Making Friends

Making Friends

The world of beer is a great place to make friends. Our latest collaboration was over a year in the making, and finally everything fell into place this November, when the Blindman Brewing Crew ot of Lacombe, Alberta was able to come up and brew with us.  We had a blast over beers and our shared passion for brewing.  Such a good group of down to earth people.  Thanks to Matt, Shane, Lisa, Sarah, Mac, Shari, and Jylena.

They were busy bees while up here, brewing with Yukon Brewing as well and doing a week-long tap takeover at Wayfarers Oyster House too.   You may still find Blindman Beer on tap and in cans there, so make sure to check them out.

 

The Beer

The collab beer is a big double IPA (8.5%), brewed with Red Shed Malting (Parkland Pale Malt), Malted Rye, Flaked Oats and Wheat Malt. We used our usual hazy IPA go-to yeast, Foggy London. To try something a little off-centred for us, we continuously dry hopped the beer during active fermentation with some choice New Zealand hop varieties (Rakau, Motueka and Nelson Sauvin).  A full bag of hops a day was the plan, while serenading the beer with the right mix of 90s punk music (more about our beer friends playslist later).

 

We filled the mash tun to the brim.

 

All hands on deck!

 

Now there's a reason why we never do this type of dry hopping normally… two words… HOP VOLCANOS!  But it can make for some interesting flavours you don't otherwise get, so we thought the risk was worth the reward.

  • Day 1-  A-OK - a full 11 lbs of Motueka was added.
  • Day 2 (fingers crossed) - A-OK - a full 11 lbs of Rakau was added.
  • Day 3 - All hell broke loose!  The wort/hops/yeast came spraying out, blanketing everything in a thick, pale green mess. The volcano erupted for about 5-10 minutes.  Nobody got hurt, just our egos.
  • It wasn't until Day 5 - when the beer activity started slowing down enough that we gathered our courage and got the last 11 lbs of Nelson Sauvin in the fermenter.  Check out the footage on our social media post today!

So while not everything went to plan, the beer still turned out great.  You get a bit of a spicy kick from the rye malt and of course loads of sweet, fruity aroma and flavour from the trifecta of hops (it's like a fruit punch of lychee, mango, peach, gooseberry, and lime zest). But see for yourself.

Release Details - Thursday, Dec 9th.  Available online for local pickup, in store for growler fills and 4-packs to go, and of course on tap.

 

Tentatively dry hopping on Day 5 (hop lullaby was 'Never Stops' - by Lagwagon).

 

Name & Label

If you're a fan of 90s punk you will hopefully get the Double Plaidinum reference, with the beer name and label design. The label features the Yukon and Alberta tartans side by side for a double plaid look. Those colour combos are popping!

Not only did we collaborate on this awesome beer, we also collaborated on a music playlist of good tunes you can enjoy while sippin' along.  A good mix of punk rock, some metal covers, and a couple punk cover Christmas songs.  Check it out on SPOTIFY - Making Friends Playlist

 

Going for Double Plaid with the Yukon Tartan on the right and the Alberta Tartan on the left.