Siren Maiden 2014

Maiden 2014. The goal for Maiden is to celebrate our love of experimentation and the impact of wood and time on a beer. A big barley wine is brewed and then split into many different barrels with varied spirits and wines and differing types of wood to impart a wide palette of flavours. Then after a year has gone by we would then bring them back together and craft a blend that would bring complexity and balance. The base beer was the first batch brewed in 2014, which was a solid american style hoppy barley wine. This was partly used in the 2013 release and the rest was used to top up the barrels from our first year release. New barrels including red wine, sauternes, banyuls and whisky were then also added to the mix. This year, along with our own team of brewers and back of house team, we asked for help in putting together the blend from Andrew at Le Grappin & the team at East London Liquor Company. The day started off with a discussion about the beer and the vision for the project, making it clear to everyone that we were looking for the best possible beer from the day, not to make sure we make the most out of all the barrels we had. Then both of our guests were invited to talk about their process for creating and blending when working in their own field.