Yesterday night, I met my long time good friend Uli (also known as h.ertie in the world of beer geeks) for a pub crawl in Düsseldorf. It's 9 years since we met for the first time at the Weekend of spontaneous fermentation in Buggenhout-Opstal which is a beer festival dedicated to lambic beers and organized by the local beer group called "Bierpallieters". It was for both of us the second year of attending the festival and we met quite coincidentically. Hertie is all about Flemish things, in particular beer and in particular everything spontaneous fermented. Our first meeting had a stronger meaning in the passion we share.
We became great friends very quickly and he focussed on doing a lot of blends with tiny amounts to learn from this type of beer and how to create great things with it. Over the years, he became very known in the beer world with his crazy blends which were always a box of surprises - something you got great results with amazing combinations and sometimes it turned out crazy and off-flavoured. I especially remember that onion Lambic many, many years ago which really crossed the line. However, Hertie always stayed passionate and experimental and we did two blends together over the years: Eszett Geuze (a blend of 5 different Lambics) and Ohrwal (a blend of Orval and Lambics) which were small batches (ca. 130 bottles with Eszett and ca. 330 bottles with Ohrwal).
Now having set up the old coolship at Vormann Brauerei again, we completely focus its usage for spontaneous fermented beer with our very own twist. This winter, we will host Hertie for some brewing sessions to create some great and interesting products again - this time on a bigger scale. Obviously, the release of the products will take quite some time, but you will hear more if it in the process.