Gentleman's Agreement

Cloudwater x Black Iris Brewery

When we first approached Cloudwater about a collab, we knew in our minds eye we
were keen to keep things traditional, with a focus on allowing a beer full expression
in various packaging formats. So we came up with a 5.8% Victorian Ruby Mild.

The recipe for this beer started from the yeast. Yeast is the magic ingredient which is often overlooked in the brewing process but is where the magic and alchemy of brewing is born. For this beer we co-pitched two historical yeast strains, which reflected different parts of our breweries past and local heritage. From Cloudwater, we used JW Lees yeast, a robust yeast that they have used on many beers collaboratively with JW Lees and from Nottingham, we used Hardy and Hanson’s yeast, which was used regularly by our Head Brewer Dan while at Castle Rock which is where we sourced the wet culture.

For the delicious looking colour, we started with Chevallier malt from Crisp Maltings to set the foundation for deep maltiness with fresh bread notes. This malt would have been widely used in 1870 so it seemed fitting for this brew. To that we build deeper layers of colour with Red X malt, Crystal malt and Black malt to develop that deep ruby. With Goldings hops for bittering and Bramling Cross at flame out, these spicy, herbal British varieties add berry tones and balanced bitterness to the beer.

ABV. 5.8%
Ingredients: Malted Barley, Wheat, Hops, Yeast, Water
For allergens including cereals containing gluten, see underlined ingredients.