Sumac Sour and Basil IPA Release

The next bottle release is our Sumac, available for online reservation on December 5th at noon! This bottle-conditioned sour ale was brewed without hops and bittered and flavored with staghorn sumac, yellow sweet clover, and rested on toasted oak heartwood, all harvested from our property. It was fermented with our wild mixed house culture and cellared for several months before the release. This beer is bright red and tastes like tart cherry pie from the berries with vanillin and cinnamon flavors from the clover and oak. It's packaged in a 500 ml bottle at 5.4% alcohol by volume and is ready for your enjoyment now or can be kept in your home cellar for several years.

Tickets to reserve the beer are $1 per bottle and you may reserve up to 12 bottles (or one case) for $12. The bottles themselves will be $15 each when you come to pick them up at the brewery with a reservation, or $17 without. Tickets go on sale Monday, December 5th at noon and will be available for reservation online until Thursday, December 8th at midnight, or until the reservations are filled. After that bottles will be available on a first-come first-served basis at the brewery until January 1st. To secure a bottle (or a case!) make sure you reserve ahead of time. Our reservation fees are donated to a great cause. This month we'll be donating to Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN, which was damaged by the recent fire there. Friends and members of our community in Southern Illinois have attended Arrowmont for art instruction since it is a major regional art center. We hope the money can aid in reconstructing their lost dorms.

You may pick up your bottle during our normal business hours starting December 8th through January 1st. We have very limited space so any bottles not claimed by January 1st must be forfeited. As always, you will be asked to show ID and your ticket when you come to purchase your bottle.

Finally, our Basil IPA will also be at the tasting room starting this weekend without an online reservation. It'll be available without a bottle limit. The beer is bottle conditioned like all our other bottled offerings, and brewed with lemon basil, sweet basil, and holy basil; with honey from our friends at Royal Bee in Steeleville; and with malt from Sugar Creek Malt in Indiana. It's fermented clean with our wild house yeast to a create a hoppy, fruity, Belgian-style IPA. We love it and we already know that most of you do too. It's $17 for a 750 ml bottle.