We’ve received word from our distributor that bottles of Das Wunderkind! Sour Saison have started leaving their warehouse and are arriving at bottle shops around Texas. We’ve heard reports of a few sightings so far. There are 100 cases (1,200 bottles) of Das Wunderkind! Sour Saison that will now be making their way to stores. This amount is in addition to the approximately 20 cases we self-distributed in January. As soon as we get a list of stores from our distributor, we’ll post it so that bottles will hopefully be easier to find.
We believe that Das Wunderkind! is the best encapsulation of our brewing philosophy that we’ve released thus far. It’s unfiltered, unpasteurized, naturally conditioned and relies on the world beyond cultured brewers yeast for its fermentation and flavor profile. In our opinion, an authentic farmhouse brewery is one that embraces its natural surroundings, and that’s what we’ve tried to do with Das Wunderkind! The water used to brew the beer comes from a well next to the brewery. Wild yeast and bacteria resident in the oak barrels used to age the beer and give it its distinctive flavors of sour, tart and funk is harvested from the night air at the brewery. In essence, it’s brewed so that people who drink it will experience the “sense of place” or terroir of our brewery in the Texas Hill Country.
Our good friends Andrew Pogue and Lars Frazer of the Frazer Pogue Collective were kind enough to use their artistic talents to make a video that speaks to the philosophy behind Das Wunderkind! Sour Saison. We hope you enjoy it.
Jester King Craft Brewery from Frazer Pogue Collective on Vimeo.
Our friend Will Sherman who runs our tasting room on Saturdays recently asked us if we would take part in an event being hosted by his company Secret Society Adventures. We agreed and will be providing some beer in addition to beer from our friends at Adelbert’s Brewery. The event is “Hot Jazz Dancehall” and will feature vintage dancing to ragtime jazz performed by the East Side Dandies. The event is February 10th from 8 to 11pm at the Zilker Clubhouse. Tickets to the event are $25 and can be purchased here.
View from Zilker Clubhouse
Thank you very much to everyone who attended our First Anniversary Party & Market on Saturday! We were pleased with how the event went and how it served as a platform to feature local, artisan merchants and craftspeople. We wanted to put together an event that would let people sample a collection of artisan beer, much of which incorporates the world beyond cultured brewers yeast, in a relaxed Hill Country environment at Ceres Park Ranch. We hope you enjoyed yourselves. For anyone unable to attend because of the limited number of tickets we made available, we offer tours and tastings every Saturday from 1 to 4pm.
Thank you very much to the local businesses and bands that took part:
Salt & Time Artisan Salumi & Pickles
Smok’in Rose of Texas BBQ
Rubio Spice Company
Sweet Ritual Desserts & Coffee
Windy Hill Organics
D-Madness
Austin Facial Hair Club
Buddha’s Brew
Id Soda
Cuvee Coffee
Austin Homebrew Supply
Texas Tea
Baby Zach’s Hummus
Austin’s Best Soup
Confituras
Jaymee Luu Jewelry
The Vintage 15
The Jake Levinson Band
Clyde & Clem’s Whiskey Business
Megan Le Fay
Here are links to photos from Saturday:
Austin 360
Ahaley on Beer Advocate
Evolution Farms Publishing
On Saturday, January 7th we had our Open the Taps Rally and Das Wunderkind! Sour Saison release party. Soon after the rally, bottles of Das Wunderkind! began appearing on the shelves of a few select retailers in Austin. These self-distributed bottles amounted to only about twelve cases of Das Wunderkind! The rest of the release (about 100 cases or 1,200 bottles) is going through our distributor.
Unfortunately, there is a delay involving a bureaucratic TABC compliance issue that has to be worked out before the bottles can be sent from our distributor’s warehouse to stores around Texas. Our distributor did nothing wrong, and TABC is just enforcing the laws on the books. We hope to have the issue worked out soon and see the bottles released around the state. As soon as it happens, we’ll let you know and tell you as accurately as we can where the bottles are going.
This news report from YNN does a nice job getting at the core of the issue, and that is how Texas beer laws hold back the growth of our own, locally grown breweries.
WATCH VIDEO
