LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Inside Lost Forty, Arkansas’s largest brewery, head brewer Jerry Gorman is in his element as he inspects the barley used to make each beer.
During the brewing process. Gorman and his team use massive tanks to use some of the enzymes on the malt to convert starches into simple sugars that can be metabolized by the yeast later.
Now the folks at Lost Forty Brewing are combining their fermentation process with a phenomenon!
“If you ever try this it’s going to taste just like breakfast,” Gorman said. “We wanted to do something we would remember and honestly drink throughout the entire process and enjoy while we were witnessing this event,”
While the sun may disappear for four-plus minutes on April 8, it is still warm here in Arkansas in the Spring, so the crew chose to brew a Helles Bock.
"Helles Bock is a lager. Basically, a blend of Helles and a Bock, just a slightly paler lager. If you think of Helles, it’s very light and very crispy or crushable as we like to say. It’s a very drinkable style made with lager use,” Gorman explained.
While brainstorming ideas for the beer, Lost Forty collaborated with other breweries along the path of totality— which included a team trip to the Big Apple.
“We actually all went up to New York City and got in the same room and asked if we wanted to brew the exact same beer or be different and because of the geographical locations we decided to go with different styles,” he said.
Cassie Millington, the brand manager for Lost Forty Brewing, organized last Tuesday’s launch and said that the beer is already selling out fast.
“It was gone in like an hour. Less than an hour, we had 50 cases tonight but if you couldn’t make it tonight, we will have 50 more cases on Tuesday, March 26 at 4 p.m. and 50 more cases the weekend of the eclipse,” she said.
Millington added that a one-of-a-kind event like this needs a one-of-a-kind look. The Simons Foundation based out of New York City designed the can, promoting their mission to advance the frontiers of research in mathematics and basic sciences.
“Our can on the front says 1:52 and that is our timestamp for when we reach totality in Little Rock, so every brewery has their specific timestamp on the can,” she described.
The team hopes that everyone who’s of age will raise a glass as they raise their eyes to the sky on April 8.
“Something like this can really bring a big portion of the country together and it’s really cool to work with someone all the way from Austin, Texas to New York," Gorman said.
“We’re all beer nerds but we’re also science nerds so it did not take us a second to say yes to this project,” Millington added.