Although Black Project Brewery operates on a smaller scale than Crooked Stave, they produce jaw dropping beers and are certainly a force to be reckoned with. The owners originally ran a clean beer brewery, before deciding they wanted to dabble in the art of spontaneous fermentation. Currently they push their limits on a five barrel brewing system and double batch to produce enough to fill their cool ship of ten barrels.
Once the beer is transferred to the cool ship, hops and other flavor additives (such as grapefruit zest) may be added in. The window by the cool ship is left open so microbes and yeast living in the area will ‘fall’ into the beer. There is no inoculation done. None of their starters have ever been sent into a lab yet, so they are not sure what yeast strains they are working with; it could be an entirely new strain!
From the cool ship, the beer is then transferred into french oak barrels from Napa Valley. These barrels have been previously steam cleaned. Research shows that Brett lingers 3/4inch into the wood, but one of the owners of Black Project found in his research that glass vs. wood fermentation had no difference.
As time goes on the beer is rotated into the barrels below it and continuously moved downwards over time. The yeasts in the new barrel help to further overall fermentation.
Black Project either uses local Colorado malts or European malts/hops for euro style beers. All of the whole fruit they use is local, with an exception getting their cherries from Utah. When fruit is out of season, they will use pasteurized purees from Oregon. The fruit, honey, wood, and beer that they use/produce all contributes to their house culture. (A house culture being the unique strain of yeast that is dominant in their building.)
All of their beer was amazing, but I was most obsessed with their ‘Gemini’ beer. Gemini was bright, with strong notes of fruity coffee. It was a sour beer made with washed Ethiopian coffee from Corvus Roasters down the street (who I had the pleasure of getting a mocha from later that day!) My memory of this beer is a sad one though, because it is only available on tap at their brewery, because coffee oxidizes in bottles and will turn into a green pepper flavor. Gemini will be held on a pedestal in my mind forever.
