Unique Specimen – Dortmunder Gold Lager

Collaboration with The Glass Jug Beer Lab in Durham. They wanted to see how we designed our system to do decoction mashes, a historic brewing process where our mash temperatures are reached by separating a portion of the mash and boiling it, then returning it to the main mash to reach a new enzymatic temperature zone. This process is rarely performed by American breweries (other than us and a few others) and it can improve malt flavor, nuance and head retention to a beer. We decided to use a German Dortmunder as the base style for this recipe, a lager that uses a unique water profile to cut sweetness and improve drinkability in higher gravity beers in the same way decoctions can. This is a sciency, technical lager of brewers leaning on history for modern recipe development. 6.1% ABV