If you thought that Streetside was putting out all of their goodies when they gave us Demogorgon at their first anniversary, you would be wrong. They’re following it up with a bottle that when I tried it on draft, it blew me away – All In The Family.
The Story
The name of this beer, All In The Family, is really the story of how the beer came to be. A relative of the Hickey family (who own Streetside) owns the award winning Vineyard 511 in the Diamond Mountain District of Napa Valley. The brewery had only been open for a month in November last year, when the relative called and offered up six high quality French oak wine barrels that had only been used twice. You don’t say no to that as a brewery.
Another relative (this time of the builder) came through in a big way and trucked the barrels across the country for the brewery, where they were immediately filled up by the brewing team at Streetside with their newly formed sour recipe.
All in the family.
The Beer
I really, really hope that when you were at Streetside’s anniversary party, you managed to snag a glass of this beer (or if you’ve been to the taproom recently, you’ve done so). It’s pretty fantastic.
It might only clock in at 6.7% ABV, unlike the Demogorgon… but this beer is a whole different beast. It’s a combination of sour blondes fermented with different wild yeasts and souring bacteria inside the barrel, resulting in a light funk, bright citrus, mellow oak and lemon zest. It’s got a really amazing dry character that let’s the oakiness show through.
This beer gets me pretty excited to think of what’s coming… and they’ve let a little bit of that release too. This is the start of what they’re calling their Cellar Series, which will include a couple other gems:
- Saison – this one is currently in the conditioning tank, waiting to be bottled.
- Brett in Berlin – This barrel aged Berliner Weisse has already seen a little bit of the light of day out of a keg.
The Release
A limited amount of All In The Family will be released in 750ml bottles starting at 10am on Saturday, December 9th. They’ll be $16 bucks a piece… and once we hear more about the limits on the bottles make a note to yourself to buy as much of this as you can. This is one beer that is going to age wonderfully in a proper beer cellar for a very long time.