Nightshade No. 9 is named for what it took to get there. Eight batches before it, each a little wrong. Too sweet, too thin, the black currant either shouting over everything or vanishing entirely. We poured most of them out.
The idea was simple and the execution was not: a hazy IPA that tasted like a hedgerow in late summer, black currant and elderflower over something soft and low in bitterness. Black currant is a bully. Give it an inch and it takes the whole glass, turning everything to cough syrup. Elderflower is the opposite, so delicate that a day too long and it is simply gone.
Nine was the one where they finally sat still together. The currant reads as dark and a little wild, the elderflower floats on top like the smell of the bush in bloom, and the base stays quiet enough to let both speak. We wrote the number on the tank and never changed it.
Every beer we make has a number like this somewhere in its past, a pile of failed attempts nobody sees. We just decided to put ours on the label.
Stay Close
Field notes, now and then.
First word on drops, foraging walks, and the occasional recipe. No noise, just a note when something blooms.