Tula is our ongoing expression of rustic saisons brewed simply with all Pacific Northwest ingredients using traditional processes and our house saison culture. Made with a bow towards the classic saisons of the French Belgian borderlands.

Tula #3

So we have a friend who is a pretty savvy soup person. For privacy concerns, let’s call him Schm-Josh. He worked a long time at a brewery that used to not be corporate but then pivoted to being pretty corporate. During his going away party his work homies loaded a 44lb box of 9 year old whole leaf cascade hops in his car that he’d been saving in cold storage for one of those “lets do that this year” projects that was never the right year.

Schm-Josh then asked us “hey do you want 44 lbs of some old ass hops?” We were all “well slap my hop sack and call me Hildy, we’ll never say no to a 9 year old sackof hops!” Upon unsealing the bag, we were expecting a sweaty cheesy funkfest but were instead met with light grassy green tea and citrus.

Pre-industrialization farmhouse brewers typically just used what was on hand, including whatever hops they had. These hops were definitely not stored under ideal conditions and were a bit neglected but brought a certain intangible rustic character to their brews.

Embracing the “use what we got” philosophy, our third batch of Tula Saison uses these beautiful old Cascade hops and Climate Select Malt from Skagit Valley Malting. The results are a classic saison with a pleasing grass and floral hop character that finishes with a citrus spice from our house saison yeast. This iteration of Tula Saison reminds us of the classic saisons that have inspired us through the years.

750ml bottle
5.7% abv

Tula #2

With the cold snap we experienced back in November, our little brewery got cold. As all of our ferments slowed to a crawl, we had to get creative in order to brew a saison to our liking. Brewing seasonally doesn’t only mean tangible ingredients, it means treating time and temperature as ingredients as well.

With that in mind we set out to create our second batch of our Tula Saison. We used our house saison yeast for the first half of the fermentation and an expressive lager yeast for the second half and let it lager for 4 weeks.

The results are a hoppy spring saison of lime zest crodino with a rich and spicy rustic finish.

750ml bottle
5.7% abv

Tula #1

Our first brew at Hildegard is a deep bow towards the classic saisons of the French Belgium borderlands.  Tula is our ongoing expression of rustic saisons brewed simply with all Pacific Northwest ingredients using traditional processes and our house saison culture.  Open fermented with generous use of noble hops; it’s dry, effervescent, with lemon rind and peppery herb crackers.