Bottles and bottles

The Saison went into bottles last night! The final gravity was 1020, which, using a handy brew calculator, means the ABV is about 5%. I'm a little surprised that its so low, since I added a pound of candied sugar during the boil. It still needs another 6 weeks in the bottle, so maybe the gravity will change again. Either way, it will be a great session beer for the summer.



While bottling, we drank a bottle of Collaboration, not Litigation from Avery and Russian River. The story behind the beer is almost as good as the beer:

Salvation. The name of two intricate Belgian-style ales, created by us, Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing and Adam Avery of Avery Brewing. After becoming friends a few years ago, we realized that we both had a Salvation in our line-ups. Was it going to be a problem? Should one of us relinquish the rights? Hell no! we said. In fact, it was quickly decided that we should blend the brews to catch the best qualities of each and create an even more complex libation. In April 2004, in top-secret meeting at Russian River Brewing (well actually it was packed in the pub, and many were looking over our shoulders wondering what the hell was going on), we came up with the perfect blend of the two Salvations. Natalie, Vinnie’s much more significant other, exclaimed, We should call this Collaboration, not Litigation Ale! Perfect! we shouted. We celebrated deep into the night, (or is it morning?). Fast forward to November 14, 2006. After talking about it for over 2 years we finally decided to pull the trigger and Vinnie flew out to Avery to brew his Salvation exactly as he does in his brewery. This was blended with Avery’s Salvation December 11th, 2006. We hope you enjoy it as much we enjoyed brewing and blending it.

I couldn't have said it beter.