We've been pursuing spontaneous fermentation at Jester King since February of 2013, and we're excited to begin our 10th winter of spontaneous fermentation soon. Our 2021 SPON Three Year Blend is our sixth "vintage" and is a blend of 100% spontaneously fermented beer from 2020, 2019, and 2018. This year on December 21st, we’re also releasing five additional SPON beers. Learn more about each one below.
Jester King 2021 SPON Beers
SPON Three Year Blend
We're very excited for our annual release of 2021 SPON Three Year Blend! Our SPON Three Year Blend is 100% spontaneously fermented beer inspired by authentic Belgian-Gueuze. 2021 SPON Three Year Blend is a blend of our 2020, 2019, and 2018 vintages of SPON.
All of Jester King SPON is brewed with well water, Texas malted barley and raw wheat, and aged hops from our barn. It's 100% spontaneously fermented (no yeast added) after collecting native yeast while resting overnight in our coolship. It then slowly ferments and matures for years in oak barrels before blending and natural conditioning. Our 2021 SPON Three Year Blend was blended and packaged in July of this year.
This is our sixth release following the original 2016 SPON Methode Gueuze. Our SPON program began in February of 2013 when we attempted to see if spontaneous fermentation would even work in Texas. We feel proud and fortunate to say that it has, and we're pleased to be able to share 100% spontaneously fermented beers and fruited variations with you.
SPON Three Year Blend is available by the glass and in bottles to go (750ml/$36 and 375ml/$20) at Jester King starting December 11, 2021. Also available for curbside pickup here. We have about 590 bottles of 750ml (11 bottle limit) and 1,300 bottles of 375ml available. Shipping/delivery illegal in Texas. Proxies welcome.
SPON Still
Our 2021 SPON Still was inspired by authentic Belgian Lambic. For this beer, we took water from our well and turbid mashed it with Texas-grown malted barley and raw wheat. We boiled for hours with aged hops from our barn and chilled the wort overnight in our coolship. Fermentation is 100% spontaneous (no yeast pitched) in oak barrels. Our goal is to capture the local character of our land, air, and water in a simple but special beer. For this year's SPON Still, we selected a single barrel of mature SPON and packaged it in boxes. There's no refermentation in the serving vessel, so the beer is intentionally still, much like authentic Lambic.
SPON Still is available by the glass and in boxes to go (1.5L/$29) at Jester King starting 12/11. We have about approximately 170 boxes available. 5 box limit. Shipping/delivery illegal in Texas. Proxies welcome.
SPON Blueberry & Pitaya
For our 2021 SPON Blueberry & Pitaya, we added Texas blueberries and pitaya (aka dragon fruit) to a blend of mature Jester King SPON and refermented the fruit to dryness. The refermented blueberries add a vinous, fruity character, while the pitaya adds mouthfeel and texture. This is one of our favorite fruited SPON beers, so we hope you enjoy as much as we do!
2021 SPON Blueberry & Pitaya is available by the glass and in bottles to go (375ml/$25) at Jester King starting December 11, 2021. Also available for curbside pickup here. We have about 1,000 bottles available. 22 bottle limit. Shipping/delivery illegal in Texas. Proxies welcome.
SPON Rye
As part of Jester King SPON Day this Saturday, we're happy to release 2021 SPON Rye — four-year-old barrel-aged spontaneous beer brewed with raw rye.
The idea behind SPON Rye is a simple one that originated about three years ago — replacing the raw wheat in the grist with raw rye. Instead of brewing with about 60% malted barley and 40% raw wheat as we normally do for SPON, we brewed with 60% malted barley and 40% raw rye. Otherwise, we kept our recipe and process the same with well water, aged hops, coolship, and spontaneous fermentation in oak barrels.
Jester King SPON Rye spent four years in oak barrels slowly maturing and developing complexity. The result is a subtle variation on Jester King SPON, but an interesting one nonetheless, as the malt character is distinctly different from its raw wheat counterpart side to side.
SPON Rye is 5.6% abv and was packed in olive green bottles. Available by the glass and in bottles to go (750ml/$28) at Jester King, as well as curbside pickup (place order here) on December 11, 2021. We have about 700 bottles available. 11 bottle limit. Shipping/delivery illegal in Texas. Proxies welcome.
Tulle — Collaboration with The Veil Brewing Co.
In January of 2018, we were joined by Matt Tarpey and Dustin Durrance of The Veil for the brew. We brewed a traditional wort of well water, malted barley, raw wheat, and aged hops. At knockout into the coolship, we added several hundred pounds of Texas Wildflower Honey. We then spontaneously fermented and slowly matured the beer in oak barrels for nearly four years before blending! The result is very true to its classical, Lambic-inspired roots. Cheers to our friends at The Veil for brewing with us and being compatriots in spontaneous fermentation!
Tulle is available by the glass and in bottles to go (750ml/$28) at Jester King beginning December 11, 2021. Will also be available for curbside pickup here. We have about 950 bottles available. 11 bottle limit. Shipping/delivery illegal in Texas. Proxies welcome.
SPON Prickly Pear Cactus
We're excited to announce the release of 2021 SPON Prickly Pear! Adding local fruit from the Texas Hill Country to mature SPON is one of our favorite things to create at Jester King. We feel that SPON is a beautiful base for fruit refermentation. The earthy aged hop character, mild acidity, and texture from the turbid mash of raw grains creates an inviting backdrop that stands up to fruit refermentation and creates true complexity. At times, without the SPON backdrop, fruit character can dominate. This isn't bad per se. But again, the SPON backdrop just brings it to another level for us.
For SPON Prickly Pear, we partnered with Hat & Heart Farm in Fredericksburg, Texas. After last winter's deep freeze, the Hill County was alive with prickly pear fruit. Hat & Heart described it as a sea of pink. They put a lot of love (and pain) into removing the spines from the prickly pear cactus fruit for us, for which we're very grateful. We then put a lot of love into hand processing all the fruit for fermentation.
2021 SPON Prickly Pear represents what we feel is the essence of Jester King beer. It's 100% spontaneous beer fermented with native yeast, refermented with a unique Texas Hill Country fruit harvested by a small, independent farm. The story and resulting flavors are truly tied to a time, place, and people.
SPON Prickly Pear Cactus is available by the glass and in bottles to go (375ml/$25) at Jester King beginning December 11, 2021. Will also be available for curbside pickup here. We have about 625 bottles available. 22 bottle limit. Shipping/delivery illegal in Texas. Proxies welcome.
Artwork by Joshua Cockrell. Photos by Jess Attie.