A Light in the Darkness

Beer has been made for thousands of years, and in the past decade, it has progressed a whole bunch. With that in mind, we always try to look back to understand where beer has been to figure out where we can take it and evolve it. We may have been chosen as the Most Innovative Brewery in Minnesota (toot toot), but that doesn’t mean history is lost on us, in fact, we revel in it! Some would say that many civilizations owe a great deal to beer. It ignited community, the industrial revolution, and propagated ingenuity. Farming came, in part, by growing grains for beer and fruits for flavor. Although beer, at the time, was thought to be the work of the gods, since the science of fermentation was not yet known, it helped move groups of people from wandering nomads to towns and cities. Don’t believe us? Check out this killer book by William Bostwick: A Brewer’s Tale.

 

There is a pretty good chance that during the industrial revolution in Britain, beer played a huge part in the growth of the economy. Pubs were the backbone of the factories. Factories provided jobs and bolstered a healthy middle class. The pubs were providing an escape, a community, and a need for beers that did more than just numb harsh working condition. That’s when a beer style by the name of English Mild came to be. It was a low alcohol beer with great flavor and mildly bitter.

 

Now, as much as we love tradition, we can’t simply make a mild. As we do, we made plans to modify the beer to make it Modist. For our mild, we used a choice malt bill of Maris Otter, Golden Promise, Chilean roasted malts, and a bunch of oats (40% of the malt bill) to give it ample flavor and body. And to add an extra layer of complexity, we fermented the mild in one of our oak foeders. The end result is a mild that is extremely light and refreshing, yet still has complex dark flavors of caramel, chocolate toast, Reisen candy, and a smooth wood vanilla drying roast finish. All that flavor packed into a super low, we’re talking 3.8% low, ABV. 

 

We’ll be releasing this little beast, Darklighter, named after Briggs Darklighter (if you know, you know) this Saturday, July 13th at noon o’clock. We’ll have a limited number of crowlers available for purchase as this will be a taproom only beer with some tap lines sprinkled throughout the cities. Stop in and drink a little bit of history blended with some modern-day ingenuity.