What this is
The unit batch for an annual barrel fill. On its own it is 23 L of strong red wort; the beer is what comes out of a 250 L oak barrel a year or more later, after ten or eleven of these have gone in and blended.
7.8% and 1.067 down to 1.008, on a seven-malt bill that is 57% Vienna and Munich.
Brewing ten of them
The barrel takes ten to eleven of these to fill, brewed across a season and racked in as they are ready. Like the Foeder Pale Sour, consistency is the whole discipline: every batch blends into the same vessel, so a batch that misses does not spoil one beer, it shifts the entire barrel.
Matt’s 2024 and 2025 fills used identical grain bills to the gram — all seven malts, same weights, same Pacific Gem charge, same 1.067 target. That is the recipe above.
Why the grain bill looks like this
A Flanders red has to still taste of something after a year of Lactobacillus and Brett working on it. Most of what a clean beer relies on will be eaten.
So the bill is front-loaded with kilned malt that cannot be fermented away: Vienna and Munich together at 57%, plus Aurora and Redback for colour, and Special B at under 3% doing far more than its weight for dark fruit character.
Mash high, at 69.5°C. That is deliberate and it runs against the instinct for a beer that finishes at 1.008. The dextrins a 69.5°C mash leaves behind are food for the barrel culture across the following year — mash low and the beer is thin long before it is ready.
Unmalted wheat rather than malted, at 10.7%, which is traditional and gives the culture protein to work on.
The 57 L variation
Owen’s 2026 fill is a different barrel and a slightly adjusted bill: Aurora up to 0.40 and Redback down to 0.30, and Special B replaced by Dark Crystal at 0.16 plus Shepherds Delight at 0.08. It also pitched BRY-97 alongside the wild cultures for a clean primary before the souring, rather than relying on barrel inoculation alone.
Note that its record is entered against the 57 L barrel volume rather than a 23 L unit, so it will not line up cleanly against the others in the table below. The grain figures are per batch; the volume is per barrel.
Timeline
Fill across a season, then leave it. Twelve to eighteen months minimum, and a Flanders red rewards longer. The blend is the point — what goes in over several months comes out as one beer.