Here’s a little update from Dave at Schell’s:
Zommerfest was *finally* packaged today. Never underestimate the red-tape you need to go through with the federal government just because you decide to use honey in the recipe.
The honey itself came from Harris Honey Company in Madelia. Harris is a great guy–65 years old, retired from beekeeping. That means he only works about 70 hours a week during the season. He only kept about 400 hives last year (he’s retired, after all!), and I was lucky enough to be able to hand-pick some honey for Zommerfest. My past-life as a junior beekeeper in Fergus caused me to have a bit more than a pedestrian knowledge of honey, and I can tell you that his honey is excellent. I went with some basswood honey. I’ve always been partial to basswood for the minty character it has–just a bit more zip than clover. I also enjoyed looking around the “plant” when I went down to pick it up.
Brought back some good memories from years ago.Other than the Zommerfest, look for the Hefe in mid to late May. We’ll be growing up the yeast in a couple of weeks and then do a full production batch around the end of April. It’s a limited release, so make sure you get it while you can.
Cheers!
David Berg
You may recall that I predicted that the Zommerfest recipe would be revamped. I was way off on the specifics, but Zommerfest will be different this summer.