Name: Spider Dance
Brand: Wayfinder Beer
Availability: InStock

Spider Dance is a Festbier, it is out now at 5.3% ABV, and it carries two breweries' names. Wayfinder Beer brewed it in collaboration with Grand Fir Brewing. Wayfinder's release notes describe a fawn-colored lager balancing delicate malt sweetness against crisp hop bitterness, with subtle toasted bread and a hint of floral aroma. The brewery's pub list compresses the same beer into four words: bready malt, floral hops, balance, poundable.

A pale festival lager is an uncommon thing to spend a collaboration on. It is also a fair test of a brewhouse. There is no hop wall or roasted malt to stand behind, so a beer like this either has the malt depth or visibly does not.

Wayfinder is equipped for that argument. The brewery describes itself as lager-centric, blending older brewing tactics with German precision and the swagger of American craft. It has also installed a dedicated decoction vessel, a separate tank for boiling off a portion of the mash and returning it to the rest. Decoction is the traditional route to exactly the bready, lightly toasted malt character that a Festbier depends on. Dedicating a whole vessel to it is a substantial commitment to one flavor note. It happens to be the note this beer is built around.

The timing is early rather than late, which is normal. Oktoberfest in Munich is mostly a September event, and the beer made for it has always been finished well before anyone lifts a glass of it.

Spider Dance is pouring now at Wayfinder's pub on SE 2nd Avenue in Portland and at its Troutdale taproom.

Editor’s Take

Every year around now the beer aisle briefly turns into a Bavarian theme restaurant. Blue and white checks. Gothic lettering. That one font that has never in its life been used to say anything cheerful. It is the most design-conservative fortnight in brewing, and I say that as someone who genuinely enjoys the beer at the end of it. Wayfinder and Grand Fir have put a tattoo-flash tarantula on theirs, and I have looked at it for longer than I have looked at any Festbier can in years.

What pleases me more is the choice underneath the artwork. When two breweries get a day together they can build almost anything, and the temptation to build something with a paragraph-long ingredient list must be considerable. These two spent theirs on a pale lager that is difficult to make and impossible to dress up. That is not a modest ambition. That is the least modest thing on the list.

Source & Editorial

JollyPint independently prepares release articles using information published by breweries through newsletters, websites, and other official public communications. Brewery-supplied descriptions and tasting notes are reported as provided, while editorial context is added by JollyPint.

Spider Dance Puts a Collaboration Into a Pale Festbier

Two Portland breweries pooled their effort on a pale festival lager rather than something maximal. Spider Dance is a 5.3 percent Festbier from Wayfinder and Grand Fir, and it has nowhere to hide.

Source & Editorial