WildEdge Brewing Collective, one of our four participants, is based in Cortez, Colorado which is located in the Colorado River watershed. The owner and master brewer, Tucker Robinson, used this Microgrant as an opportunity to brew a Dunkelweizen which was named From the Fields. He used a new Munich wheat from Root Shoot Malting (out of Loveland) as well as Root Shoot's Genie pale malt, malted white wheat, chocolate malt, and C20 malt and some locally grown unmalted winter wheat from the Cortez Milling Company. This resulting beer is a dark wheat beer that's perfect for moving from the end of summer to early fall.

All of the malt used in this project was actually grown on Root Shoot Malting’s home farm, Olander Farms. The Root Shoot Malthouse sits on their 5th generation grain farm and the farm produces all the grain used in their malting business. Todd Olander, founder of Root Shoot is also the primary farmer at Olander Farms and works alongside his father, Steve, to run the farming end of Root Shoot's grain-to-glass production. Their family has been farming in this area of Northern Colorado for over 75 years. Over the last 7 years or so, Todd has slowly begun transitioning the farm from traditional farming practices to more sustainable and regenerative ones. That process has resulted in the gradual implementation of all of the following: minimal tilling practices (hoping to slowly move to no-till), cover cropping, rotational grazing of cattle, a composting project partnership with a local dairy, upgrades to irrigation systems to reduce water usage, and experiments with probiotic soil amendments. Traditional fertilization methods are still used, but the entire farm is run on the philosophy of "minimal inputs." 

Root Shoot Malting describes Munich wheat as a beautifully browned, toasty, super-complex malted wheat. They noted that the hot steeps are deeply malty and slightly sweet with nice body. Lab results have put the color of the Munich wheat at 6 SRM. 

The Root Shoot team wanted to explore the potential world of flavor beyond their traditional malted white wheat. So they took their traditional malted wheat, germinated it as usual, and sent it to the kiln with an entirely different kilning profile. They made sure the grain was full of moisture, then blasted it with high heat and applied the same kilning regime that creates all the rich, complex flavors in their Munich 10 malted barley.