Brews Report: Introducing Jester King / Crooked Stave / Trois Dames Cerveza Sin Frontera

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Introducing Jester King / Crooked Stave / Trois Dames Cerveza Sin Frontera

We’re excited to introduce Cerveza Sin Frontera, a three part collaboration between Jester King, Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project in Denver, Colorado and Brasserie Trois Dames in Sainte Croix, Switzerland. The concept behind Cerveza Sin Frontera was to brew an identical recipe, referment it in the same type of barrels (Spanish sherry) at three different locations on earth, and allow the microorganisms unique to each brewery to impart interesting and differentiating characteristics to the beer. In other words, Cerveza Sin Frontera seeks to explore the impact that mixed culture fermentation has upon an identical recipe for wort (unfermented beer). It highlights how fermentation that exists outside the world of pure culture brewers yeast has the ability to create unique beer with a sense of place.

All three breweries involved in the collaboration ferment their beer with unique blends of yeast and bacteria. In the case of Jester King, all of our beer is fermented with a mixed culture of microorganisms consisting of brewers yeast and native yeast and bacteria harvested from the air and wildflowers around our brewery in the Texas Hill Country. We brewed our version of Cerveza Sin Frontera at our brewery in October 2013 with the help of Chad Yakobson of Crooked Stave and Raphaël Mettler of Trois Dames. The wort, brewed with Hill Country well water, barley, wheat, oats, and hops, was initially fermented in stainless steel for three months, then refermented in Spanish sherry barrels for twelve months, and finally refermented in bottles, kegs, and casks for three more months. During the long fermentation, the multitude of microorganisms slowly transformed the beer into something unique to our brewery in the Texas Hill Country. We traveled to Colorado in April 2014 to help brew the version fermented with Crooked Stave’s mixed culture, as well as to Switzerland in May 2014 to help brew the version fermented with Trois Dames’ mixed culture.

The Texas version of Cerveza Sin Frontera fermented at Jester King is 6.4% alcohol by volume, has a finishing gravity of 1.002 (0.5 degrees Plato), and was 7 IBU, 3.0 pH at the time of bottling. It will go on sale at our tasting room at 4pm CST on Friday, April 17th. It will be available by the glass, as well as to go in 750ml bottles ($20, limit 3 per customer per day). Approximately 5,000 bottles are available. We’ll also be participating in a special “sneak peak” of Cerveza Sin Frontera during the Craft Brewers Conference in Portland, Oregon. We’ll be at The Hop & Vine at 6pm Pacific time on April 17th for the sneak peak (more details on the poster below)! We’re excited that the Colorado version fermented at Crooked Stave will also be available at The Hop & Vine. The Switzerland version fermented at Trois Dames will be released in Europe in May. Details to follow. Finally, we have plans to blend all three versions and serve them at Shelton Bros. Importers The Festival in St. Petersburg, Florida in October 2015.

Below are photos from the creation of Cerveza Sin Frontera. We hope you enjoy this special project designed to highlight the incredible ability of diverse microorganisms to create unique flavors and aromas through the beauty of fermentation!

Brewing at Jester King in October 2013