The Wildflower
cellar door. Below
right: Boehm pours
an Amber ale.GOURMET TRAVELLER 89T
opher Boehm, head brewer and co-founder of
Wildflower Brewing & Blending, remembers precisely
the moment he knew he’d made a beer he could be
proud of. “I sat my wife down right here and had the
beer arranged in a basket. I set the whole scene for her,” the
Texan says, gesturing to the rustic wooden table in his 1890s,
timber-beamed former metal foundry warehouse in Marrickville,
in Sydney’s inner west. In the past, she’d found many beers were
too bitter for her palate. Tentatively, she took a sip. “It’s really
good, Topher,” she said.
It wasn’t long before some variation of this phrase was
being uttered throughout the wider epicurean community
across Australia.Since its launch last year, Wildflower has spread
like, well, wildfire. It started with a small release of two wild-yeast
ales, Gold and Amber, in April; and a cellar door, where they
also sell a table beer, opened in June. The beer is now stocked
in a range of restaurants, from Pizza Madre down the road, to
Attica in Melbourne and Franklin in Hobart.
“While there are other breweries in Australia making and
specialising in wild-fermented beer, the beers of Wildflower
have a completeness that comes from them being thoughtful and
considered in their production,” says Paper Bird co-owner and
manager Ned Brooks, who stocks both the Gold and Amber at his
restaurant in Sydney’s Potts Point. “Topher is a high-functioning
individual and I see this as being reflected in the end product.”
High functioning is one way of putting it; high achieving
is another. The sixth child of a baker and an electrical engineer,
Boehm was always fascinated by pulling things apart to see how
they worked. Originally, he was headed for a career in physics,
but after a short stint in shoemaking that came about not so
much from a love of shoes but a thirst for a challenge (“I was
less interested in the end result than the process,” he says), he
found himself drawn to the curious mix of scientific precision
and fatalistic wizardry required in beer making.Boehm moved from Dallas to Australia in 2009, and learned
the trade at Sydney’s Flat Rock Brew Café and Batch Brewing Co.
He delved deeper into wild-yeast brewing and blending in Belgium
and France, until he and his brother-in-law Chris Allen decided to
branch out on their own. The pair started a business they hoped
would deliver a product they loved and give them the freedom
to spend more time with their families.
The brand’s point of difference is its use of wild yeasts, found
on foraged NSW plants including wattle blossoms and banksia.
These are combined with a single strain of brewer’s yeast for their
fermentations. Wort, the base liquid for the beer, is made at Batch
in Marrickville, and Boehm ferments then matures his beers in
wine barrels on site. He then blends different barrels of various
ages to achieve his desired flavour profile. “It’s a bit like being
[Roald Dahl’s] BFG,” he says. “Dream catching. A bit of this,
a bit of that.”
But Boehm would rather people focus less on the process
and more on taste. He believes Wildflower is a drinkable beer
to be enjoyed in a similar way to wine – with good friends and
with good food but without too much fanfare. To that end,
Wildflower ales are unapologetically subtle. Low-key. Gentle,
even. They’re a far cry from the aggressive layers of hops and acid
that characterise so many current craft-beer trends. “People are
sick of having their faces ripped off,” Boehm says.
Instead, he’s tried to create a lighter flavour. Both the Gold
and the Amber possess a freshness that pairs well with food; the
Amber sits comfortably next to a caramelised rack of ribs, say,
while the Gold finds a natural home with anything with a bit
of spice. Both are beers that you’dwant in the fridge after a day
at the cricket. “I don’t want it to sound more complicated than
that,” Boehm says. “People assume there’s a sophistication to what
we do. But at the end of the day, it’s just fucking beer. And I can
honestly say that if I make something my wife loves, I’m happy.”●
Wildflower Brewing and Blending, 11-13 Brompton St,
Marrickville, NSW. Open Fri-Sat 1pm-8pm. wildflowerbeer.com