Introducing WILD CANE: Black Hops x Husk collaborative Beer

The long anticipated small batch of Black Hops collaborative beer inoculated with Husk wild cane juice for fermentation was recently released!

Aptly titled: WILD CANE, this beer will be available from the Black Hops tap house and from the Cellar Door.

**Wild Cane**, an 8.6% experiment beer.

A collaboration between Husk Rum & AWOL

We love our local breweries that are, in all honesty, some of the best ones in Australia. We catch up every now and then around a beer or a rum which sometimes leads to a collaboration. That’s how we made the not-yet-released single batch of whisky with Black Hops in 2020.

A year later, Black Hops, opened of a new tap room to showcase their innovative barrel-aged beers called AWOL. This is a super interesting concept that echoes our maturation process with rum and whisky at Husk. You can imagine our excitement when we were chosen to be the first AWOL collaboration!

The concept crystallised the day Govs (Master Brewer at Black Hops) and Quentin (Master Distiller at Husk) caught up at Husk Farm Distillery and got all nerdy about rum fermentation. Husk is the only Australian, farm to bottle rum distillery, using fresh cane juice to create Australian Cultivated Rum. Wild, indigenous yeast and desirable bacteria, naturally present in the cane juice contribute to create a complex and very aromatic product during the fermentation. When Govs, heard about the process and realised the potential of Husk natural yeast, he knew it was the key to making the AWOL collaboration special and the beer taste like no other.

Fast forward a few months, the Husk crew drove up to AWOL in a cold winter morning, with 15L of freshly crushed cane juice. Under the supervision of Brewer Toshi, the latter was then added to the wort (not yet fermented beer) to unleash the potential of Husk wild yeast and create a unique beer expression.

After a week, the beer was moved into some freshly used barrels from Husk, that were dripping with sweet delicious rum. 6 months later the AWOL crew fruited it with fresh pineapple and lime to give it mojito-like flavours and finished with bottle conditioning for perfect carbonation.

The result is delicious and will, just like Husk rum in its category, challenge what you know about beer.

Tasting notes from sensory:
VISUAL: Dark yellow colour with a light haze & a small amount of white foam.
AROMA: Citrus, lemon, lime, pineapple along with some berry, sweet aromatic, honey followed by some molasses, rum, licorice/anise and other spicy notes & grassy aromas.
TASTE: Subtle sweetness, lightly sour and slightly mineral.
MOUTHFEEL: Medium body, slightly spicy, moderate carbonation, some warming and slightly mouthwatering.