Podole Wielkie The Pastry Master 2022 is a Polish beer spirit (bierbrand), the result of a collaboration between the Pomeranian craft distillery Podole Wielkie and the Lębork-based brewery AleBrowar. The starting point was a beer described as a cheesecake pastry sour, elderberry & bird cherry, created with the participation of Tri-City pastry chef Tomasz Deker.
This is the third series of beer spirits created by AleBrowar and Podole Wielkie – alongside The Pastry Master, the creators also opted at the time for distillates made from the beers Crazy Mike and Imperial Smoky Joe. The distillery is located in the village of the same name: a traditional, family-run agricultural distillery with over 160 years of history, forming part of a farm that has existed here for 500 years. The entire process takes place in one location, in keeping with the "from field to bottle" philosophy – from sowing the grain and planting the potatoes to hand bottling and labelling, thanks to which Michał Paszota, the creator of the spirits from Podole, controls what ends up on the table.
The raw material for this spirit was a finished craft beer. The distillation was carried out by Michał Paszota, owner and Master Distiller of the distillery in Podole Wielkie, in a copper column typical of the manufactory. Podole Wielkie spirits contain no additives, are unfiltered, and the finished distillate is bottled and labelled by hand; all products are made in limited editions, where each product is one year captured in a bottle. The spirit was bottled at 43%.
In terms of profile, the spirit retains the character of the source beer. The nose is pronounced, with notes of flowers, grated apples, milk and chokeberry; the palate is tart, with bird cherry, chokeberry, pears and raisins, and the finish is minty and milky. The spirit conveys floral-fruity aromas, the sweet-tart flavour of bird cherry, chokeberry, pears and raisins, and a subtle, minty-milky note on the finish. The beer's dessert concept – cheesecake acidity with elderberry and bird cherry – translates into a creamy, slightly tart structure in the distillate.