Cascade Brewing said it will release Valley Flora 2017, a beer that celebrates Northwest regional offerings of craft beer and wine in 500ml bottles and on draft this Friday, Jan. 11, at both Cascade’s Portland-area pubs and through Cascade’s distribution channels.
Valley Flora combines Cascade’s sour red ale with Willamette Valley-grown Pinot Noir grapes using traditional brewing and winemaking techniques. Through native fruit fermentation and extended oak maturation, Valley Flora expresses notes of dark bramble fruit, plum, cherry, earth and oak supported by a balanced tannic structure and lively acidity.
“This project is an off-shoot of Cascade Sang Royal, featuring a higher concentration of fruit and a greater presence of new oak,” explained Kevin Martin, Cascade’s director of brewery operations. “The resulting Valley Flora blend has more wine-forward flavor characteristics than the Sang Royal, as well as more pronounced toasted oak/vanilla aroma and increased tannic structure.”
With “flora” defined as “plants of a particular region,” the name Valley Flora references the Pinot Noir grape as one of the most well-known plantings throughout the Willamette Valley.
Sang Royal is a Tier Two offering; Cascade’s bottles have distinct label styles for each of the three Cascade Brewing pricing tiers, with each label within the tier utilizing distinctive colors to clearly differentiate each beer. The tiers differ by the style of beer used in the product, the type ingredients contained within, the time aged in the barrels and types of barrels used.