Wildeye Brewing – Barrel-Aged Fruit Stouts with Brett

Wildeye Brewing – Barrel-Aged Fruit Stouts with Brett Review

In this review, Beer Me BC is pleased to preview an upcoming What’s Brewing BC feature series on the North Vancouver brewing scene. Here, we spotlight one of the Lower Mainland’s hidden gem breweries.

Team members in the Wildeye brewhouse: Kira, Michael, Samantha, and Scott

During a recent beer tour of North Vancouver, your reporters were knocked out by the advanced state of affairs at relative newcomer Wildeye Brewing, who launched only 8 months before the pandemic kicked in. As we tasted through their 13 (!) taps, we found pretty much every single one to be intelligent, well-considered, and well-executed recipes with zero flaws. A real stunner of a brewery from product to presentation (and there’ll be more on that in an upcoming article over at What’s Brewing BC).

The barrel program in development at Wildeye Brewing

During our visit, Wildeye’s founder Samantha Lindeman showed us their barrel-aging program, which began just this year. Their aggressive long-term goal is to grow their wood-based collection to one hundred barrels. Already, they’ve turned out two impressive products with a shared theme: the Barrel-aged Raspberry Stout With Brett and its sibling, the Black Currant Stout With Brett. Let’s see how Wildeye’s Head Brewer Michael Friesen and the team did with this twin release.

The Barrel-aged Raspberry Stout With Brett and its sibling, the Black Currant Stout With Brett.

We tried the Black Currant first. Its extensive ingredients list includes malted barley, flaked barley, flaked oats, vegan chocolate chips, cacao nibs, toasted oak, blackcurrants, and Brettanomyces.

This brew appears solid black upon the first pour. However, closer inspection reveals a seriously-dark reddish-purple hue.

There’s a really nice fruity aroma, with cassis-like currant notes. It’s clear it’s a sour…but you get a surprise when you take a sip, as the chocolatey flavours of this Brett beer remind you that it’s actually a stout.

On the palate there is a bit of a tannic-like red wine experience, along with regular sour notes from the Brett. However, it’s not overpowering.

This secret agent of a beer keeps revealing its hidden identity…or perhaps identities since it was hard to categorize for this review. Our goal as Beer Seekers is to find new experiences in beer, and Wildeye has delivered that with something we haven’t had before: a delicious, dark sour stout. Congratulations to Samantha, Michael and team on the successful launch of their barrel series.

As noted above, there’s be more coming about Wildeye and the North Vancouver beer scene, over at What’s Brewing BC. In the meantime, you will find a spotlight on founder Samantha in the last issue of What’s Brewing magazine, here:

A Conversation With Samantha Lindeman from Wildeye Brewing