The 105 Patagonia Lager.

Here it is, people. Our first lager.

That’s right. Our first lager since opening way back in August is on it’s way into our tasting room. What better way to enter into the world of lagering than to partner with our supplier, BSG, and use their new line of Patagonia Malt.

So, why haven’t we brewed a lager yet?

Well, the simple answer is space and time. Lagers must be stored at about 0’C for a longer period of time. This process is called lagering (obviously). In this case we lagered our Patagonian lager for three weeks, which means that it’s taking up space in one of our temperature controlled fermenters for over a month. If you’ve been in the tap room then you’ve probably peered into our cellar through the gaps in the bright tanks and noticed that we only have two steel fermenters that are temperature controlled. These are the only tanks we can control temperature in, meaning we have to dedicate these two tanks to temperature sensitive beers. So you can understand why we were a little hesitant to dedicate one tank to one beer for over a month.

Why the Patagonia malt?

Our territory rep for BSG, Finlay Danaher, who has a BSc in Brewing and Distilling and previously worked at the pilot brewing plant for craft beer legends Brewdog, came to us looking to team up for a collaboration brew. We discussed all of our options and decided that it was finally time we did a lager after he told us about a beautiful Patagonian Pilsner malt they had just started importing.

This Chilean malt comes from an area of Patagonia between the Andes mountains and Pacific ocean, where the unique soil type and weather conditions make for perfect barley growing.

Why not 101?

We always said our "lager" would be the most basic beer in our numbering system - 101. This collaboration lager, however, has a bit more hop character, and we don't think it is quite easy-drinking enough to earn the 101 label. We went with 105, instead.

The beer.

We used the Patagonia pilsen malt as our base, backed by a bit of wheat to help with head retention. We boiled for 90 minutes, bittering with Magnum hops and using Saaz as a late addition.

This light, crisp lager is 26 IBU, 5.5% abv. and just what the doctor ordered for this time of year. So come fill your glasses and growlers and drink up because it won’t last long!

- Brad Bannon

Brewer