I was looking forward to this beer release so much that I purposely left early from Galveston while heading to San Antonio just so I could make this detour and hit up New Braunfels Brewing Company for some Self Medication. The story of how the beer was made, told by the mad scientist himself, pretty much made it an obsession for me.
Let’s start with how I found out about this beer. During the Brewmasters Craft Beer Festival in Galveston earlier this month, I got a chance to hang out with Kelly Meyer, at Galveston Island Brewing while we pre-gamed for the event the night before. Kelly is the owner/brewmaster of New Braunfels Brewing Company, so getting to talk beer while enjoying a few with him was a ton of fun.
We started talking about some of his latest concoctions and he mentions the beer that was nearly ruined and ended up becoming this one-off beautiful bastard that is unlike anything else I’ve ever enjoyed. Here’s the story:
Sangre de Shiva is a wine barrel-aged weizenbock that was being brewed (batch #4). While the brew was fermenting in the William Chris Winery Syrah barrels, one of the barrels sprung a leak and 10 gallons of the brew was instantly gone. You have to understand that the lees and sediment from the wine, when they are dumped, are left in the barrel to add to the flavor when Kelly fills it with his beer. Losing 10 gallons of beer from the barrel would basically make that barrel’s batch taste dramatically different than the others if it was simply topped off with more Sangre de Shiva.
Instead of dumping the batch or leaving headspace in the barrel, he decided to top it off with some of his bourbon barrel-aged dunkelweizen, ThunderKiss, to experiment and give it a unique bourbon & wine barrel combo flavor profile. Did I mention that ThunderKiss had already been aged 18 months prior to the fill? The result was a beer that was good, but didn’t have the bourbon flavor he was looking for, so the entire batch was then transferred to a fresh Four Roses Distillery bourbon barrel that a friend of his picked up in Kentucky while on his way back to the Hill Country. Let it sit two more months and here’s what you have.
After hearing that story, do you understand why I HAD to have this beer? It’s a single barrel blend that only produced 2 kegs and 240 12oz bottles, so I knew I would make a special trip to get this. Fortunately, my timing of a trip to San Antonio was perfect.
As for the beer itself? What can I say? It tasted very much like a dark red wine (as it should) with a grape-forward taste that tapers off and finishes with a boozy bourbon finish. This beer is technically as perfect of a beer as I’ve ever tasted and is easily in my top 5 of all-time. I only wish I had gotten more since I’m pretty sure it’s gone by now or by the next time I make it down to New Braunfels.
I’ve always been a fan of what New Braunfels Brewing creates. Their experimentation is second to none and they are the most unique brewery in the entire state. However, this beer tops them all. It’s easily the best beer I’ve had in 2016, but the discipline needed and execution of the finished product makes this all the more impressive.
