room out in wine country, for if we hadn’t chosen this spot in the Southern Willamette Valley, we might have never come across these fresh Mirabelle Plums.

Thanks to our neighbors at King Estate Winery, we occasionally have the opportunity to work with meticulously cared for, high quality fruit. Their biodynamic farm provided the great harvest of blueberries for our recent tart mixed-culture ale, Kind of Blue. Part of what made that beer so great was the incredible flavor and color from the berries. When our neighbors said they might have a few extra plums, we were eager to work with such high quality fruit again. We knew these plums would have an intense flavor and we wanted to find the right beer to highlight its nuances.

We looked through our cellar for barrels already aging beer that would have a light enough acidity not to overpower the plum’s flavor and fruity esters that would even enhance the tropical aromas of the fruit. We chose a small batch of barrels aging our sour blonde base that we felt complemented the fruit well. We added the plums and let the beer re-ferment and age in barrel for nine months before bottling.

If it weren’t for the combination of a great climate for plums, neighbors happy to share, and our barrels of ale ready to blend, this light and fruity beer might never have filled our glasses. Come enjoy Belle in our tasting room, look out on the Willamette Valley’s landscape, and let this bright beer take you back to Eugene’s warm and plentiful plum season.