琴鱗、揺ら鳴く (Golden Harmony)

The guys at Miyama162 have had our beer in and on tap from their day 1, which is within a year of when we launched as a brewery. A fun place full of character, it's no surprise that they're always packed, but it still amazes us just how much beer their small number of seats manages to move through. They are, as one might suspect, from Miyama in Northern Kyoto, a beautiful town surrounded by hills known for its agriculture. It also happens to have a lot of natural osmanthus growing there. They They came to us with the idea of making a collaboration with osmanthus from their hometown, it sounded like a great challenge, and an excuse to take an idea that we had ourselves also thought of, and make it a reality.

With osmanthus offering such a beautiful aroma of apricots and stone fruit, the Saison just seemed like the perfect style for this pairing. We took the experimentation beyond the combination of saison yeast and osmanthus through using many ingredients that neither we or our head brewer James have ever used together in one beer, in true farmhouse fashion, combining flavour profiles that we felt would work together. The malt base was a blend of Pilsner and Vienna, with just a small amount of special B giving the beer a golden colour, and contributing a touch of raisin flavour to the malt. We chose Pacific Jade, Talus and Kohatu hops, giving a tropical leaning with a little flowery character to support the natural osmanthus aroma, and we intentionally kept the bitterness low. We added heaps of dried Kinmokuse flowers into the whirlpool and allowed it to soak, essentially making tea with beer using these wonderful flowers, and to finish it all off we went for a farmhouse-style yeast strain to add a touch of funk and peppery character to balance out some of the tropical sweetness, and also complement through the fruitier esters. We hope you are as happy as we are with how this beer captures the wonderful character that this unique flower has to offer.