Print article: GoodLife Brewing Man of the Hour Flanders Red

GoodLife Brewing Man of the Hour

About a week and a half ago my latest print article dropped in The Bulletin, where I wrote about GoodLife Brewing’s Man of the Hour Flanders Red Ale, which has the distinction of being the last beer that founder and brewer Curt Plants brewed before he died.

GoodLife Brewing Company debuted a special new beer at the recent Bend Brewfest that is currently available on tap, Man of the Hour. The beer is named in honor of founder and brewer Curt Plants, and it was the last beer he brewed before he died suddenly in 2017.

“There was a Thursday morning back in early 2017 that Curt finally had the chance to brew a recipe that he’d been wanting to brew for years,” the brewery wrote on Facebook. That recipe was for a Flanders red ale, a Belgian-style mixed fermentation sour ale aged in barrels.

Sour beers are still somewhat unusual for GoodLife, a brewery known for its IPAs and its popular Sweet As Pacific Ale.

“Working with sour and barrel-aging beer, we try to push our comfort zone and try new things with all our product development and new beers,” head brewer Tyler West said.

In brewing Man of the Hour, primary fermentation occurred in regular stainless steel fermenters. The beer was then transferred to French and American wine barrels, “as well as a few twice-used bourbon barrels for some more intense oaky characteristics,” West said. “The beer was aged around 24 months and had some very antique flavors, so we did resort to the style and blended some fresh beer to give it a smooth refreshing character.”

In addition to (hopefully) honoring Curt, I dug into the Flanders red style a bit, and was pleased with how this version from GoodLife turned out. Read the article for my review of it.

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