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from the reinheitsgebot to cooking like grandma
ryan and nikki have been regulars at la textil collective, and over the years we have got to know them and their project with great fondness. that is what inspired this collaboration, and our visit.
the beers born out of this collaboration are brewed with friendship in mind, and a desire to tell a story about projects that share the same foundations: making products that express a unique local terroir, with ecological care, localism and humility.
many people get so caught up in marketing, promotion and profit that they forget friendship and authenticity can be what sets a drink apart.
we’ve come a long way since the reinheitsgebot, the “purity order” that forced brewers to use only water, barley and hops. even so, brewers developed new styles and techniques as the market demanded, all within the boundaries of the law.
under a cloudy august sky, with an itch to challenge the way we think about brewing and drinking beer, we headed from home base (la textil collective) to the priorat region to visit ryan and nikki vanderpol of mas de l'abundància.
mas de l'abundància is a winery committed to producing exceptional wines that truly reflect the unique terroir of the montsant do.
on this visit we collected wine must from the mountain-grown white grenache behind mas de l'abundància’s wine “mauka”. our brewmaster will use it to create several collab beers in different styles over the next few months. you can also find “mauka” on our menu.
you might be wondering… what exactly is wine must? “must is essentially grape juice made from grapes that make good wine,” explains brian, our brewmaster.
“once you know the ingredients and the rules, you can be free to cook like grandma making bolognese sauce for the 3,000th time.”
“we [ryan and i] know how to make good wine and good beer. but once you know how, you know the ingredients and the rules, you can be free to cook like grandma making bolognese sauce for the 3,000th time, trusting your intuition and knowing that what you get will be of very good quality, and unique.”
he adds: “hopefully it will surprise people and make them think, ‘hmm, i didn’t know beer could be this way.’”
moving beyond borders: from kölsch to belgian tripel. a collaboration you can taste into march
the first beer we’ll release this month is “mas de so what”, our signature kölsch infused with white wine must. it’s the watermark beer: a naked beer that lets you really see the basic character the grapes bring to it.
it’s for anyone who wants to take their palate on an adventure, and for people curious about what these unique ingredients do to a beer.
we invite you to do a side-by-side tasting: try the original kölsch, the new wine kölsch and the mauka wine.
what brian, ryan and nikki set out to discover is this: can people notice an essence shared by both the wine and the beer?
keep your eyes on the beer board for what’s to come…