With today’s release of Faithful Instruction, a Fruited Méthode Traditonnelle – 3 Year Blend, you may find yourself revisiting the question, “What is a coolship?”
Well, put simply in the words of our Brewmaster Peter Kiley: “A coolship is the name that we give to a relatively shallow open top vessel designed for cooling hot wort prior to fermentation.”
A true coolship, like ours, lives in the world of surface area and proper thermodynamics: for the dissipation of heat, aeration of wort, and the collection of microorganisms that contribute to the spontaneous inoculation of the wort.
Peter was attracted to this traditionally Belgian brewing process for the challenge. “It’s like PhD level. Emulating these beers within the cannon of beer, like lambic and spawner, to me they’re so remarkably romantic and intriguing and the complexities of their production at every single phase. For someone that loves the act of technical brewing and the history behind it— I had to do it. I had to try it.”
And so a new Monday Night tradition was born. Starting in 2017, once a year we gather on one of the coldest nights to fill the Crunkship with hot wort in the hopes that our fine city’s wild yeast and the micro-flora spawned from our facility’s adjacent orchard will coalesce to make a delicious, unmistakably Southwest Atlanta beer.
Last year, we saw that dream become a reality. Imaginary Grace, our ‘21 vintage, was the first beer to be wrought from our labor. A blend of three seasons of inoculated Crunkship wort, we fermented and aged each vintage in neutral wine barrels, then blended all three iterations together.
The exquisite liquid of Imaginary Grace serves as the base of Faithful Instruction, which was then conditioned on 2.7 pounds per gallon of fresh raspberries, and consequently primed in bottles for nine months. The virtues of this Framboise-inspired ale are self-evident in its rich magenta hue.
Our Crunkship beers have generated an enormous sense of community within our Monday Night family. Crunkship night is one of our favorite occasions of the year, when we all commune to create something truly exceptional.
Now, the opportunity to share it with you is the real reward. We can’t wait for you to experience Faithful Instruction.