New Beer Release: Bavarian Rhapsody, A Double Collaboration Project
December 16, 2017On Saturday, December 16, 2017 in Plymouth, MA, Mayflower Brewing Company will release Bavarian Rhapsody, a Dunkel Marzen at 5.3% ABV, and the third beer in their Ebb & Flow Series. The beer itself is a special Weyermann Malt Collaboration and the can label is designed by local artist, Cassandra Murray. The beer will be available for tastings, pints, and 4 packs of 12oz cans from the brewery while it lasts. Additionally, Mayflower is proud to spread this collaboration beer out into the New England market in draft only.
Bavarian Rhapsody is a German Dark Lager brewed with author and beer enthusiast Horst Dornbusch for an upcoming book, coauthored with Thomas Kraus-Weyermann of Weyermann malts, focused on brewing and enjoying dark lagers from around the world. This beer was brewed exclusively with Weyermann malts, a historic german malt house known for high quality and as the choice of many brewers.
This Dunkel Marzen is a malty dark lager with an amber-brown color imparted by nutty, caramel Munich and malts. A clean, neutral yeast flavor leaves the malt sweetness as the focal point with a slight lingering, but delicate hop bitterness on the back of the tongue. Head Brewer, Ryan Gwozdz, shares “It was a breath of fresh air to collaborate on something that respects tradition and isn’t just loaded with hops” and believes “…it was an honor and a lot of fun working on this beer with Horst. We are excited to check out his book on dark lagers when it comes out and we can’t wait to brew two more dark lagers with him.”
As with all beers in the Ebb & Flow Series, Mayflower collaborated with a local artist to design the can label. Cassandra Murray, who can be found in instagram as @TheReticulate, is inspired by the way shapes and colors interact and how they make her, and her audience, feel. Cassandra is heavily influenced by Mondrian, Kandinsky, Miro, Pollock, and Rothko, whose works range from rigid to whimsical and speak to the way gravity and arm movement influence what happens on the canvas. Cassandra shares, “I don’t often incorporate wording into my art, so that was an important obstacle for me to tackle for this project. I knew I wanted to channel the specific flavors and notes of the beer, so I worked hard to find lettering that conveyed the ideas of a German/Bavarian style beer. So I chose lettering that seemed particularly European to me. I stuck with primary colors and black and white because I enjoy the simplicity of the way the colors, lines, and shapes interact and please the eye.”
Cassandra believes the local culture and art scene is at the height of its growth that she’s seen in her 32 years spent living in and visiting Plymouth, MA. She started painting as a form of therapeutic release, and never stopped. After painting for pleasure for over a decade, she decided it was time to build her own website, make her art available for sale, and put her art on products like cell phone cases, stickers, t-shirts, clocks, you name it. Mayflower is proud to provide a space for Cassandra to show a collection of her art in their tasting room while Bavarian Rhapsody is available. She’ll be bringing a variety of pieces for sale to the tasting room, as she wanted to be sure to accommodate people who might need a simple gift like a watercolor flower, to the very abstract and pieces that fall in the middle of that spectrum. She also plans on donating a portion of all sales to several of her favorite charities.
