Sustenance Black Beer

Origin Story

Originally brewed back in the spring of 2007, the Sustenance was going to be our spring bock style beer. Joe had decided that we could really use an annual springtime beer and since bocks were historically brewed to coincide w/ special occasions, often religious holidays (such as Easter or lent), this would be a perfect style for this time of year. The term Bock is of a German origin, refers to a strong lager, is typically dark, malty, and lightly hopped. The Sustenance was easily all of this, but Joe felt that the hop profile was too pronounced to be considered a true bock. Imagine that, a Short's beer being hoppier than stylistic guidelines would suggest. Hence, Joe decided to simply refer to the Sustenance as a Schwarzbier, which is German for black beer, and is also a dark lager. Schwarzbier's have an opaque, black color and a full, chocolaty or coffee flavor. They also don't have as stringent of guidelines pertaining to the hop usage for this style. Therefore, this was really an ideal style match for the Sustenance even though Schwarzbier's don't directly correlate w/ spring. When describing it to inquiring Short's enthusiasts feel free to refer to it as a black lager, a black beer, or a Schwarzbier, all of which convey the same connotation. Bourbon Sustenance Beer Story: You may have noticed some familiar looking six packs making their annual return to the pub. That's right, Bourbon Sustenance is back! Just in time for this sunny and warming weather, one of our oldest springtime releases seems right on schedule. Similar to last year, Bourbon Sustenance bottles makes an earlier debut at the pub than their historically scheduled Anni Party release, thanks to another highly anticipated premier pub only bottle event of Controversius Maximus. Always sold exclusively from the pub in bottles and draft, I would expect a lot of Short's fans to be excited upon seeing it's return. In a week or two, you will also have the pleasure of offering folks the traditional version of the Sustenance Black Lager, as this also would have mimicked the timely tradition of releasing the more full flavored and slightly more filling Bock beers to coincide with numerous religious holidays, in particular Easter, except the holiday was a little early this year. Even though Sustenance is not a true to style Bock, it does fill the roll perfectly by providing sufficient body and character, while preserving some wonderful lager-like characteristics. Only featured on draft at our Bellaire brew pub this year, Sustenance will also be very welcomed pour by a number of regulars and Short's enthusiasts. The first batch of Sustenance was brewed on April 10, 2007 (batch # 298) by Joe Short and was originally called Spring Bock. Joe had been wanting to brew a traditional Bock for quite a while and appropriately timed it to coincide as a classic springtime release. Upon its completion, however, Joe felt that the hop profile was way too intense to be classified as a true-to-style Bock, so he simply referred to it as a Schwarzbier (which is German for Black Beer). Since its inaugural brew date Sustenance has been called a Bock, a Schwarzbier, and even a Baltic Porter. Today we tend to refer to it as simply a Black Lager. Based on the initial success of this beer, Joe decided to brew it once again in 2008. This time, he took a portion of the batch and placed it into Bourbon Barrels, to be aged for 10-12 months then released in a bottle form the following spring. Bourbon Barrel Aged Sustenance is the first annual barrel aged bottled product from Shorts, always sold exclusively from our pub. Prior to that, the only other barrel aged bottle releases where one offs of 4 different versions of aged Anniversary Ale that were brewed during 2006, then bottled and released at our Anni Party in 2007. Still following the same format, we take the current year's batch of traditional Sustenance, age it for almost a year in bourbon barrels, and then release it during the following year's anniversary party. However, this tradition may be permanently moved forward a few weeks, seeing as we have begun a new Anni tradition with even more rare, harder to get double or Imperial bottled versions of some traditional Short's brews (Aww Jeah: Double Huma and Controversius Maximus: Double ControversiALE).