About The Beer: The Trees and The Birds (Again)

By Greg Carlson

ICYMI, there was a brief, wondrous moment earlier in the spring when all four of our seasonals - The Birds, The Bees, The Flowers, and The Trees - were on tap at once, for the first time since we’ve opened. You may be surprised to learn that this was seriously a momentous occasion for us, because, after two years, we were finally able to fulfill a vision for Redemption Rock Brewing that’s existed longer than the name “Redemption Rock Brewing.” 

This Deano-themed quartet of beers was one of the very first ideas we had when we started conceptualizing the brewery. And like almost every other part of our long and arduous development, ideas and plans for these beers came and went as we tried, erred, and adjusted our strategies and goals. This spring lineup had, at some point, been planned to include witbiers, IPAs (not that one), various species of wood, saisons (that one, and also a different one), blonde ales, and somehow never any stouts now that I think about it. As we continued working on it, these ideas all went the way of “Redemption Rock Brewery & Public House,” kegged wine offerings, and raccoon mascots. That is, we decided against them and you’ll never hear of them again. 

The thing about opening a brewery (or any business, really) is that one’s plans and strategies aren’t much more than one’s best guesses at the point of opening, and one should expect to make some adjustments even after one has introduced oneself to the world. All this is to say, I suppose we could explain why The Birds and The Trees were different when we first released them. 

For newcomers: in 2019, The Birds was originally a red saison and The Trees was a Maple Sap Altbier. The beers were both well-executed and well-received (except that, as I recall, exactly zero people knew without being told that The Birds was the color of a robin and that’s why it was called The Birds) and we were happy to have had them. They were nice beers, early successes in our roughly four-month-old brewing operation. 

However, in the year that followed, we refined our product strategy in a way that created more room for lagers and IPAs and less room for saisons and the beers of North Rhine-Westphalia. Our goal has always been to produce a wide variety of beers that are fun to drink to a wide variety of people, but we soon realized that even in pursuit of that, one can try to do too many things too quickly, and instead of establishing variety as your identity, you establish it as unfocused and muddled. Not good. 

So we took a mulligan! We decided to just re-do those two beers the following spring. We replaced the red saison with a 100% Falconer’s Flight Double IPA (hopefully making the theme at hand a bit more obvious), and the altbier with a dunkel lager (much smaller leap on that one). 

Here’s how we did them: 

For The Birds (heh), we start with a big, simple grain bill, split equally between two American base malts, mashed with fermentability as our objective. In the kettle, we hop aggressively with the Falconer’s Flight, with the balance shifted towards flavor and aroma, but bitterness still given due attention. We dry hop it twice with more Falconer’s Flight during our standard IPA fermentation, then allow it ample time to condition before packaging. What results is a medium-bodied, easy-drinking DIPA with assertive aromas of tropical, citrus, and stone fruits, with hints of pine and malt sweetness. If this sounds vaguely reminiscent of our flagship IPA, War Castle, it is! Falconer’s Flight is a blend American hop varieties, including the seven classic “C” hops, five of which are used in War Castle. Fun! 

For The Trees, we stuck with our “maple sap works well as brewing liquor, since it has the natural acidity and moderate levels of minerality needed for brewing, especially when working with the darker malts used in styles like altbier” thinking, and pivoted to another red-to-brown German lager (don’t @ me), the Munich Dunkel. The grist is a love song to our friends at Stone Path Malt and their Nor East Munich and Munich Dark malts, which we mash with palate fullness as our objective. Even though the maple sap (which we source from Pure BS Maple Shack in Auburn, MA) is more like water than it is syrup, it still contributes a considerable amount of fermentable sugars that, if left unbalanced by the proper malt derivatives, could result in this particular beer being inappropriately thin-bodied. Not in this house! 

From there, we hop the beer very modestly, with our beloved German Magnum playing the supporting role, before sending it off for a long, cool, lager fermentation and conditioning. We package once the beer is appropriately clear, clean, and carbonated, and what results is another medium-bodied and easy-drinking beer, this time with aromas of bread crust and raisins and notes of spice and green wood that you’d instantly recognize if you ever got into drinking those maple water products they sell in the health food section at the supermarket. 

So our sincerest apologies to the fans of the OG Birds and Trees, and thank you for understanding that yes, we’d like you to enjoy all four beers, but no, we still do not offer flights.

(Editor’s note: While The Birds and The Bees have sadly left us until next year, The Trees and The Flowers are still on tap. So hustle and get ‘em while you can.)