Cascade Brewing, Portland, Ore., introduced Primordial Noir 2017 to its lineup of bottles projects. Released today, Primordial Noir is a blend of imperial red ales aged in bourbon and wine barrels for up to two years with Northwest-grown Bing cherries and spices.
A concentrated precursor to Cascade’s Sang Noir project, Primordial Noir features a more robust bourbon and cherry presence with notes of roast malt, molasses and baking spices. The beer is 10.5% ABV and is available now in 500ml bottles and on draft.
“To make our Sang Noir, we take red wine barrel aged reds, blend them with bourbon barrel aged reds, then add 150 pounds of Bing cherries to each barrel,” explained Tim Larrance, Cascade Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “For Primordial Noir, we chose to skip the red wine aged reds and go straight with the bourbon barrel reds and cherries. The reds shine spectacularly with a balanced cherry flavor.”
This marks the fourth 500ml bottle release for Cascade Brewing, on the heels of Kriek, Apricot, and Framblanc. The brewery switched from 750ml bottles to the new size with a commensurate price point earlier this year.