07 Aug 2015 --- We are excited to introduce Jester King Vulgar Affectation — a nearly one year old farmhouse ale brewed with native lemon beebalm and horehound growing in the fields surrounding our brewery.
The inspiration behind Vulgar Affectation came from a couple of different sources — our desire to make beer with a sense of place unique to our land in the Texas Hill Country, our enjoyment of foraged beers, and our specific admiration for Pissenlit from Brasserie Fantôme, which is brewed with wildflowers gathered from around their brewery in Soy, Belgium.
To make Pissenlit, Fantôme’s Dany Prignon picks wild dandelions, dries them, and makes a concentrated tea that he adds at the end of the boil. In the summer of 2014, an intense purple field of lemon beebalm wildflowers (pictured below) grew around Jester King. Our Head Brewer Garret Crowell picked some of the leaves and flowers and dried them for several months. On brew day in late September of 2014, he picked fresh horehound around our brewery and added it to the dried lemon beebalm leaves and flowers. He then made a concentrated tea of horehound and lemon beebalm and added it at the end of the boil.
This process exemplifies our mission at Jester King, to make beers that embody the place and time in which they’re made. Using the seasonal resources that grow around us ties our beer to our location, and a specific moment in time. Vulgar Affectation spent close to six months fermenting in stainless steel tanks, and then another four months bottle conditioning, which means that its release coincides with the time of year when lemon beebalm and horehound are growing in our fields once again!
Vulgar Affectation was brewed with Hill Country well water, barley, wheat, rye, rolled oats, lemon beebalm, horehound, and hops. It was fermented with our mixed culture of brewers yeast and native yeast and bacteria harvested from the Texas Hill Country. It is unfiltered, unpasteurized, and 100% naturally conditioned in bottles, kegs, and casks. Vulgar Affectation is 5.0% alcohol by volume, 38 IBU, 3.6 pH at the time of packaging in April 2015, and has a finishing gravity of 1.002 (0.5 degrees Plato).
Vulgar Affectation will be released at Jester King when our tasting room opens at 4pm on Friday, August 7th, with a special pre-release during the Alamo Drafthouse Rolling Roadshow presentation of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me on Thursday, August 6th. It will be available by the glass and to go in 750ml bottles ($12/bottle, limit 3 per customer per day, approximately 3,000 bottles available). A very limited amount of Vulgar Affectation will be available by the glass in our tasting room. Outside of special events, Vulgar Affectation will only be available at our tasting room. The label art was created by our own Josh Cockrell.
