Collaborations

Posted in Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co., Don't Miss This, New Releases

Brewed with waffles. Arizona Wilderness & Tired Hands team up.

This weekend, Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co. debuted a new beer collaboration – a dream for breakfast food lovers and brunchers alike. Pour another cup of coffee and read on.

Arizona Wilderness Leggo my Ego, a collaboration with Tired Hands, is brewed with waffles. Despite what the name suggests, the brewing team used waffles from Phoenix, Arizona local Welcome Chicken & Donuts. Note in the pic above, the a hop back full of said waffles. The wort was run through the stacks of waffles on the way to the fermenter.

Leggo my Ego, an Imperial IPA,  is brewed with maple syrup, lactose milk sugar, and biscuit malt. Hops for the interested – Belma and Simcoe.

Arizona Wilderness packaged Leggo My Ego in 32 ounce crowlers, available starting Saturday.

Add this to a list of epic, or soon to be epic breakfast themed foods, like Founders Breakfast Stout, and upcoming Dogfish Head Beer for Breakfast.

Is there any limit to what we can do with breakfast food? Let’s hope not.

Image: Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co.

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in 21st Amendment Brewing, Seasonal Return

21st Amendment Marooned On Hog Island is back in the can lineup

21st Amendment Marooned on Hog Island, the brewery’s oyster stout, is back in the lineup once again.

The California based brewery creates a stout brewed with rolled oats and chocolate malt, plus 200 pounds of Sweetwater oyster shells from Hog Island Oyster Company.

““More than just a fun tale of a like-minded collaboration, this oyster stout is also deep rooted as a traditional style produced in England, where oysters are plentiful and there is not shortage of stout on that island nation. Marooned on Hog Island is our new world interpretation, created with our neighbors at Hog Island Oyster Company just north of the Golden Gate Bridge in Tomales Bay, and it is nothing short of spectacular,” – Nico Freccia, co-founder

Hog Island Oyster Company was started by two passionate guys John Finger and Terry Sawyer, much like 21st Amendment was. The salinity in the brine and the calcium of the shells give this beer a slightly salty touch to this stout

The new San Leandro brewery expansion allowed 21st Amendment Marooned on Hog Island to be re-brewed for the first time since 2012.

Style: Stout (w/ Oysters)
Hops: Magnum, Willamette
Malts: Crystal, Carafa, Chocolate, Rolled Oats

Availability: 12 oz Cans, Draft. Seasonal.
Distribution: CA, OR, WA, AK, ID, MN, OH, ME, NH, VT, RI, MA, NY, NJ, DC, CT, DE, MD, PA, VA, GA, FL, NV, NC, SC or IL.

Latest Return: September, 2016

7.9% ABV

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Wicked Weed Brewing Co, Creature Comforts, Headlines, New Releases

Wicked Weed Juiceless, a Creature Comforts collaboration debuts this weekend

Wicked Weed Juiceless, a collaboration with Athens, Georgia based Creature Comforts, debuts August 27th.

Collectively, the two breweries have bragging rights as they each brew some of the most popular India pale ales in the southeast. (See Wicked Weed Pernicious and Creature Comforts Tropicalia.) Both are known for being hoppy, juicy, and downright decadent IPAs.

RELATED: Creature Comforts teams up with Arizona Wilderness

Here in mid-2016, fruited IPAs are all the rage. The fruited subset of the most popular style in the craft brewing segment has made the biggest sales gains over past 18 months according the Brewer’s Association. When it comes to Wicked Weed Juiceless, the breweries tout “cracking the juicy code” without using actual fruit. They have created a juicy IPA without juice. It’s “Juiceless.”

How are they doing it? They are using the biggest, most fruit-forward hops around. If the label artwork is any indication, you’ll find hoppy pineapple notes.

Wicked Weed and Creature Comforts love the citrusy, crisp, hoppy flavor of fruited IPAs, but we wanted to put a unique twist on this delicious style. For this collaboration beer, we cracked the juicy code without using any fruit. Is it hoppy? Of course. Smooth? Certainly. Juicy? THE JUICIEST. Made with fruit? Absolutely not. All the fruit flavor, all from the hops. This beer IS what it ISN’T

Wicked Weed Juiceless will be a 16.9 ounce bottle offering, bottled by Wicked Weed in Asheville. The first bottles will be available alongside to most recent return of White Angel this weekend. Distribution to follow the first week of September.

Style: IPA
Availability: 16.9oz Bottles
Debut: 8/27/16

7.7% ABV

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Burial Beer Co, Don't Miss This, Other Half Brewing

Burial Beer Prismatic Eye, a collab with Other Half (August 6th)

Burial Beer Prismatic Eye, a collaboration with New York’s Other Half, releases August 6th.

Folks from Other Half Brewing were in Asheville, North Carolina last week for Wicked Weed’s Funk Invitational. On the way out of town, the met up with Burial Beer.

The result – an imperial IPA, brewed with North Carolina six-row barley, plus Citra, Summer and Centennial hops. The duo used Burial Beer’s house yeast for fermentation.

