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About The Bulletin. (Bend, OR) 1963-current | View Entire Issue (July 21, 2022)
PAGE 16 • GO! MAGAZINE THURSDAY, JULY 21, 2022 • THE BULLETIN BEER, HAPPY HOURS & MORE bendbulletin.com/godrink Take a sip of Goodlife’s Peach Chardonnay Hybrid Wine Ale Story and photo by JON ABERNATHY • For The Bulletin T he newest beer from GoodLife Brew- ing Company is a specialty bar- rel-aged brew released in bottles named Peach Chardonnay. As you might guess from the name, there is a wine influ- ence, and the brewery is calling this a “Hy- brid Wine Ale.” It’s a blend of barrel-aged saison with Chardonnay grape juice that is further aged in oak barrels before the addi- tion of peaches. It’s a bit of an unusual beer for GoodLife, best known for Sweet As Pacific Ale and its IPAs. In fact, it’s the second hybrid wine ale produced by the brewery, after Pinot Beer, which was released last year. To find out more about how Peach Char- donnay was created, I reached out to Direc- tor of Brewing Operations Tyler West. “We started with a fresh growth of Bretta- nomyces (wild yeast) on our flagship Sweet As Pacific Ale,” West said via email. “Once we had a healthy ‘pitch’ of yeast we added four French oak wine barrels of fermented and aged saison. We again freshened up the blend with some more Sweet As wort, to achieve a highly attenuating strong fermen- tation.” This base brew was blended with con- Goodlife’s Peach Chardonnay Hybrid Wine Ale is dry, tart and lightly spritzy. This is a beer to sip on a summer night. Beers of the week Freestyle IPA: Bevel Craft Brewing Sunup Summer Ale: Cascade Lakes Brewing Pilsner: Reuben’s Brews Peppercorn Imperial Wit: Monkless Belgian Ales Nut Brown Ale: AleSmith Brewing RESERVE SPACE FOR YOUR PRIVATE EVENT We offer four unique spaces for different sized groups. Our exceptional team will work with you to assure your event is perfect! events@worthybrewing.com 495 NE Bellevue Drive | Bend, OR centrated Chardonnay must (crushed grape juice that can often contain skins, seeds, and stems) and aged in barrels for a year, allow- ing the Brettanomyces to continue to fer- ment. “Brett” yeast is known for its signature barnyard and horse blanket characteristics but can also impart bright fruity notes in- cluding those of pineapple and stone fruit. After 12 months, peach juice was added to the beer-wine hybrid to allow for con- ditioning after bottling. “We then ‘laid the bottles down’ for two months before releas- ing them to market,” West said. The longer bottle conditioning time allows for the yeast to naturally carbonate the ale and soften any sharp flavors. The end result is 10% alcohol by volume with 13 IBUs. Peach Chardonnay is bottled in 500 milliliter bottles, and GoodLife pro- vided me with samples to review. The aroma is full of bright notes of ripe peaches with a distinctive light funk of the wild yeast, and a tart note that evokes white wine and a touch of oak. The fruit is lovely and fragrant, wafting up to your nose as you lift the glass. It’s quite wine-like in flavor, with some peach skin and tannic oakiness; it’s dry and tart and lightly spritzy, and I can taste the grape juice along with delicate peach for a subtle sweet character that offsets the oaky tannins. Pairing it with an actual peach, the fruit softens the bitterness from the wood and it becomes even more wine-like — think of Chardonnay or Riesling. All the elements are balanced well, and the end result is tasty and interesting. This is a beer to sip on a summer night, paired with fresh fruit and cheeses. With Peach Chardonnay the second in this hybrid wine ale concept series from GoodLife following Pinot Beer, I asked West if there are plans for any others with differ- ent grape varieties in the works. “We are constantly brainstorming and looking to build more relationships throughout the wine industry,” he said. “We would like to focus on wine harvest to work with vintners to source Oregon-grown grapes.” In the meantime, bottles of Peach Char- donnay are limited and available at the brewery and at specialty bottle shops. If you’re a fan of barrel-aged brews or are sim- ply curious about this concept of blending beer and wine, pick up a bottle or two to en- joy this summer. Jon Abernathy is a beer writer and blogger and launched The Brew Site (www.thebrewsite.com) in 2004. He can be reached at jon@thebrewsite.com.
