28C Wild Specialty Beer
Wild Sour Collab (5 Magics)
Grain bill
| Gladfield Pilsner Malt | 2.5 kg | 50% |
| Gladfield Wheat Malt | 2.5 kg | 50% |
Adjuncts
| Whirlfloc | 1 tablet @ 10 min |
| Yeast Nutrient | 4 g @ 10 min |
Hop schedule
| Hop | 60 min |
|---|---|
| Pacific Gem | 10g |
Yeast
| Paul Fantham's 5 Magics culture (2nd generation trub) | Pitched onto an existing wild trub at Paul Fantham's house |
Water additions
| Calcium Chloride | 1.5 g |
Tasting notes
About This Beer
A 50/50 Pilsner + Wheat gueuze-style base wort, brewed together with Jamie Rickard and pitched onto Paul Fantham’s existing wild trub at Paul’s house. The trub is part of the 5 Magics culture lineage — Paul had previously brewed one batch on the original slurry, so Matt and Jamie’s combined ~40L of identical wort became the second-generation pitch on that yeast bed.
Brew day was the first of two parallel brews on this same base recipe. A second identical brew on 2026-01-11 went into Matt’s house wild culture — see the House Wild Sour entry.
The Wort
Matt’s 22.5L cube and Jamie’s matching ~20L cube were both no-chilled, then on 2026-01-15 combined (~40L total) and pitched onto Paul’s 5 Magics-lineage trub in a 50L all-rounder at Paul’s house.
Grain bill is 50/50 Gladfield Pilsner and Gladfield Wheat Malt — a clean, fermentable, gueuze-style base. OG came in at ~1.048. Pacific Gem at 10g for 60 minutes gives just enough bittering (~10 IBU) to discourage spoilage without inhibiting wild organisms.
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Mash | 16L at 67 °C, 60 min |
| Mash-out | 76 °C, 10 min |
| Sparge | 15L at 76 °C |
| Boil | 90 min, 10g Pacific Gem at 60 min |
| Estimated OG | 1.048 |
| Into cube | 22.5L |
Fermentation — 5 Magics, Second Generation
Pitched onto fresh active wild trub, this beer fermented much faster than expected. Primary was effectively complete within a couple of weeks, with conditioning continued through to mid-February.
The lesson here is that a second-generation wild trub (a trub that has already done one full brew) is a very different beast to a freshly stepped-up dregs culture. The same recipe pitched onto Matt’s stepped-up dregs culture (the parallel House Wild Sour brew) is still going months later.
Kegging — 2026-02-21
The 40L co-ferment was kegged on 2026-02-21. Matt and Jamie each took a full 19L keg home. Matt’s keg has been stored cold in the fridge with a tap fitted — aging and being tasted in parallel. The beer is tasting good, developing well, with a clean lactic sourness and final pH in the ~3.0–3.3 range when last sampled.
What’s Next
Paul has since brewed a third-generation batch on the same trub, and has gone on to combine that yeast bed with organic muscat grapes to seed a new mixed culture. He split the new culture into two jars and gave one to Matt — which has now been pitched into the Foeder Pale Sour Cube 2 / 5 Magics + Muscat brew. The 5 Magics lineage continues.
Lineage
- Generation 1: Paul Fantham’s original 5 Magics slurry
- Generation 2: This brew — Matt + Jamie’s 40L co-pitch (2026-01-15)
- Generation 3: Paul’s solo brew on the Gen 2 trub
- Spinoff: Foeder Pale Sour Cube 2 / 5 Magics + Muscat — Paul’s grape-augmented culture pitched into one cube of the foeder pale sour wort
- Parallel sibling on Matt’s own culture: House Wild Sour