Some big news coming locally today as former Big Grove brewer, Bill Heinrich, has announced that he is starting up Kickshaw Barrel Works and Lion Bridge Brewery will be the host brewery for Kickshaw Barrel Works which will be a migratory brewery. It sounds like Mr. Heinrich is going to be focusing on sours, so if you like brett and lacto, this is going to be right up your alley! Congrats to Bill on this exciting new venture and I can’t wait to try the results! Here’s Kickshaw Barrel Works exclusive press release:

 Kickshaw Barrel Works

And now, a note to the beer universe:

I don’t know about you, but I love the intersection of sour beer and wood. I have an affinity for the multitude of forms that beer takes at that point, from light to full; soft to sharp; still to effervescent. The Belgian classic acid ales and the American experimental sours have each shown the depth and breadth of great beers that come from barrels and have always held me in awe of what can be created from natural complexity.

So I suppose that’s the starting point: a love of microbes, wood, malt, and hops that yield a complex matrix of acids and alcohols, esters and tannins, execution and presentation that is the world of creating and consuming sour beers. It seemed like an impossible dream to do it on my own, to explore the many techniques and styles while simultaneously bringing them to the people with whom I share this community of beer.

Fortunately for me (possibly for you, too, assuming I can make anything good), Quinton and Ana McClain at LION BRIDGE BREWING COMPANY have been unbelievably gracious in their offer to make theirs the inaugural host brewery for the migratory brewer Kickshaw Barrel Works. Quinton and I have worked together multiple times over the last eight years, and his vision for collaboratively creating this project is the rational anchor for my crazy-assed ideas for barrel fermentation of sour beers.

We will celebrate the formation of this effort with a collaboration brew utilizing the strengths of both Lion Bridge and Kickshaw, as we celebrate the strengths of oak, Brettanomyces, and Lactobacillus. And then it’s off to the races, as we fill Kickshaw barrels with all the experimental microflora and use all the experimental techniques that I can come up with.

Get yourself some antacids, friends, because things are about to get weird.

Santé!

Bill Heinrich

Kickshaw Barrel Works