Collaborating with Tokki Soju, a small-batch traditional rice soju producer, South Korea’s Gorilla Brewing have released their next generation barrel aged Imperial Stout.
The Busan brewery released the world’s first beer aged in Soju barrels in 2018, an 11% ABV (alcohol by volume) Russian Imperial Stout aptly named ‘King Kong’, which was the highest rated Korean craft beer on Untappd at the time.
This time they’ve gone one bigger – a 12% ABV Imperial Stout called Jannabi.
Jannabi is old Korean for monkey, a deceiving name for such a beast of a beer.
The beer itself has a complex malt bill and involved a 26-hour boil, imparting flavours of dark caramel and chocolate. The brew was fermented then transferred to oak Tokki Soju Gold Label Barrels where it was aged for 7 months, imparting woody and vanilla notes and mellowing the flavours.
Founded in 2015 by American Bran Hill, who had travelled to South Korea to study traditional Korean fermentation and distilling techniques, Tokki Soju embraces classic production practices.
Unlike many of the larger brand producers nowadays Tokki’s soju is made by fermenting, barrel aging then distilling sticky rice (locally sourced from Chungju). They also use their own hand-cultivated “nuruk” (a natural fermentation starter) and yeast.
Produced as a limited edition 5- barrel run, the first barrel of Jannabi was bottled in sleek 750ml dark bottles and labelled with a stylish monkey motif. This first run was released on 14th February at special events hosted at Gorilla Brewing’s Gwangan Taproom (Busan) and Tokki Bar in the Ryse Hotel, Seoul.
Gorilla founder and head brewer Paul Edwards was delighted with the results of the collaboration “Using smaller barrels has resulted in an incredible flavour transfer in a relatively short period of time” he noted. “The sweetness of the Tokki soju is a superbly interesting pairing with the imperial stout, coupled with caramels, vanilla and a subtle hint of coconut from the virgin wood makes this such a unique taste, amazingly smooth for such a strong beer”.
“It was a great experience mixing eastern and western fermentation practices in the collaboration to bring something new to the beer world” says Tokki’s founder Bran Hill.
The next two barrels are scheduled to be bottled and released on 14th March and 14th April with the final two barrels to be released in conjunction with their NFT’s (more details to follow).
