From Temporal Artisan Ales brewed out of Luppolo Brewing in Vancouver comes their “Apparent Horizon” a blend of barred aged beers.  The beer pours a cloudy orange colour with a very fast dissipating white head.  The aroma consists of plum, ripe peach, citrus, sweetness, oak and some mild funk.  The flavour is of plum, pineapple, ripe peach, citrus, oak and brett funk.  The alcohol content comes in at 5.6%.  I had no doubt that Temporal would come out swinging but this was amazingly well balanced.

Commercial Description:  A blend of three different ales fermented and aged in a mix of oak barrels that previously contained Merlot and Chardonnay. Merlot barrels were sourced from the Okanagan and the Chardonnay barrels came up from California.   The portions of the blend were brewed with a mix of grain from Meccagrade and Weyermann, and hopped gently with Czech Saaz from Northwest Hop Farms. Each barrel fermented with its own set of microbes, a unique mix of strains ofbrettanomyces, saccharomyces, lactobacillus, and pediococcus provided by friends from Bootleg Biology, Escarpment Labs, Wild Pitch Yeast and East Coast Yeast.

This blend is comprised of:
27% Barrel #12 – French Oak Chardonnay Barrel – This beer was quite acidic with low funkiness and notes of tart lemon, citrus rind, and plum.
29% Barrel #11 – French Oak Chardonnay Barrel – This beer was very stonefruit forward from the strains of brettanomyces used.
44% Barrel #23 – French Oak Merlot Barrel – This portion was quite balanced, with a pleasant mix of barnyard funk and bright acidity.

I felt that the beer from barrel #23 was the direction I wanted to take the final blend in, which is why it is such a large percentage of the final blend. I balanced the other two beers in near equal portions to add complexity and maintain a similar character and direction to the base of barrel #23.   This blend is bottle conditioned and contains 5.6% alcohol by volume. It was released 7/08/18 and was predominantly sold out of the tasting room at Luppolo, with the exception of a few select stores.