Farm Hand: Foraged, Grown, Brewed Here

Some beers are made from a recipe. Farm Hand is made from our backyard.

When we first brewed it, the idea was simple enough: what would it look like to make a beer that wasn't just brewed here, but grown, foraged and shaped by this weird and wonderful corner of Central Otago.

Turns out the answer involves scratched hands, dusty boots, and a lot of thyme on your clothes.

Every beer starts with malt, so that is where we began: Farm Hand is built on Canyon grown pilsner malt. Grain that has spent its life under the same dry heat and cold snaps as the rest of us out here in Central Otago. It is clean, bright and just a little bit rustic, giving the beer a soft bready base and that pale golden glow in the glass.

Hops from just down the road: For Farm Hand we use Motueka from Garston, grown not too far over the hill. Motueka brings that citrusy snap Farm Hand is known for - think lime zest, a bit of lemon, and a freshness that cuts through the malt in all the right ways.

Honey from the valley: If you have ever driven through Cardrona in late summer, you will know the smell - sun on grass, wildflowers in the wind and a hum of bees that never quite stops. We bring some of that into the beer with Cardrona honey straight from the farm hives. You get this gentle floral note and a little extra depth that plays really nicely with the yeast spice and citrus.

The part that really makes Farm Hand, though, is the foraging.

Rosehips and wild thyme flowers are everywhere if you know where to look. So we went looking.

Picture a crew out on the hills, frost on the grass in the morning, pockets full of secateurs and grain bags that serve as awkward to carry buckets. Your arms have definitely brushed past a few more scratchy branches than you meant to. The air smells like sun warmed thyme and cold rock.

Those thyme flowers and rosehips end up in the brew, bringing this citrus forward, slightly wild, almost eucalyptus lift to the beer. The Belgian yeast brings its own soft spice, and the foraged botanicals wrap around it like the hills around the valley.

Farm Hand is a reminder that beer does not have to be flashy. It can be rooted in a place. In the paddocks and hillsides, and the people who grow and harvest the things that go into it.

We do not just brew here. We grow here, we forage here, and sometimes we come home with thyme in our hair.