Raw Ale – Category 12 Brewing

By Mike @mikescraftbeer

From Victoria's Category 12 Brewing comes their "Raw Ale" a beer brewed without boiling the wort. The beer is a Westcoast Farmhouse Ale with Brettanomyces & Red Cedar. The beer pours an orange colour with a white head and lacing that sticks around in the glass. The aroma consists of brett funk, tropical fruit, citrus and some sweetness in the finish. The flavour is of citrus rind, cedar, brett funk, tropical fruit, lemon, spices, resin, earth and mild bitterness. The alcohol content comes in at 5.5% with an IBU of 13. I don't know if I have had a beer quite like this one before. I hope that Category 12 Brewing makes more like this as it is a great beer and very unorthodox.

Commercial Description: Reaching back across the millennia, we've recreated our version of an ancient ale that is fermented without ever being boiled. This Scandinavian-inspired farmhouse raw ale combines the heritage of our brewing "family" by infusing West Coast red cedar from the workshop of local Coast Salish artist, Chris Paul, who also contributed art to our label. Primary Brettanomyces fermentation, merged w ith the benefits of refermentation in the bottle, results in a deliciously light, crisp, and complex beer that encapsulates our Elemental Series' commitment to experimentation and innovation.