Side Project Sunsets : Collaboration with Sante Adairius

From Side Project:

In late summer of 2017, we had one of our most enjoyable sprees of brewing as we had 2 of our best friends in town visiting, brewing and dining. The results of their visits were several of the best beers we have ever produced.

Because of brewing, we have met some amazing people, people who share a mutual relationship with old-world brewing processes, techniques and inspirations. Many of these people we would have never met otherwise, but because of beer, our paths have crossed and we have these friendships that would have never happened. Two of my most important and meaningful friendships are with Tim Clifford of Sante Adairius Rustic Ales and Trevor Rogers of de Garde Brewing.

While Trevor was here, we brewed what would become 3 very traditional Lambic-inspired beers : Coexpressionalism (released October 2019), Coexpressionalism Kriek (releasing for on-site enjoyment all of BBT week(!) and to-go in December 2019) and Coexpressionalism Framboise (release in 2020). The base is Lambic-inspired, merging our processes and our individual, native cultures to create flavors unlike any we had before.

While Tim was here, the first beer we brewed was an IPA for Shared by merging Tim’s hopping regimen with our malt bill and hopping rates. However, the primary reason for Tim’s visit was our second brew, a beer that would become Sunsets.

Sunsets was brewed by drawing inspiration on the explorations and techniques in which Tim and I shared as homebrewers. As we did with Matrices – our Sante Adairius / Side Project collaboration brewed at their place – we wanted to reexamine lab-grade Brettanomyces strains (something that we rarely do at Side Project). We brewed a very lean, light base beer to let the Brettanomyces shine and provide the groundwork for the future blend. So, in 2017, we brewed a lager of 100% Pilsner malt which was cold-fermented with a lager strain. When it was time for a “diacetyl” rest, we racked the lager to French-Oak Puncheons with a matrix of Brettanomyces strains.

After nearly 2 years of resting and maturing in oak, it was time to blend.

As both Side Project and Sante Adairius focus on mix-fermented Saisons, Tim and I knew that once this base was mature, we would want to blend and balance the final beer with some of our best barrel-aged Saisons. The lively, mature, Brettanomyces-forward hybrid was blended with one of our best barrel-aged Saisons – Oude Fermier. The final blend was then bottle-conditioned with a blend of cultures from Saison Bernice and Saison du Fermier and allowed to develop for 8 months in the bottle before the release. These additions shifted the entire beer into a new Saison realm for us, one which represents Side Project, represents the focus of this collaboration, yet with a beautiful touch of Tim and Sante Adairius.

Round and rich, yet lively and zesty, with an airy body, tight carbonation and enough age to suggest the time that was put into producing this beer, Sunsets is one of my favorite Saisons we have ever produced. Even though it was ready a couple of weeks ago, we decided we wanted to wait and share it during our favorite week of the year – Beer : Barrel : Time week. We explored new processes that I will continue to use in future brews and couldn’t be more pleased and excited with how this beautiful Saison turned out.

Sunsets will be available for on-site enjoyment all week, and we will be allocating a limited amount to release to-go per day. We will have a set amount of bottles available to-go each of the following days : Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday at The Cellar : Friday, Saturday and Sunday at The Brewery. Bottles will be $35 and thank you again for your support of our eclectic, niche beers. We are so honored to call Tim a friend and couldn’t be happier with how this beer turned out. Truly a collaborative effort that came full circle back to our roots – a mixed-fermented, oak-aged Saison.