At Balance Brewing & Blending in Manchester, brewing is a patient art. Since 2021, founders Will Harris and James Horrocks have focused exclusively on mixed-culture, barrel-fermented beers — wild yeasts, oak ageing, UK-grown hops, fruit and foraged ingredients, slowly evolving over months (often a year or more) before final blending and dry-hopping. Their beers speak of time, place and process; each release is deeply rooted in tradition and terroir.
In 2024, Balance teamed up with BarthHaas to brew Spectral Diffusion, a project that brings together the aged complexity of barrel-fermented mixed culture beer and the precision, convenience and hop clarity of modern extraction technology. It’s a collaboration that honours heritage and hops, bridging wild fermentation and hop science in a way seldom attempted.
Merging Two Worlds: Wild Culture & Hop Extract
For Spectral Diffusion, Balance used UK hop varieties Ernest and Fuggles, not in traditional pellet or cone form, but as SPECTRUM hop extract. This is significant: by introducing hop oil in extract form at packaging, they avoid much of the bulk and vegetal matter associated with dry-hopping. That means fewer lost beer volumes, easier clean-up, and a leaner process , a serious benefit for a small, two-person brew-team working with time-intensive beers.
As Will explains: “we’ve been able to add the SPECTRUM straight to the packaging tank… it’s around about 10% increased yield… tank cleaning was much more efficient… and we haven’t lost any beer in the process.”
Beyond operational ease, SPECTRUM allows the hop character, bright citrus, tropical lift, the signature pomelo and grapefruit, to shine clearly over the layered complexity of wood, mixed culture and wild yeast. In short: it’s a hop-forward finish that doesn’t compromise the integrity of the underlying beer.
Why Extract Makes Sense - Even in Wild or Mixed Fermentation
The use of hop extract is more than convenience. There’s a technical logic, especially important in beers undergoing wild or mixed fermentation. For instance, dry-hopping with traditional hops can trigger a phenomenon known as “hop creep”, an unplanned secondary fermentation driven by starch-degrading enzymes in hops that can alter the residual extract and mouthfeel of the beer. Recent research highlighted by BarthHaas explains that “dry hopping caused a significant decrease in the apparent extract of the beer” in non-pasteurized samples, sometimes by 0.8–1.2% w/w.
By using a fully soluble hop extract like SPECTRUM, the brewery avoids introducing excess plant matter that otherwise could contain the hop creep responsible enzymes, which removes the risk of hop creep and ensures greater consistency and stability in the finished beer. It’s a smart solution especially when you’re working with wild yeasts, mixed culture and barrel aging.
Moreover, insights from another recent BarthHaas-highlighted study remind us of the often-difficult relationship between lactic acid bacteria (or other wild cultures) and hops: specifically the Iso-alpha acids but also alpha acids can inhibit bacterial growth, making sour or mixed fermentations challenging when dry-hopping is involved.
Hop extract circumvents some of these tensions. The aromatic oils, monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, esters, remain available to deliver hop character, without the antimicrobial action of Iso-alpha acids. As BarthHaas describes, such oil-based hop products allow “expressive aromas with impressions of citrus, fruits, berries, herbs, spices, woods, or menthol,” and “enter into a unique interplay with other aroma compounds in the beverages.”
The Result: A Beer That is Both Rooted and Forward-Looking
With Spectral Diffusion, Balance Brewing & Blending and BarthHaas show what can happen when heritage brewing principles meet contemporary hop science. The beer carries all the hallmarks of a thoughtful, barrel-aged wild ale, depth, complexity, character, while delivering bright, clean hop aroma and flavour that stand out without masking the underlying profile.
It’s a collaboration that doesn’t force compromise. Instead, it offers a new path: one in which traditional mixed-culture fermentation and modern hop extract can coexist, and even enhance each other. The result is a beer that honours the past, embraces the present, and points toward a more innovative, flexible future for barrel-aged and mixed-culture brewing.
Looking Ahead
Given the success of this approach, using hop extract like SPECTRUM could open new possibilities not just for Balance, but for others in the wild-brew, sour-ale and barrel-aged beer community. When hop oils are available as stable, easily stored extracts, they allow brewers working with small teams, limited tank space or long fermentation cycles to introduce hop character with minimal fuss, without disrupting the delicate balance of wild cultures or risking unintended fermentation outcomes.
Spectral Diffusion therefore stands as more than a beer, it’s a proof of concept. It’s a demonstration that tradition and technology need not be at odds. Instead, they can converge to create something that is, in equal parts, rooted, refined, and forward-thinking.
