Field Recordings - A Hymn for the Fields

WELCOME TO FIELD RECORDINGS

Field Recordings is a new venture into brewing for us here at North, a place where we’ll be taking pieces of what we have seen and done, and interpreting them into experimental drinks styles.

North has been making beer since 2015, and pioneered some incredible styles in the UK including our Triple Fruited Gose series. However, the size of the brewery has meant we’ve always had restraints on how far we can explore. The opening of Springwell has given us space to play. Our original brewery, Taverner’s Walk, will be home to Field Recordings.

Here we will be barrel ageing beer, experimenting with different strains of yeast, exploring the use of locally grown ingredients, looking at historic brewing techniques and seeing how we can translate them into modern styles. We will look at how other fermented drinks are made, applying and blending those techniques into our beers. Who knows, we may even make some wine, cider or mead.

Field Recordings is an opportunity to look back through our entire relationship with beer, the many years we’ve been involved with it and begin to piece together a collage of what we know and what we’re excited to explore. We are creating new beers that represent our interests and passion to the fullest.

No beer will stand alone, each will inform another and they will all begin to build a picture. We will take what we learn and apply it to another beer, cutting and pasting into a random yet configured pattern.

We aim to bring you new releases monthly, however, due to the nature of these beers, the value of time, process and experimentation, some might take longer than others. This is a journey of learning for all of us, yourself included and we hope that you gain as much from it as we do.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SAISON

This is where we begin. Our first beer calls back to our origin. Back to 2000 when we were first introduced to Belgian beer through North Bar. The saison is a style of Belgian beer that has always required a fine balance.

They can range from full bodied, sweet, and cheesy to crisp, tart, clean and bitter. Just like any other beer style it can be deconstructed and reconstructed to create a new interpretation.

Saison, French for season, was originally brewed by farm workers in the French speaking region of southern Belgium, Wallonia. Workers, known as ‘les saisonniers’, would travel away from their homes to work during harvesting season. Saisons were brewed during the colder months of the year, between December and March, to be enjoyed during the following harvest season. At the time, beer served as a safe alternative to potentially unsafe drinking water and simply as a refreshment while working in the sunny fields.

Originally the saison was a very rustic style of beer, and would differ vastly between the farmhouses producing it. The variance would mainly be down to the different ingredients available to each producer.

Farmers would usually be producing their own barley and malting whatever was left from their harvest to brew with, topping up with other ingredients such as wheat, buckwheat, oats or spelt to bulk up the brew, smooth the beer out and produce more ester flavour and aroma.

Often saisons would end up infected due to poor water quality or traces of bacterial microbes found on hop leaves, this would result in a slight edge of sourness which was eventually found to be desirable in the saison style.

WALLONIA, BELGIUM

A HYMN FOR THE FIELDS

We started with a target of how we wanted our saison to be, aiming more towards a dry and fruity style, but with vinous and more wine-like characteristics. Pilsner Malt and a large helping of wheat make up the grist of the beer making for a vibrant golden beer with a foggy haze. We mashed the malts with water at a low temperature, creating shorter and more fermentable sugars, resulting in a thinner and dryer beer.

We chose to use a hybrid farmhouse saison yeast, known for its acidic properties that balance with spice and tropical fruit flavour. We co-pitched with Sauvignon Blanc yeast stimulate, a yeast traditionally used in wine making, to accentuate the delicate flavour of the grapes used to make wine.

Research into the use of this yeast in beer has found that there are similar compounds in New Zealand hops and New Zealand grapes, meaning that it can be used in a very similar way to interact with the New Zealand hops in this beer, highlighting their vinous flavour. A gentle dry hop of Nelson Sauvin and Hallertau Blanc impart a soft and sweet white peach flavour, with grassy tones, vanilla and a clean minerality.

A small addition of Talus was added during the whirlpool process to bring a tone of lime and tropical fruit, something familiar. The finished beer has subtle sweetness, vibrant tropical and vinous flavours that sit atop a dry and rugged base. We think it sits somewhere between a saison, a NEIPA and a fruit wine.

Our designer, James Ockelford of Refold, worked with photographer, sound artist and field recorder, Darren Joyce, to create the can design. Using Darren’s photography, James generated the textures you see on the can.

“I’VE BEEN TAKING THESE MACRO PHOTOGRAPHS OVER THE LAST 5 YEARS. THEY’RE ALL ABOUT MY RECENT OBSESSION WITH REFRACTOGRPAHY AND DIFFERENT FORMS OF LIGHT THROUGH DIFFERENT MEDIUMS, FROM FOUND IMPURE GLASS, LIKE OLD MARBLES AND STOPPERS TO PLASTIC BUTTONS AND BITS OF CHANDELIERS, FROM MAN MADE LIGHT SOURCES LIKE LEDS AND LASERS TO OUR GREAT BIG SUN.…

…THROUGH POLARIZING FILTERS, OLD MAGNIFYING AND ENLARGING LENSES TO OLD FOUND PLASTIC BAGS AND DIFFERENT LIQUIDS I PATIENTLY FIND A PLACE WHERE YOU BLUR THE LINES OF FOCUS CALLED THE “CIRCLE OF CONFUSION” THEY ARE ALL TAKEN IN CAMERA AS I WANTED TO TRY AND CAPTURE A FLEETING MOMENT IN TIME, IN MY PRACTICE THERE IS NO POST PROCESSING, THE ONLY ACTIONS I CAN TAKE ARE TO RESIZE, ROTATE AND CROP, AND AS YOU’LL SEE THERE VERY ABSTRACT” DARREN JOYCE

DAZZJOYCE1

LACTO-FERMENTED FRUIT / ENTS / FLOWERS / HERBS / WOOD SMALL BATCH / NEW Y CULTURES / BLENDING / FOU WHOLE LEAF / RUSTIC / MOD / SPONTANEOUS FERMENTATI ATION / TRADITION / FARMHO FLOWER / BOTANICS / SHERR APPLE BRANDY / BRANDY / B / OAK / BRETTANOMYCES / SO / PALE / BELGIAN / GERMAN / NAY / PINOT NOIR / CABERNE

LOCALLY SOURCED INGREDI/ SPICES / BARREL AGEING YEAST STRAINS / INOCULATED UDRE / WIT / KVASS / SMOKE DERN / SEASONAL / HERITAGE ION / WINE / CIDER / MACEROUSE ALE / GRISETTE / WILDRY / WHISKY / RUM / TEQUILA OURBON / ISLAY / SAUVIGNON OUR / STOUT / LAGER / HYBRID PALE / IMPERIAL / CHARDONET SAUVIGNON / MICROFLORA

KEEP FOLLOWING THE STORY FOR INFORMATION ON MORE OF THE RELEASES

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