Seattle's Bottleworks and Nooksack Valley's Barmann Cellars have released Silent Flight. A blend of ingredients, time, and friendships.
"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." - Helen Keller
In this industry of handcrafted beer and cider, the word collaboration gets tossed around a lot. Which is defined as “... the action of working with someone to produce or create something.” Often this term is used to summarize a bunch of creatives, sitting at a table, or sweating over a mash tun, to produce a unique beverage. Once again, breaking the normal definition of collaboration, Bottleworks has released their newest cider, Silent Flight.
Heralding from Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, Bottleworks has been servicing the neighborhood and greater Seattle area for 25 years. With the focus on shunning most mainstream breweries, the crew instead takes the heterodox approach.
Craving some Manny’s Pale Ale by Georgetown Brewing? Not here. Fremont Interurban? Nope! What about Reuben’s Brews Crikey? Guess again!
Instead, the brewery focuses on hard to get or breweries, cideries, meaderies, and yeah wineries, which aren’t carried at your local grocery store. But Bottleworks doesn’t just rest at being a promoter of unorthodox breweries. They embrace them by collaborating, often inviting other related businesses to join them.
One only has to look at their previous releases with breweries like Heater Allen, Sig Brewing Company, Living Haus, and Brujos. But, sometimes General Manager Brandon Wiley and their crew collaborate with a cidery. And this is one of those times.
image courtesy Northwest Beer Guide™ and is covered by copyright.
Released in collaboration with Maple Falls cidery, Barmann Cellars, Bottleworks invites you to check out Silent Flight.
Cutting to the quick, Silent Flight has been described this way.
Silent Flight is a collaboration coferment with our friend from Bottleworks in Seattle, WA. Estate apples were pressed into stainless steel, 500lbs of estate damson plums were hand pitted and added to the apple juice and the tank was sealed. The plums were carbonically macerated over the course of a month as the apple juice kicked off a spontaneous fermentation. The plums and cider were pressed again, and then transferred to a neutral oak barrel with estate pinot noir lees. The lot was primed with local raw honey, bottled and it's a sulfite free banger.
Wanting to get a more 1:1 retrospective, Barmann Cellars and Bottleworks reflect what led up and what they thought of this release.
Starting in September 2023, which is typically harvest season, Bottleworks’ Brandon Wiley and Chanell Williams, worked with owners Stephanie Barmann & Jesse Nickerson, to come up with a blend and process.
For Bottleworks’ Chanell Willaims, the experience of visiting Barmann Cellars to create a cider felt more like making something with family than another cidery. Reflecting on the motivations and the experience of making cider, Chanell shares this.
There are people you meet for the first time, and you immediately know they are going to be your chosen family. That’s exactly how Brandon and I felt when we first met the Barrmanns. Although our shared passion for fermentation brought us together, we quickly developed a deep bond that’s rare these days. Over the years, we’ve spent countless hours on their farm, enjoying the company of their children and their wild goats.
When the time came for our first cider collaboration, there was no doubt who we would join in this endeavor. The Barrmans have become more than just producers we work with—they have become dear friends. Last year, Brandon even organized a surprise birthday celebration for me on their farm, inviting our industry friends. From sipping the nectar of their estate fruits by the fireplace to racing between fruit trees on a four-wheeler with Stephanie at the helm, Barrman Cellars has proven to be something truly special. We are fortunate to have crafted our first cider with them.
Making the drive in late September, Bottleworks’ Brandon and Chanell drove two hours to take part in the harvest and to help press apples.
As its co-owner, Stephanie Barmann reflects on the process, including the apples, fermentation, and including wine lees.
We ground & pressed estate grown apples (melrose, liberty, spartan, jonagold, Fuji, Gala, and heritage) into a stainless steel tank, and hand pitted 500lbs of estate grown damson plum and added them to the fresh pressed apple juice. The lid was sealed on the tank and a spontaneous (no yeast pitch, just used what was on the fruit) ferment kicked off. We carbonically macerated the whole plums in the tank. After a month the plums had softened considerably, and we pressed the lot again to fully extract the plums. We filled two neutral oak barrels that had been recently emptied and contained 2022 estate Pinot Noir lees, with the intention of rounding out the acidity from the plums. The cider was aged sur lie for 5.5 months and bottle conditioned using local raw honey.
A truly experimental process for the cidery, the resulting cider visually will inspire thoughts of fresh-picked strawberries. While the aroma will evoke recollection of dark fruit, barnyard funk including musty earth, old hay, subtle vanilla, plum, and strawberries. Sipping, you’ll no doubt recover notes of strawberries, dark fruit akin to sweet cherries, plums, vanilla, and a bit of barnyard funkiness. Overall, Silent Flight has noticeable bits of alcoholic warmth, has a medium weight on the palate, and a lingering sweet yet dry memory that lingers on the palate.
With every sniff, sip, and swallow, Silent Flight is a rare, intimate example of collaboration between two businesses with the goal of lifting the industry up.
Update: We’ve since corrected a typographical error associated with the cidery’s namesake, with our apologies.
