Steel City have had a somewhat quiet year after opting not to pursue the direct home sales route (partly due to license, partly down to not wanting to take sales from brewers for whom this is a livelihood), but have started planning for a hopefully more productive summer. Following the huge success of the Stout Wars series of collaborations with Emperor’s (officially the world’s best brewery according to Untappd) and Lost Industry, the unholy trinity decided to move onto sours… The first brew of the Sour Wars series is a 13.7% Imperial Black Sour, once again the bulk has gone into barrels for the first trilogy:
- Episode I: The Cranachan Menace – Highland whisky barrel with raspberry, vanilla and cranachan mead (made with locally-produced heather honey, Madagascan vanilla and of course raspberry)
- Episode II: Attack of the Stones – Red wine barrel with cherry and vanilla
- Episode III: Orange of the Sith – Hurricane sour, with passionfruit, lemon, lime and orange, in a rum barrel
The barrels are tucked up safe for a few months now, but in the meantime here was a small amount of beer left after filling barrels, so six ultra-limited beers are being released now through Beer Central and Hoptimism, 60-70 330ml cans of each version:
- Rogue One: Live Long and Prosper – the base beer
- Rogue Two: Bean Me Up Scotty – tonka and vanilla
- Rogue Three: Set Phasers to Rum – rum and raisin
- Rogue Four: It’s Lime Jim But Not As We Know It – we’ll give you one guess…
- Rogue Five: Resistance is Fruitile – passionfruit
- Rogue Six: She Cannae Cake Any More Cap’n – cherry and almond
(scroll down for the labels to see more about these beers!)
Imperial stouts haven’t been forgotten however, and the minikit was pressed into service to make a small batch of Black Metal Goat, a tonka and vanilla imperial stout, raising £75 for Heeley City Farm in the process. There is also a very small batch maple mead, which was definitely not brewed just so Dave’s bottle share group could get the style badge on Untappd. At all. No. Ahem. More minikit brews are planned, as well as something on the big kit for when most pubs have reopened in May.
