Every Establishment brew is undoubtedly a labour of love, but any brewer will tell you that it is also a combination of a lot of science, patience, and learning - and this is especially true for our mixed-culture wild beers.

Since opening more than three years ago the level of acidity in our mixed culture beers has changed, with the first few having little to no acidity and more recent releases featuring acidity as a key component. This follows a common natural progression of commercial mixed culture breweries in North America - in the beginning we struggled to make highly acidic beer and were stoked the first time we did! Nowadays we are consistently looking for ways to reduce acidity, including the utilization of highly attenuative yeast strains, increased hop additions, and (our favorite) blending. Necessary adjustments are in large part due to the evolution of our ‘house culture’ (future blog post) that lives within our barrels. It has adapted over time, and so must we.

In an effort to continue educating ourselves and others about acidity, we have decided to add some new information to our bottle labels - titratable acidity and perceived acidity. You can first find these on our latest release, A Lingering Love. Titratable acidity (commonly shortened to T.A.) is measured using titration (hence the name; also, welcome back to high school Chemistry!) and tells you how much of a particular acid is present in solution, thus giving you a sense of the acidity level you should expect. While T.A. is considered to be far more telling than pH alone, it can't paint the full picture when it comes to balancing components (for example, bitterness) of a particular beer. For this reason, we also decided to add a note about perceived acidity on our labels. Although everyone’s palette is different, this provides a bit more insight into how we feel about each release.

At The Establishment, brewing beer is more than a job - it's a passion project that we hope to continue for years to come. Constant revisions and improvements are a part of that process. While acidity is still a component of the mixed culture program we continue to harbor, a greater focus on approachable, highly drinkable beers is what you should come to expect from recent and future releases.