Stillwell Brewing

Our old ale, Auld was fermented and aged for one year in our smallest ex-cognac foeder and then bottle conditioned for six months prior to release. It's vinous, dry and lightly tart with layers of toasted malt character. This beer exists at the intersection between old British ales & Flemish sour ales, a history believed to be well linked. This beer is currently available thru the brewery, Stillwell Beer Bar & thru our agents & partners.

Five was brewed to celebrate the 5th anniversary of Stillwell on Barrington St. Fermented and aged in single 700 L, first-use Pineau des Charentes puncheon with NS honey for many, many months, Five is lightly tart, highly aromatic, vinous and delightful. Don't drink it too cold! Five is currently sold out.

Bière de Coupage is something we've been interested in at Stillwell Brewing. Historically it's more of a practice than a style, usually cutting older, "stale" or sour beer into fresher beer either to add interest to the fresher beer or to find a home for a quantity of beer too "stale" or sour to drink on its own. Here we blended a single barrel of old, sour saison into a much larger portion of fresh Easy (a saison we make), and then dry-hopped the blend with some of our favourite hops. There's a little bit of this beer still around and it's totally singing right now.

We call Easy our "house saison" because it was (and is) an attempt at making a saison so perfect that it would be our house go-to. Of course it's not perfect, but it's pretty darn close! Our youngest farmhouse ale, Easy is fermented in just two months in our largest oak foeder, then packaged in green 750 ml bottles meant for sharing or soloing (should the mood strike you). Lightly tart, lemony, herbaceous, floral & dry, this is a beer meant to drink in quantity any old time. Currently available.

We call this one our "brewer's beer" because it is dry, bitter, & relatively simple. Something to drink at the end of the day. Poptones is currently our only farmhouse-style ale fermented in stainless steel, and our only one not just fermented with our house cultures. Poptones starts life as a bitter pale ale fermented with a clean, classic ale yeast that we then add our house cultures to. Brettanomyces has a way of expressing its funkier side in secondary fermentation, and that's what we're after here from our house cultures; a fun expression of the yeasts & bacteria that ferment almost everything else in house. Currently sold out, but a fresh batch is coming (slowly).

A very special annual beer, Glou starts as a blend of the best of our cellar, many very diverse barrels of mature beer are added to a large quantity of freshly pressed NS-grown NY muscat grape skins for a 2-4 month re-fermentation. The result is a beautiful, pink, aromatic potion that makes us rather excited. Batch one used grapes from Blomidon Estate; Batch two used those same grapes for a second re-fermentation with a more sour base blend, and the 2019 blend, which will come out this spring/summer, used 1,000 lbs of NY muscat from Benjamin Bridge.

Our botanical beer, Merryweather uses botanicals (juniper & rose hips, in batch #1) foraged in Nova Scotia by our friend Fred Dardenne. The botanicals were added to two barrels of mature farmhouse ale that had gone in different directions; one mineral, bitter & aromatic, one tart & zippy. The blend worked great and although this beer is long sold out we will make it again.

A few barrels of nicely hoppy farmhouse ales of a medium age (6-9 months) are re-fermented with a large quantity of freshly harvested Nova Scotia peaches and then bottle conditioned until ready. The 2018 edition sold out instantly but the beer we got from the 2019 harvest is slumbering nicely in bottles now.

A fun beer we make inspired by Cantillon's early Framboise releases. We take mature, lightly sour saisons (a blend of barrels in 2018; a single foeder beer in 2019) and re-ferment the beer on equal parts NS-grown cherries (several different species) and raspberries. We may or may not add a small touch of vanilla bean, too. 

A rather tart barrel or two of mature saison was re-fermented on a whack of over-ripe, jammy apricots to make this beer. We didn't secure any apricots last season so this beer is retired for now.

The definition of "crush and/or consider", Sport starts life in the cellar. We look for naturally occurring, oak-derived coconut notes in mature, refreshing and bright barrels of beer that we blend and then add sea salt & fresh lime zest to. The base beers are usually 9-18 months old in Sport, so a lot of time and effort goes into making a beer that we ultimately want you to just chug after a fun game with your friends.

Hoppy & mature oak-fermented saison is dry-hopped with some of our favourite bright & fruity noble-adjacent hops. New world meets old world on the pallet. Sold out.

A tart & well-aged oak fermented beer to celebrate one of (or, the one?) our favourite hops: Czech Saaz. The wort receives mostly Saaz in the kettle, then we dry hop the beer right before packaging with more Saaz. Sold out.

When we founded Stillwell Brewing Co we said we'd only ever use, or at least showcase, noble hops. Saaz. Tettnang. Hallertau. But when we tasted the barrels that would become Gosh, we got waves and waves of tropical fruit character coming from our family of brettanomyces that had been fermenting away, and so we dry-hop this guy with Mosaic hops. The results are great. (Sold out)

We've done a couple of releases of this beer, Solo. Sometimes when you're blending barrels of beer, you come across one that exhibits exceptional balance all on its own. When we find these barrels and feel compelled enough, we package them as-are. The results are a fun and naked expression of our yeast cultures in a single barrel at a single moment in time and we kinda dig that. Sold out.