Reviewed: Plan Bee Farm Brewery Barn Beer
Official description: NYS organic 6-row barley & organic red wheat grown @ Stone House Farms (Hudson, NY), barley malted @ Hudson Valley Malt (Germantown, NY). All NY Hops, Perle, Sterling & dry hopped with a touch of Chinook. Fermented with our house mixed culture from our raw honey and honey comb on the farm (Poughkeepsie, NY). Coolship cooled and fermented in oak.
Plan Bee Farm Brewery – Plan Bee Barn Beer – 375mL bottle served in Rastal Harmony glass – 5.5% ABV
Background
Plan Bee Farm Brewery opened in Poughkeepsie, New York in 2018. Though its origins date back to 2013. More on their history here. On Plan Bee’s homepage, there’s this mission statement: “At Plan Bee Farm Brewery our mission is to brew 100% New York State ingredient beer. We source all our ingredients from the state of New York with many grown on site. Our beers go from ground to glass within measurable feet of their origins. Our goal is to work with local businesses to produce a delicious product for the community we serve.”
If you are a NY resident, Plan Bee will even ship to your door. Check out their webstore here.
Review
I’m sampling my very first Plan Bee beer from a 375mL green, punted bottle with an oversized yellow cap. Prying off the cap, there’s nary a hiss while some yeasty sediment has coated the neck of the bottle. Given this beer’s open fermentation and lambic-like production, I think this would store and look better with a real cork.
Into my glass, Barn Beer is an attractive neon straw color with bleached white foam that requires a bit of coaxing to build up to just halfway up the glass. Cloudy sediment covers the bottle of the punted bottle and is left deliberately undisturbed.
The aroma is immediately outstanding: intense house yeast character brings a lovely mix of verbena, lemon balm, and yuzu for an ultra-bright, zesty nose. Digging in, the mouthfeel is highly effervescent with fine bubbles and matching sharp citric acidity. French lemonade and yuzu flavors take up the majority of the mid-palate while the finish is decidedly oaky with white pepper and strong wooly tannins. Minerality is extreme, even for a lambic-style with chalk and river stone at Sauvignon Blanc levels.
Perceived Specs for Plan Bee Barn Beer
Conclusion
Barn Beer avoids classic American wild ale mistakes of over-the-top acidity, vinegary acetic acid, stinky aromas, and lack of drinkability. This one is refined, delicate, and immeasurably thirst-quenching like dry, sparkling lemonade. Given its locally sourced ingredients and open-air fermentation, you get to experience beer’s answer to terroir.
VERDICT: 98pts (SUPERLATIVE)
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