Brew Q&A: Trellis Garden Ale
On June 21 Odell Brewing Co. will celebrate the first weekend of summer with the release of its newest Cellar Series beer, Trellis Garden Ale. Trellis is brewed with flowers and herbs from our neighbors at The Gardens on Spring Creek, and one dollar from each bottle sold will benefit their efforts.
We sat down with Pilot System Manager Brent Cordle to taste his latest creation and talk about the inspiration behind the brew.
Q: Walk me through the creative process when first imagining Trellis.
A: I think we just wanted to keep it local. We like working with local ingredients, and [The Gardens on Spring Creek] has been really cool to work with. We’ve done a couple of beer dinners with them, and it was kind of cool to reach out to them and see if we could help fund some of their growing. And it was a cool idea to use their ingredients in a beer.
Q: Since your initial meeting with The Gardens, how has Trellis transformed and become the final product we’ll all enjoy?
A: When I envisioned this beer I thought of it being very floral and herbal because we were using actual flowers from The Gardens. Originally, they were thinking it would be a golden ale—very light, fresh and summery, but I just felt like it needed a little bit more hop character to blend in with the flowers and herbs that we were using. I ended up doing a double pale ale—not quite as bitter as an IPA, but still a lot of hops in there—to blend in with and balance those flowers and herbs.
Q: How did you decide on the ingredients?
A: We went over to [The Gardens] closer to harvest to talk about what would be plentiful and available on a larger scale. They harvested a lot of the flowers and herbs for us, and dried the coriander, some cilantro and some rose petals. We also got pineapple mint from them, which is really cool stuff. They gave us everything they could and we took that and used it in the brew.
Q: What do you taste when drinking this beer?
A: I get a lot of herbs. The rose petals and lavender definitely come through. Nothing is overpowering, which is nice because the goal was not to make potpourri in a glass. It’s kind of a crazy beer to use that many flowers and herbs, but I think it’s very nice. Everything’s there.
Q: We’ve collaborated with The Gardens several times in the past. Why does the brewery continue to build that relationship?
A: Working with unique ingredients in a brew is pretty fun. To be able to combine those and make it blend together and taste good—and not like a candle or a bar of soap—was challenging, but it was a lot of fun. The Gardens really appreciates it, so just being able to see the excitement from them was a lot of fun for us.
Want to learn more about your favorite Odell beer? E-mail [email protected] for a Brew Q & A request!
Loose Leaf Banana Bread
Technically, beer is bread, which makes it the perfect addition to most any loaf!
Ingredients:
2 c. sugar
1 c. butter softened
4 mashed, ripe bananas
4 eggs, beaten
2 ½ c. flour
1 t. salt
2 t. baking soda
¾ c. Loose Leaf
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 360° and grease 2 loaf pans
- Mix sugar & butter. Add bananas & eggs. Sift flour, salt & baking soda. Blend flour mix with banana mix. Add Loose Leaf. Do not overmix.
- Bake bread for 55 min. or until toothpick comes out clean. Turn out immediately.
- Enjoy!
*Yield: 2 loaves
A Jaunt in Time
Back in 2012, we threw the most recent rendition of our Small Batch Festival here at Odell. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Small Batch, it was more or less a big ole’ party at the brewery. Akin to your typical backyard afternoon social, but with an extended invitation to the whole neighborhood. As brewers, we supply the brew, and with the goal of offering things that we had squirrelled away a few kegs of here and there. One such brew was “Totes McGoats”, a project that I had the good fortune to work on. It was, to my knowledge, the brewery’s first foray into wine hybrid brewing. We used Riesling grapes from the Western Slope of Colorado, and a blend of staves suspended in a tote added to a wheat based beer. This was the genesis of what would later become Amuste, and returns full circle to you today as Jaunt. The only difference is, we didn’t use a tote, but a stainless fermentor with the staves suspended in it. That, and we played a little with the malt, and stave combination. So it’s not exactly the same, but hey, we are craft brewers after all and as such, are never satisfied. Riesling grape adds a distinct light tree fruit note, as well as a delicate aroma of perfumed honeysuckle and touch of acidity to the finish. The oak staves provide a background balance in the form of light vanilla, almond, and Dr. Pepper-esque characters, with a lingering tannin structure. Sadly we’re not able to bring back Small Batch this year. Hopefully, those of you who were able to attend in 2012 (and those who were not), will get a small taste of what Small Batch was.
– A Quality Guy
“01001001 01100110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100011 01100001 01101110 00100000 01110010 01100101 01100001 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00101100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01101110 01100101 01110010 01100100 00101110. It’s binary code for, ‘If you can read this, you are my kind of nerd.” (Eli Kolodny is the QA/QC manager for Odell Brewing).
