3 Ravens Nat Rav Yarra Valley Bloody Shiraz Negroni 2020 750ml Bottle
$39.00
A collaboration with Four Pillars (gin) and Payten & Jones (grapes).
Barrel aged & blended beers refermented on gin-soaked wine grape skins & orange zest. Abv: 9.6%
A fascinating story below from the brewery regarding the genesis of this beer……
“The concept for this started with a beer maturing in our wild barrel cellar brewed with the bitter and aromatic weed horehound (a collaboration with Woodstock Farm featured in previous releases Wild Ravens Hay Hops & Horehound and Nat Rav 2020 Heathcote Yellow Muscat). The beer was reminiscent of amaro and shared a lot of the same positive qualities – it was extremely aromatic (in a botanical way) and had an intense bitterness (from both hops and the weed) and for a long time we pondered what amaro-like beverage this beer could be featured in or used to create.
Back in March, we were out in the Yarra Valley helping our mates at Payten & Jones pick chardonnay. The team from Four Pillars are always a mainstay of the picking party, and one of their staff asked half-jokingly why we hadn’t done a collaboration yet (to which he didn’t have an answer). A few weeks later we were picking up the spent shiraz skins used to make their latest vintage of Bloody Shiraz Gin – a sloe-gin inspired sweet gin macerated on fresh Yarra Valley Shiraz skins. We knew exactly what we need to do with these skins – make a Negroni – and we even had a three year old imperial wild witbier that had been resting on an unreasonably large amount of orange zest for at least a year or two to use as a garnish.
The fresh shiraz had been soaked in high proof gin for a number of weeks then pressed, so the resulting skins still contained a lot of sugar. When we added them to the horehound beer, presumably due to the remnants of gin, the beer failed to re-ferment. After a few weeks of patiently waiting (and sampling), we realised we’d have to blend the beer to reduce the alcohol if we wanted it to referment, so the first beer was taken off the skins, blended in tank with a light red ale (with sweet berry notes) and a small portion of intensely orange-zested witbier. A relatively light tart wheat beer was transferred out of a puncheon and onto the skins – and fortunately for us, both the shiraz-sweetened beer in tank and the beer on the skins finally started to referment – and quite vigorously.
Once everything had settled down, the sugars had been well and truly fermented out and the beers had clarified, the resulting components were blended and bottled in July 2020. Despite our efforts to curb the ABV by using lower ABV beers, we still ended up producing our strongest wild beer release to date, and we hope you enjoy (responsibly) the complex, wild and wonderful journey this beer has been on to create our version of the classic Negroni.”
In stock
Description
A collaboration with Four Pillars (gin) and Payten & Jones (grapes).
Barrel aged & blended beers refermented on gin-soaked wine grape skins & orange zest. Abv: 9.6%
A fascinating story below from the brewery regarding the genesis of this beer……
“The concept for this started with a beer maturing in our wild barrel cellar brewed with the bitter and aromatic weed horehound (a collaboration with Woodstock Farm featured in previous releases Wild Ravens Hay Hops & Horehound and Nat Rav 2020 Heathcote Yellow Muscat). The beer was reminiscent of amaro and shared a lot of the same positive qualities – it was extremely aromatic (in a botanical way) and had an intense bitterness (from both hops and the weed) and for a long time we pondered what amaro-like beverage this beer could be featured in or used to create.
Back in March, we were out in the Yarra Valley helping our mates at Payten & Jones pick chardonnay. The team from Four Pillars are always a mainstay of the picking party, and one of their staff asked half-jokingly why we hadn’t done a collaboration yet (to which he didn’t have an answer). A few weeks later we were picking up the spent shiraz skins used to make their latest vintage of Bloody Shiraz Gin – a sloe-gin inspired sweet gin macerated on fresh Yarra Valley Shiraz skins. We knew exactly what we need to do with these skins – make a Negroni – and we even had a three year old imperial wild witbier that had been resting on an unreasonably large amount of orange zest for at least a year or two to use as a garnish.
The fresh shiraz had been soaked in high proof gin for a number of weeks then pressed, so the resulting skins still contained a lot of sugar. When we added them to the horehound beer, presumably due to the remnants of gin, the beer failed to re-ferment. After a few weeks of patiently waiting (and sampling), we realised we’d have to blend the beer to reduce the alcohol if we wanted it to referment, so the first beer was taken off the skins, blended in tank with a light red ale (with sweet berry notes) and a small portion of intensely orange-zested witbier. A relatively light tart wheat beer was transferred out of a puncheon and onto the skins – and fortunately for us, both the shiraz-sweetened beer in tank and the beer on the skins finally started to referment – and quite vigorously.
Once everything had settled down, the sugars had been well and truly fermented out and the beers had clarified, the resulting components were blended and bottled in July 2020. Despite our efforts to curb the ABV by using lower ABV beers, we still ended up producing our strongest wild beer release to date, and we hope you enjoy (responsibly) the complex, wild and wonderful journey this beer has been on to create our version of the classic Negroni.”
