Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 8

Saint Arnold Brewing Company, the oldest craft brewery in Texas, is preparing to ship its latest creation, Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 8. A very limited supply will arrive in stores, restaurants and bars in Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio starting on Thursday, September 10th.

Introduced in late 2005, Saint Arnold Divine Reserve features small batches of high-quality, full-flavored beer. Each new batch, with the batch number appearing on the neck label, features a different recipe. Divine Reserve No. 8 is a Scotch Ale, which is also known as Wee Heavy. It has a toffee nose, tastes of sweet malt and spice, and a balanced smokey flavor from start to finish without being dominant.

Because supplies are limited, many stores enforce a two six pack limit per purchase while others have waiting lists.

“Demand for Divine Reserves has always far exceeded supply, which is exacerbated by the low yield that we get from each batch of these high gravity beers,” said Brock Wagner, Founder/Brewer of Saint Arnold Brewing. “This time we mashed in 10 times to fill the fermenter versus the four times required for our regular beers. The result is an increase in production of this edition 1,504 cases and 29 kegs, which is about five times the amount we brewed of Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 1. Brewing these beers is great fun for us, plus we like the anticipation that it creates within the community of beer enthusiasts.”

The last time Saint Arnold dabbled in a similar beer style was for Divine Reserve No. 4 in 2007. That beer won the Gold Medal at the 2008 World Beer Cup in the Strong Scotch Ale category. Divine Reserve No. 8 is a completely different recipe inspired by the winning entry of the 2009 Big Batch Brew Bash homebrew competition. Houston homebrewer Phillip Kaufman, a member of the Kuykendahl Gran Brewers homebrew club, came to Saint Arnold earlier in the summer to help brew the beer. It has been entered in the Pro/Am category of the 2009 Great American Beer Festival.

Many beer lovers have been carefully aging past editions of the Divine Reserve series. Divine Reserve No. 1 is approaching four years old, while Divine Reserve No. 2 and No. 3 are three years old. Wagner has a personal cache of all the early releases. “They are all aging beautifully. I’m not sure if they have peaked yet, but I don’t want to wait too long to enjoy them either.”

With a high alcohol by volume content of 9.3 percent, Saint Arnold Divine Reserve No. 8 is best enjoyed in small quantities at 45°F or warmer. It has an original gravity of 1.091 and final gravity of 1.024. Each six pack is priced at approximately $16.

More information on Divine Reserve No. 8 is available at:
http://saintarnold.com/beers/divine.html.

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