Upright Brewing Flora Rustica Coming 6/22, Offen Weisse Lactovasilios & Sole Composition

Lots of great “new beer” news coming out of Upright Brewing today:

Flora Rustica is making it’s annual return June 22nd. The historically styled brew, which always relies on the spring yarrow harvest, was produced about a month earlier than last year thanks to a slightly better spring. This 2012 vintage is limited to only 82 cases and 7 kegs which will be poured mostly at the brewery tasting room and Grain and Gristle. Something to look forward to next year will be a new barrel aged version with more integrated bitterness and significantly more sour character.

Sole Composition series beers have been on hiatus as the brewery has been focusing on other projects, but on deck for releases likely in July will be the Lactovasilios, Levinator (black currant wine barrel aged barley bock), and Single Cask Six (aged nearly a year with light use of cherry in our favorite oak barrel).

New Draft Beers

Offen Weisse – last year Upright brewed a classic Bavarian-style weisse beer for the Oregon Brewers Festival. We’ve been missing it because the brewers here love German wheat beers, so we decided to produce a slightly maltier amber version for early summer. It’s fermented in our open tanks which encourages the specific yeast strain to make a nice balance of fruity and spicy notes which play off the dark wheat malts beautifully. Look for it at the brewery tasting room and a handful of Portland-area bars and restaurants. 4.65%

Lactovasilios – jokingly named by Upright’s beer titler Angelo de Ieso after our pal Vasili, head brewer at Laurelwood, this brew is a one-off barrel fermented Berliner-weisse. It’s got a pleasantly funky and aromatic nose with the characteristic sharp sour flavor produced by large amounts of lactic acid bacteria. The Lactovasilios was a small batch blend that will see very limited distribution, but expect to see it at Portland’s most beer-centric spots. 3.8%

Coming Soon – a Czech-style pilsener, differentiated from the Engelberg by the use of completely different ingredients including saaz hops and an authentic yeast strain. Look for it around the last week of June!