Brew #500! To mark this momentous occasion we wanted to do something fun, something weird and wacky and delicious.

We've always found it fun to work with locally grown produce as there is so much depth of flavour to work with in combination with different yeasts, hops, and grain varieties within a myriad of possible beer styles and techniques. One of the most fun parts of brewing with produce is the colour these ingredients provide like the many shades of orange, red, pink, purple and even blue that have donned the Whistle Buoy glassware. Like one particularly astute Whistle Buoy bartender once said, "people drink with their eyes...man". So, we let colour guide the way in the recipe development process for our 500th brew and decided to attempt a beer that looked as green as a kale smoothie, as seen in this generic image we used for inspiration:

We find the best way to replicate an ingredient is just to use a lot of that very ingredient 🤯. The hazy kale ale concept was born. 

Through our fastidious research and development process we found that fresh kale juice soon turned brown and swampy and was not a viable candidate for making what is essentially kale juice. We had much better luck with kale that had been dried and made into a powder in conjunction with liquid chlorophyll, the natural compound present in green plants that gives them their colour (grade 6 science class). 

There is a vegetal character present with the kale that we wanted to lean into as our brewers developed the desired balance of the flavour profile. While thinking about what paired well with kale, our minds went to kale caesar salad, and what special ingredient makes a traditional caesar salad pop? That's right, Anchovy. "Let's put fish in the beer!" Just kidding, that's not what we did, but it led us to tracking down the elusive and facetiously named Anchovy Hop.

Anchovy is a new experimental variety from Segal Ranch in the lower Yakima Valley. Initially, it went by the name 24B-05 but was given the controversial name Anchovy by Matt Storm and Brian Strumke from Fast Fashion Brewing in Seattle. Fast Fashion was the first brewery to sponsor acreage, so they have been the only folks to get a chance to brew with it so far, but now there is a very limited amount of 2023 crop year available.

Fast Fashion Brewing describes the variety as "watermelon hard candy, raspberry, and pine." We're definitely getting the Watermelon Jolly Rancher and sweet fruit character in this beer. 

Ok, so now that you have the background story we proudly present to you, Hazy Kale Ale.

As you may have noticed, we like to have fun with our beer concepts and mark occasions with creative recipes and advertising a la Robo Beer, NFT IPA, Blue Gose, etc. We believe there are enough fantastic traditional beers out there, and to us, beer is supposed to be fun, so as long as we can make things that meet our standards of balanced flavour, quality ingredients, and a delicious end product that we will happily drink ourselves, we'll try making it. If you find yourself getting queezy from the thought of green beer or the little fish on the label, we would suggest not looking at the following photo 😬

 

This photo was posted on April 1, 2024...This beer is real and is available for a limited time exclusively at Whistle Buoy both on tap and in cans. 

There are no fish products or flavours in this beer.

Cheers to the next 500 brews!