Oxbow’s Cletus
Oxbow Brewing Co., the farmhouse brewery located in Newcastle, will kick off the holiday season with a bottle release and special bottle pours on Black Friday, Nov. 24. There will also be free live music: local musician Paul Mellyn will perform from 6:30-9 p.m.
Customers will be able to sample from vintage bottle pours of Momoko, Cletus, Arboreal, Goods from the Woods, and Catalyst, a popular beer that features honey from Oxbow’s bees. The bottles being poured for the event have been aging since they were released (many in 2014) and are no longer available for purchase.
Cletus, Oxbow’s barrel-aged dark farmhouse ale, will be released on Friday. This strong dark farmhouse ale was fermented with brettanomyces in freshly emptied bourbon barrels. This is just the third batch of an Oxbow cult classic. It features a huge malt character (caramel, toffee, and chocolate) and body with big notes of bourbon (oak, vanilla, and char) and brett (leather, spice, smoke, and fruit) with a dry finish.
Cletus is named after Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel from the Simpsons and the label was written with the left hand by Oxbow founder Tim Adams. The base beer for this is a blend of different vintages of bourbon barrel-aged Noel with a slight amount of Town Line Porter.
During the fall and winter, the tasting room in Newcastle is open Thursday through Sunday from noon-7 p.m. However, the tasting room stays open until 9 p.m. on Fridays with free live music and bonfires, weather permitting.
Oxbow Brewing Co. is located at 274 Jones Woods Road, Newcastle.
