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There is no doubt we are known for pushing the envelope beer wise. I mean, how many breweries would think to try and replicate flavours like Golden Gaytime ice-cream or Frosty Fruit ice block in a beer. For us its part of the fun to be able to mess with people’s heads and memories to create something unique, interesting, and fun. Sometimes though it feels like we get a bit typecast. Although they have the skillset to make the crazy, like any brewers we’ve met our team do love their classics. From dank IPAs and beautiful to nuanced lagers.
This is where our celebration lager comes in.
We set the brewers the challenge to make a truly great lager that pays respect to its roots. They were given the space and time to create something where we know no shortcut was taken and everything was in place to create beer worthy of a place at the Christmas table. The result is our celebration lager, a Festbier designed to pair as well with the classic roasts, the seafood platters and everything in between.
We used traditional ingredients but celebrated the innovation and improvement that years of modern development our raw materials have benefited from.
Malt from Weyermann in Bamburg, Germany who have been malting since the 1800s.
Noble hops from the original hop growing regions in Europe.
Yeast
Brewing Process
Our brewing process was built around a mix of traditional lager techniques adapted to modern ingredients, processes and equipment.
We employed a multi-step mash to emulate some of the traditional lager brewing techniques to help build malt flavour and texture, a slightly longer boil, multiple kettle bittering additions, cooled whirlpool and a very cold knockout to fermenter.
By chilling the wort to 8°C and allowing the yeast to slowly acclimate, grow and retard the lag phase we promote more ester formation and a cleaner ferment. The ferment temp was gently allowed to rise over a few days. We then gave the beer plenty of time to attenuate and condition warm before chilling.
Lagering is where this beer really benefits. Allowing a long cold conditioning time to really let the beer mellow and smooth out flavour.
At least 60 days in tank should see this beer beautifully rounded and clean.
What remains is a truly special brew, one that sits with pride in the hearts of our brewers and the Big Shed team more generally. One worthy of celebrating the season, of celebrating loved ones and celebrating the time and effort that’s gone into creating this very special lager.