Our type of people. Our type of ritual. NC-grown six-row grain under a bouquet of Citra, Summer, and Centennial hops, fermented with our house yeast blend.

Burial Beer Prismatic Eye will be available in 16 ounce cans at the brewery in Asheville.

Style: Imperial IPA
Availability: 16oz Cans
Release: 8/6/16

8.5% ABV

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Jolly-Pumpkin, Don't Miss This, Jester King Brewery

Jester King Space Waves, a dream collab with Jolly Pumpkin

Jester King Space Waves, a new collaboration with Dexter, Michigan’s Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, debuts this week.

Getting immediately down to business – the beer. Back in April, Jolly Pumpkin brewed a farmhouse ale brewed with Texas wheat and lime salt, that was ultimately blended with Jester King Montmorency vs. Balafon which was brewed with cherries.

The farmhouse ale features a large addition of hops in the boil in order to keep the bacteria and house mixed culture scaled back pending the 12 to 1 blend of Montmorency. The final blend was bottled on May 31st, and allowed to naturally re-ferment in bottles.

Jester King really dotes on this collaboration, as Jolly Pumpkin has been a strong influence on the Austin, Texas brewery since their inception.

Even appearing in the same sentence as Jolly Pumpkin, let alone collaborating with them, is a surreal experience for which we are extremely grateful. I’m not shy at all to say that Jolly Pumpkin is Jester King’s greatest influence. – Jeffery Stuffings, Founder

Jester King Space Waves is a 750ml bottle release on August 5th. Limited to 3,000 bottles with no distribution.

Style: American Wild Ale (w/ Lime Salt, Cherries. Partially Oak Aged.)
Availability: 750m Bottles.
Debut: 8/5/16

5.6% ABV, 41 IBUs

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Sierra Nevada, Don't Miss This

Spotlight: Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest 2016, with Mahrs Brau

In 2015, Sierra Nevada bottled their Oktoberfest for the first time. While the brewery has released editions of this style in the past, the bottled release was a collaboration with Brauhaus Riegele from Augsburg, Germany. Each year, Sierra will collaborate with a different German brewery.

Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest 2016 is a collaboration brew with Bamberg, Germany’s Mahrs Brau. While Sierra Nevada has 35 years of commercial brewing under their belt, Mahrs Brau boasts a few more. The family-owned brewery was founded in 1670.

“We’re excited to be working together with Mahrs Bräu,” said Ken Grossman, “We have so much in common with them in the way we approach brewing, and the way we run our businesses. We’re both independent, family-owned breweries with a respect for tradition, yet we’re not handcuffed by it. We’re not afraid to innovate and to change things up. We both care deeply about the environment, and work to make our respective beers with a mindful eye on how that impacts the world around us.”

This year’s edition (if we recall correctly) is lighter in both body and color when compared to last year’s edition. Flavor is very malt forward, with a touch of straw and sweet malt. A very crisp, and very clean beer. Sierra Nevada’s attention to absolute quality meets hundreds of years of Mahrs Brau craft.

Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest 2016 is hitting shelves in 12 ounce bottles and draft nationally. Reminder, this year is different from last year’s release.

Style: Oktoberfest
Hops: German Magnum, Palisade, Saphir, Crystal, German Record
Malts: 2-Row Pale, Steffi Pilsner, Munich, Vienna

Availability: 12oz Bottles, Draft
Release: August, 2016

6% ABV

by Reid Ramsay
Posted in Creature Comforts

Creature Comforts Mutualism, a collab with Jester King debuts

Creature Comforts Mutualism, a collaboration with Austin, Texas based Jester King Brewery releases on July 14th.

Both breweries experiment with wild and sour cultures, making this collaboration a no-brainer. This “Southern style” collaboration features a blend of both house cultures that really make each brewery unique.

The base beer is a pilsner, brewed with wheat and grits from Dayspring Farms (you’ll know from Dayspring) whose secondary fermentation uses the culture blend.

Mutualism was born from a shared vision with our friends at Jester King Brewery of a forgotten cask, that was once a pilsner, but had transformed due to fermentation and time. To craft this beer, we made a pilsner using local wheat and grits from Dayspring Farms, and put it through a secondary fermentation with a  blend of both our house-mixed cultures. The result truly is a symbiosis of friendship, conversation, and bringing the best out of each other’s work. This is Mutualism. Enjoy.

Athens based illustrator (and incidentally tour staff member) Melissa Merrill created the artwork for this release.

Creature Comforts Mutualism is a 750 milliliter bottle offering, available at the brewery in Athens, Georgia only.

Style: American Wild Ale (w/ Grits)
Availabilty: 750ml Bottles
Release: 7/14/16

5.5% ABV

Ed Note: Reader questions submitted to Beer Street Journal unfortunately not be answered. Creature Comforts declined to speak about the collab. Per one brewer- “We made a beer with our friends. It is what it is.” -R.R.

by Reid Ramsay