Wildflower Sailor Seeks Fossil 2024

New South Wales // Australia
An ale aged with blueberries and Pinot Noir grapes.

The ale was brewed with Organic red wheat and Organic heritage barley wholly fermented by a diversity of yeasts and bacteria collected from native flowers from NSW. Following primary fermentation it matured in oak for 14 months before being macerated and refermented with 500g/l of Organic blueberries from River Fossil Farm in Petcheys Bay, TAS. It was then further refermented on 350g/l of handpicked, whole bunch Pinor Noir grapes grown by Sailor Seeks Horse winery in Cradoc, TAS.
 
Following this double-maceration it was bottled with raw, unheated Blue Mountains Polyflora wild honey from naturally formed, bee-friendly Warré hives from Tim and Emma Malfroy and allowed to naturally condition and carbonate before release.

Made exclusively for The Collective. We are lucky to get a small allocation of cuvees for The Collective which would otherwise only be made available in Australia for Wildflower's exclusive members club.

Notes from Chris/Topher:
Since the first time we worked with blueberries, the single tasting note has been Pinot Noir. This beer, just like the ludicrousness of River Fossil Farm combines that tasting note with that fruit, but again, not just any Pinot, but fruit from Paul and Gilli Lipscombe from the far, far southern Tasmanian vineyard that is Sailor Seeks Horse. we at Wildflower absolutely love their wines and the Allen children go to school with the Lipscombe kids, so this was a natural linkup.
 
The fruit, madly, came to us at different times... it couldn't all quite make the same transport timeframe. So Chris and the team at River Fossil Farm picked the blueberries as per normal and we commenced a refermentation on them as soon as they arrived. Then began a long wait for the Pinot to ripen fully... it was about a month inbetween the blues and the pinot. When it did come, it went straight to tank and we racked the blueberry-heavy beer onto the Pinot for its secondary refermentation.

Again the only beer made this year using ingredients from another state, we think you will agree there is reason enough for this type of rule breaking. The beer pours an electric blue with so so much fruit bursting through.
 
The label for Sailor Seeks Fossil 2024 is a modified photo of the previous River Fossil Farm label.