Release Report – Uncommon Pursuits

Join Greg Zeschuk and Doug Checknita from Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company as they introduce the Uncommon Pursuits series of beers - a special spontaneous beer collaboration with Uncommon Cider from Calgary. This new release features four barrel-fermented beers inspired by cider and fruit wine: cider apple, crab apple, cherry, and peach.

Using barrels freshly emptied of cider and fruit wine, each beer picked up unique flavors from both the fruit and the wood, as well as native microorganisms from Uncommon Cider’s fermentations. Expect hints of oak, vanilla, spice, and fruit-driven complexity in every pour.

With less than 24 hours between barrel emptying and refilling, this spontaneous fermentation series captures the essence of both beer and cider craftsmanship.

Shop the full collection of Uncommon Pursuits beers.

The Transcript:

Greg: Hi, I'm Greg from Blind Enthusiasm Brewing Company and I'm here once again with Doug Checknita, head brewer and blender. Today we're talking about a special new release coming out shortly, Uncommon Pursuits. You, of course, probably know about our Fruitful Pursuits. Uncommon Pursuits is actually collaboration with fruit focus, to a degree, with Uncommon Cider out of Calgary. Doug, do you want to talk about your good pal Brodie from Uncommon Cider, who you've known for years, that led to this great collaboration? 

Doug: So I've known Brodie for 13 years about now. We met when I was working down in Calgary and ever since the beginning we've been talking about doing some collabs together: different types of beers, ciders, and once we opened and were using barrels, it became a natural fit to do something with barrels. So we got a new batch of barrels and took eight of them down to Calgary. And at Uncommon we did a variety of different fruit wines and ciders in them.

Greg: And people remember back in the day, it was actually quite a popular time, we had an Uncommon day here years ago. We actually took those ciders to pour in Edmonton. That was the first part of the collaboration: they were at the tap room and really, really delicious. So it's taken quite a few years since Doug. What's what's taking so long? Why are we so slow? 

Doug: The ciders and wines that we made at Uncommon took a year in the barrels and then when those refreshingly emptied, they were brought up to Edmonton and we put spontaneous fermentation beer in them. Brodie came for the brew day. Within 24 hours of emptying them, they were filled with spontaneous and off for fermentation. 

Greg: And so we actually are releasing 4 beers for Uncommon Pursuits: Cider Apple, Crab Apple, Cherry and Peach. Each of these resided in the respective barrel that had that fruit in it, and they picked up some of the character. Do you want to talk a little bit what people should expect from these?

Doug: Yeah. So after two years in the barrel, you're picking up both character from the wine and from the barrel. So you'll get a light amount of oaky character, some vanilla, some spice character. And then you're also going to pick up a little bit of each fruit. So from the apples you'll get the tannin and the acidity, and from the cherry you'll get some of the pit character, the marzipan, some of the depth that comes from the fruit there. And with the peach, you'll get like bright textural peach character.

Greg: Both Doug and I are drinking the peach right now and it's delicious. These are freshly emptied. That's one of the key things about this because our big scheme on this was to get these barrels as quickly as we could from Brodie at Uncommon. So Doug, do you want to say how quick you guys were?

Doug: Less than 24 hours from the time they were emptied to the time they were that we put spontaneous in them and they were refilled just so that we could maintain both the character of the barrel and the fruit. But also it left some of the natural microorganisms from fermentations as well. So that played a part in our actual fermentation too. Yeah. So in some of them, you get both character of fermentation, character of our natural spontaneous, as well as from Brodie's natural fermentations for his products.