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
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Bevel Craft Brewing
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Cascade Lakes Brewing
Pilsner: Reuben’s Brews
Peppercorn Imperial
Wit: Monkless Belgian
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Nut Brown Ale:
AleSmith Brewing
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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.