Get to Know: Terroir Chardonnay

With barrels lining the walls, and wine verbiage scattered throughout our menu, it’s no surprise to us when guests are amazed to discover that we are a brewery. Being the only brewery on a highway surrounded by vineyards we’ve become accustomed to it. It makes sense that people would mistake us for our vintner cousins when our processes aren’t entirely dissimilar from the wine making process. Sometimes it seems that all we’re missing is the grapes, and sometimes we aren’t missing them at all.

We’ve been interested in the melding of beer and wine since the beginning and have released a number hybrids over the past couple years, so we are very excited to introduce another in our May release! With our hybrids , not only do we get to create something unique blurring the lines between two beverage worlds, but our hybrids also give us a great opportunity to highlight local fruit in our valley.

To continue our Terroir series —showcasing the local ingredients, climate, terrain and processes of our region— we worked with Chalice vineyards up the road at Iris to get our hands on some Chardonnay. Terroir: Chardonnay started as a blonde farmhouse ale that then underwent a second fermentation on fresh pressed Chardonnay juice from the 2017 vintage and then used 2018 vintage juice as the conditioning sugar for packaging. This beer carries notes of peach, honey and tropical fruit with subtle oak on the finish. It ends with medium acidity intertwined with a soft citrus peel note. With tons of chardonnay character, this beer pairs well with anything chardonnay would. It’ll be great for your summer dinners on the patio!

Cheers!