Wildflower Gamma

Wildflower Gamma is a special release from the Marrickville blendery. It’s a complex and intriguing single barrel beer.

Most of the beers from Wildflower Brewing & Blending are blended from different barrels, creating a unique but precise combination of flavours and aromas.

Every so often, however, a barrel may stand out as being particularly excellent on its own. With those barrels, Topher Boehm and the Wildflower team bottle them as a special release.

Gamma is a single barrel limited release of Amber beer. It follows Alpha and Beta. Wildflower are just about to turn two years old at the time of this beer’s release. The fact that this is only the third single barrel release is testament to how rarely this occurs.

The Gamma Barrel

The barrel in question is an ex-Muscat barrel from Clonakilla winery in New South Wales. Similar barrels were used for Wildflower’s Christmas beer, Noel. This barrel was American oak which is few and far between in Wildflower’s stock of barrels (most being French oak).

This muscat barrel has imparted some character on this finished beer, and there are similarities that can be drawn with Noel but the base beer is instantly recognisable as Amber.

Red Berries

There’s bold red fruit on the nose; cranberry, raspberry, lingonberry. This is reminiscent of Noel but then there are some more herbaceous aromas, and dark roasted coffee and bitter chocolate which hark back to some older blends of Amber.

It shows off both some sweetness and sourness on the palate, presenting a rounded acidity that prickles the tongue at first before smoothing out.

It finishes with a hint of toasted grain and some mouth-watering plum jam flavours that feel full and juicy despite a relatively bright finish.

In terms of colour, it’s at the darker end of the Amber spectrum. There’s a milk-coffee coloured head that froths up excitedly before dispersing into loose bubbles.

A Study In Barrel-Aged Beer

Beers like Wildflower Gamma are exciting when they come along. Beers are made to be enjoyed but sometimes they can be worth pondering over and this is one of those occasions. It’s a complex beer that shows the thrilling array of flavours that can come from barrel-aged beer, and more-so from one barrel on its own without the need for blending.

As this beer is drawn from one barrel, it’s naturally limited in quantity but at the time of writing it should still be available from the Wildflower cellar door or online. As with all Wildflower beers, I recommend reading the notes on the Wildflower blog.

Have you tried Wildflower Gamma? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts on this special release?