Jester King Releasing English-Style Summer Ale, 2022 Vernal Dichotomous, German-Style Kölsch, Modern Science, Farmhouse Ale & 2021 Biere de Coupage

ENGLISH-STYLE SUMMER ALE

July 30, 2022

We’re excited to release the next English-style beer we’ve brewed at Jester King — English-style Summer Ale. While English beers are by no means our focus, we love brewing and drinking them. The complexity packed into relatively small beers, the blend of herbal hops and fruity esters, the drinkability, and the pub culture surrounding them make English-style beers among our most favorite.

For the hottest time of year, we brewed a simple, drinkable, golden English-style Summer Ale. The recipe was remarkably simple with "Burtonized" water, Golden Promise base malt, a touch of Caramalt and malted wheat, and East Kent Golding hops during the boil and in the whirlpool. We fermented in stainless steel with West Yorkshire yeast. Unfiltered, unpasteurized, 3.5% abv.

Most of the batch was force carbonated and packaged in cans and kegs. However, we filled a handful of firkins that will be served at Jester King using a traditional beer engine sometime in the next few weeks, so please be on the lookout!

Available now onsite and for curbside pickup here: https://bit.ly/3OJPzgk. 50 cases available. 16oz. four-pack cans = $14. Proxies welcome. Shipping & delivery illegal in Texas.

Artwork by Joshua Cockrell. Photo by Regan Vaca.

2022 VERNAL DICHOTOMOUS

July 29, 2022

2022 Vernal Dichotomous out now — our farmhouse ale inspired by the Central Texas spring season.

For this year’s batch, we kept the recipe quite simple. We created a blend of farmhouse ale aged in oak barrels, then re-fermented the blend with sencha green tea. We sought to capture some of the herbaceous, earthy, floral character of the season in the form of a farmhouse ale. Like all our Dichotomous beers, they are created during the season for which they are named, and often are released well after the season has changed. 2022 Vernal Dichotomous is unfiltered, naturally conditioned, dry, mildly tart, with beautiful fermentation-driven aromatics. 5.5% abv.

Get a glass or purchase bottles to go (750ml/$16) now. Available for pickup here: https://bit.ly/3OJPzgk. We have about 1,000 bottles available. 11 bottle limit per person. Shipping/delivery illegal in Texas.

Artwork by Joshua Cockrell. Photo by Regan Vaca.

2021 BIERE DE COUPAGE

July 27, 2022

We’re excited to release our 2021 batch of Biere de Coupage! Biere de Coupage is a dry-hopped blend of fresh, hoppy farmhouse ale and mature, barrel-aged SPON. "Biere de Coupage" simply means beer that is cut or blended. We learned about the practice of blending young beer with old from the Franco-Belgian farmhouse tradition, and we adopted it into our beer making about a decade ago. We enjoy seeing how the microflora from the mature SPON takes the young, fresh beer in new and exciting directions.

In this case, we’re just now releasing our 2021 batch/blend (originally blended in August 2021). Somewhat expectedly, the blend developed "ropiness". When this happens, the flavors and aromas remain in good shape, but the texture of the beer develops a slickness or viscosity. This phenomenon is attributed to the souring microorganism pediococcus in the blend. The good news is that ropiness goes away on its own after nine to twelve months of aging. In our experience, the beer usually emerges from the ropiness phase in really excellent shape, with some of the most harmonious fermentation characteristics we’ve experienced. The confluence of fresh dry-hops, mature SPON beer, bottle re-fermentation, and eleven months of patience results in what to us is truly a special beer.

2021 Biere de Coupage is 75% farmhouse ale and 25% SPON. The young beer was brewed with Texas-grown malted barley and wheat and dry hopped with organic Fuggle and Perle from the Oregon Hophouse. The blend was unfiltered, naturally fermented in the bottle, and conditioned for eleven months. 5.9% abv.

Get a glass or purchase bottles to go (750ml/$24) this Wednesday. Available for pickup here: https://bit.ly/3z1kHCq. We have about 4,200 bottles available. 11 bottle limit per person. Shipping/delivery illegal in Texas.

Artwork by Joshua Cockrell. Photo by Regan Vaca.

JESTER KING GERMAN-STYLE KÖLSCH

August 2, 2022

Come out to try our new German-style Kölsch! This is a draft-only beer at Jester King. Our Kölsch was brewed as close to style as possible with softened well water, Texas-grown pilsner malt from Tex-Malt, Munich malt, and organic Perle hops. We fermented in stainless steel with Kölsch yeast, lagered for three weeks, filtered, force carbed, and packaged exclusively in kegs. 4.6% abv.

We hope you enjoy our crisp, drinkable, refreshing, classic-style Kölsch by the glass (and in crowlers to go) during your next visit to Jester King!

Photo by Regan Vaca/

2022 MODERN SCIENCE

August 11, 2022

We’re happy to announce the return of Modern Science, our foudre-fermented farmhouse ale brewed with aged hop plasma and re-fermented with Texas Hill Country peaches! It’s our collaboration with New Image Brewing Company in Arvada, Colorado.

Our friends at New Image bring the science surrounding hops to a new level. They’ve experimented with isolating hop terpenes and plasma through supercritical CO2 extraction. We thought it would be interesting to combine something as old-world as aged hops with something as new-school as supercritical CO2 extraction. We added the aged hop plasma hot-side during the whirlpool, then fermented in an oak foudre with our mixed culture of brewers yeast and native yeast and bacteria. After a few months of maturation in oak, we re-fermented the beer with freshly-picked Texas Hill Country peaches. As always, we hand-processed the peaches in house at Jester King. As we’ve proudly exclaimed over the years, Hill Country peaches are some of the best we’ve ever encountered, and we’re grateful to get to use them. We’re especially grateful since this year’s peach harvest in the Hill Country has been smaller than normal.

Special thanks to Brandon Capps and Gavin Estes at New Image for opening up the process and science behind hop supercritical CO2 extraction to us, plus being really swell people who inspire us!

Available today at 2pm onsite and for curbside pickup here: https://bit.ly/3PjGQ4O. 50 cases available. 16oz. four-pack cans = $18. Proxies welcome. Shipping & delivery illegal in Texas.

Artwork by Joshua Cockrell. Photo by Regan Vaca.

FARMHOUSE ALE WITH RASPBERRIES, BLACKBERRIES, AND CHERRIES

August 23, 2022

We have a new fruit re-fermentation being tapped this week featuring raspberries, blackberries, and cherries. The fruit came from SPON Raspberry & Cherry and SPON Blackberry & Cherry released earlier this year. It’s a draft-only release that’s only available at Jester King.

The process was pretty simple. We brewed a medium-strength farmhouse ale with well water, Texas-grown grains, and a blend of fresh and aged hops. We racked the wort onto the fruit and primary fermented to total dryness. Unfiltered and naturally conditioned in kegs. 5.1% abv. Purchase a glass at Jester King this Wednesday through Sunday.

Photo by Regan Vaca.