Nocturn Chrysalis Blend 2 Release

Jester King Nocturn Chrysalis Blend 2

This weekend, beginning when our tasting room opens at 4pm on Friday, May 16th, we’ll be releasing our second blending of Nocturn Chrysalis — a barrel aged sour beer refermented with blackberries.

We like our sour beer to have a soft, lactic acidity that’s free of any acetic or vinegary flavors. For instance, we like how our Atrial Rubicite has a soft, drinkable acidity, and we wanted to achieve a similar result with our second blend of Nocturn Chysalis. To this end, we made a few changes from the initial blend. Instead of using a barrel aged sour red ale as the base beer, we used a pale barrel aged sour beer. We made this change because we felt that the somewhat softer and more delicate pale, barrel-aged beer did a better job accentuating and complementing the character of the fruit. The other change we made for blend 2 was using marion blackberries from Oregon instead of Kiowa blackberries from central Texas. We prefer to use local ingredients whenever possible. However, the quality of our beer comes first. We simply liked the flavor and aroma of the marion blackberries better and think they contribute to a more enjoyable beer. Regardless of the source of blackberries, we continue to only use fresh or fresh/frozen fruit. We do not use fruit concentrates or flavorings in our beer. Rather, we choose to referment actual fruit the same way wine grapes are fermented to make wine.

The base beer for Nocturn Chrysalis was brewed with barley, wheat and hops and fermented with a mixed culture of brewers’ yeast and naturally occurring wild yeast and bacteria from the Texas Hill Country. It matured in oak barrels for several months prior to the addition of fruit. The fruit was then allowed several more weeks contact time with the beer to completely referment to dryness. Finally, the beer was 100% naturally conditioned in bottles, kegs and casks. Nocturn Chrysalis blend 2 is 5.9% alcohol by volume, has a finishing gravity of 1.000 and is 3.3 pH.

Bottles of Nocturn Chrysalis (500ml/$16) will be available at Jester King beginning at 4pm on Friday, May 16th and will remain on sale at our brewery while supplies last. The bottle limit is two bottles per customer per day. Nocturn Chrysalis will also be available by the glass at our brewery the entire upcoming weekend during our normal tasting room hours.