Loosely inspired by a Belgian-style Flanders Red ale, this beer is an exercise in balancing fruit and acid with some more complex malt character. We aged our red sour base in wine barrels with bing cherries from Hood River for about a year before transferring into freshly emptied Maestro barrels (former bourbon). The American oak adds a distinct vanilla note and there’s a hint of malt sweetness from the barleywine that helps round out the beer.

One of our most complex beers - malt is usually back seat to the fruit in our blonde sour beers, but in this case it’s a prevalent part of the flavor profile. The quick (2 months) rest in bourbon barrels really smoothed out some of the sharper acid flavors to make a well rounded and balanced beer.

Barrels
Wine and bourbon

ABV
7.5%

Microbes
Saccharomyces, Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus

Availability
Distribution, Tasting Rooms, Club

Release
August 2021

Prior Vintages
2017

Platinum, SIP NW 2021, “Barrel-aged Sour” category

Bronze, Best of Craft Beer Awards 2018, "Belgian-Style Flanders Oud Bruin or Oud Red Ale" category

Steamed mussels with garlic toast, blue cheese bison burger, bourbon cherry pie

This was a super fun beer for us and another great example of how things evolve over time. We started out with some inspiration from the Flemish beer styles Oud Bruin and Flanders Red and made a deep reddish brown base beer using healthy doses of some darker malts. We pitched a full array of microflora, including brett, lacto and pedio on top of the primary saccharomyces fermentation to add some nice acidity that really evolved over the first few months in neutral French oak wine barrels.

At that point we were pulling some barrel samples to taste and felt like it was coming along quite nicely, but maybe still missing just a little bit of the intrigue we were hoping for…

...so as we barreled up Rhino Suit in October, we decided to transfer a few of the barrels of our adolescent wild red ale into those freshly emptied bourbon barrels and add whole, Oregon grown cherries to the mix. Those barrels went nuts for a few days as the cherries fermented (making quite a mess in the cellar), but after finally calming down and maturing for a couple more months, we were thrilled with the result!

The final blend includes about 25% beer that spent the duration in neutral oak Pinot Noir barrels and 75% that got a quick, couple month dose of second use bourbon barrels in addition. So although Cherry Parliament took a little different path than initially contemplated on brewday, we love the beer and our flexibility to experiment a little bit and evolve each project as it develops is one of the most exciting things we get to do around here.

Mellow notes of cherry, dark fruits, and spices blend with some pleasant vanilla oakiness and just a hint of chocolate on the finish. Mild to moderate acidity headlines a medium bodied mouthfeel, and obviously if you’re making a Parliament reference, it's gotta have that funk!