Praline
January 5, 2020 10:56 amNew Techniques & New Frontiers
05 Jan 2020
Praline is an ale that has never quite fit with the rest of our artisan ales. Some would say it is the ‘blacksheep’ of our family of Wild & Farmhouse Ales. It’s not wild, it’s not farmhouse, it’s in a league of it’s own. The Praline for those that do not know about it, is a chocolate, vanilla & hazelnut Stout fermented cleanly. This beer edged out 130+ other beers back in 2014 to win the GABS (Great Australian Beer Spectapular – yes you read right) event and has won accolades every year since.
After making Praline as a classic chocolate stout in a textbook way for many years, we started to wonder how it would taste with a more natural fermentation profile and started experimenting (as we are inspired to do here at LS) with fermenting our Praline in an open tank – like we do the rest of our Wild & Farmhouse Ales. This was somewhat risky considering we had a proven formula and proven recipe however we like to push the boundaries of things in the spirit of discovery and evolution.
The current batch of Praline in bottle has been open fermented in our famed open tank and the results we feel are spectacular. The open fermentation has allowed our native airborne bacteria to partake in the party and has delivered a welcomed acidity to the classic Praline recipe. We feel this has added an additional dimension to the rich and chocolatey Praline that gives it a welcomed element of drinkability and refreshment!
This is not for everyone, however we truly believe this new way of fermenting our Praline transforms it and evolves it into a sour-ish version of the Praline and takes it in a direction that better suits the way that we make our artisan ales here at LS, working with nature and aiming to control it less… the sourness being a familiar and expected component of our ales in general.
We hope you enjoy the evolution of Praline as much as we do and we look forward to sharing more with you over time.
Yours In Beer
Costa – Chief Artisan
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This post was written by Eva