08/22/2026
This weekend (8/21) we will be releasing Minotaurs and Matadors (7.96% TA: 10.3), a barrel aged blond blend with Virginia grown Malbec wine grapes.
Full, pretty Malbec-y fruit up front. With blackberry and plum descending into almost dark chocolate before shifting to an overly elongated, super soft mid-palate of thrumming fruit, wet stone minerality and a mustier finish. The tannin only shows up when the sip is done.
With any beer project I ask “what is the point here?” With beers made with wine grapes I ask “what is this beer offering that a wine made with the same grapes could not accomplish?”
To oversimplify, my take is mixed-culture grape beers shouldn’t usually be looked at as a wine beer hybrid or a grey area between wine and beer.
The blend should showcase the given varietal’s flavors, utilize tannins from the grape, while also possessing mixed-culture funk aromatics (that could be tied to hops), a solid clean lactic acidity not often found in wine, and carbonation driving all of it forward.
While a lot of our grape projects have been enjoyable, most of them fall outside of the parameters above.
Minotaurs & Matadors is testament that there may be a lot of other compositional possibilities to pay attention to than what i was focused on.
The way the mid-palate just seems to freeze in time, readying itself for dissection is something I haven’t experienced in fruit forward wines and I attribute to the mixed-culture beer elements.
The fruit, minerality and mustiness are all soft and fully exposed, but the feeling that they could be forever lingering is haunting.
