We love the use of wildflowers with beers. Much like hops they can define the flavour and style of a beer all on their own, or they can cantribute more as a subtle accent. The use of these wildflowers can unlock new flavour combinations difficult to achieve with hops alone and for this beer we used a blend of fresh and dried lavender. The fresh lavender was grown in Hokkaido and sent down immediately after harvest for this brew. Lavender has a distinct, but pleasant herbal sweet aroma, with notes of citrus and pine, and we thought this would pair beautifully with a Belgian Pale Ale. This style is light and refreshing with sweet honey-like notes from the malt and a sweet fruit and subtle spice character from the Belgian yeast. Each ingredient has space to express itself without overriding other aspects of the beer. The bright floral character cuts through the malt sweetness and boosts its drinkability by giving the beer a refreshingly dry finish. The key here is to balance these ingredients, which required multiple benchtop tests to get just the right mixture. The best part of these wildflower beers is they evolve over time. When fresh you will get the bright lavender aroma up front, and as the beer conditions overtime that lavender aroma melds into the flavour of the beer, giving it an ever-evolving lavender expression.