It’s a busy week in the beer community, starting today at Lost Forty for Freshcut Monday. The brew team is releasing Funky Peach Fruited American Wild Ale, a sour that has already been through a lot before it hits your glass. Lost Forty first barrel-aged its Love Honey Bock and a saison separately for nine months with wild yeast before blending the two together. The blend was then aged on peaches for two-and-a-half months before getting keg conditioned for four months. That’s more than a year of aging and souring that has gone into this brew. While Funky Peach is a limited brew, Lost Forty made enough to make it available in crowlers or growlers to go, in addition to serving it by the glass. Funky Peach launches at 4 p.m. today.
Lost Forty also has a collaboration beer with Stone’s Throw Brewing coming out this week. It’s called Common Gruit, and it is an homage to beermaking from more than a millennium ago, when brewers used a combination of herbs and spices (a gruit) instead of hops to brew. Each community had its own special gruit that it used. Hops would replace gruits by the 15th century, but on Feb. 1, brewers around the country will recognize “Gruit Day” with the release of a special beer. Lost Forty and Stone’s Throw are using holy basil in Common Gruit, which should make for an interesting finish. Common Gruit is out at Lost Forty and Stone’s Throw starting at 4 p.m. Thursday.
Speaking of Stone’s Throw, the brewery will be creating a blonde ale recipe from homebrewers Ice 9 for the Little Rock Kickball Association’s spring season. Stone’s Throw hosted the fifth annual Big Red Ball Homebrew Contest on Saturday to select the “official beer of kickball.” I spent three hours at the event and came away very impressed with the quality of beer on hand. The judges did a great job, too; Ice 9’s X 2 Blonde Ale was a superb representation of the style. Look for X 2 Blonde at Stone’s Throw when kickball season starts up this spring.
Usually we at Rock City Eats are in the business of writing about and marketing the beer community. But this week, you can taste a beer we helped work on at Rebel Kettle’s 4:30 Thursday event. It’s called SofaKing Cinnamon, and we’re pretty pleased with it. The beer is a milk stout with a whole box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal added to the mash along with additional cinnamon sticks to enhance the flavor. It comes in around 6.5%. At least from the initial taste it is delicious. We will have more on the process of making this tomorrow.
Diamond Bear’s cubby series marches on this week with the release of Black Milkshake IPA on Friday. Head brewer Jay Ragsdale created this black IPA with lactose, as well as Simcoe and Citra hops, then double dry-hopped it at the end. At 7 percent ABV and 60 IBU, this one should be pretty intriguing for IPA lovers. It goes on at 5 p.m. at Diamond Bear’s taproom in North Little Rock.
Blue Canoe this week is saying goodbye to one of its original brews. The warehouse location on Friday will celebrate the retirement of Bear Trail Belgian Blonde with a party event. All attendees will receive a pint glass to paint to mark the occasion. That kicks off Friday at 5 p.m. Also, Super Bowl Sunday is this coming weekend, and Blue Canoe is celebrating with Shambala Mobile Vegan Kitchen at some of its vegan brews at the warehouse Sunday. That party starts Sunday at 4 p.m.
Flyway Brewing is teaming up with South on Main for a can’t-miss beer dinner the day before Valentine’s Day. The Love for Flyway Beer Dinner starts at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13, and features four courses all paired with a Flyway brew. South on Main holds some of the best beer dinners in the city, and this one looks just as good. Tickets are $55 and will go extremely fast (I got mine already). To make your reservation, email amy@southonmain.com or call 501-244-9660.
Do you have some beer news you want us to know about? Email steve@rockcityeats.com.
RIP Damgoode Pies
November 20, 2023
