Craft Beer 101: What's a Collaboration beer?

AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari

Current events have picked out the subject of this article for me, as the punditocracy, bloggerheads and Twitts try to guess what should be served in Thursday's White House summit with Henry Louis Gates and Sgt. James Crowley. It seems odd that such pedestrian choices as Bud Light, Beck's and Red Stripe have already been picked out, at least as rumor has it, for the three participants, but then again, we still have been made privy to whether President Obama even keeps a beer cellar in the White House. There's at least some agreement among those of us who've already spent too much time on the subject that the "obvious" choice would be a keg each of Chicago's Goose Island Honker's Ale vs. Sam Adams Boston Lager.

But maybe someone at the House of POTUS should have given some thought to a selection of "Collaboration" beers instead.

A Collaboration beer is not a style, in fact it could conform to no beer style at all. A Collaboration arises when brewmasters from two (or more!) craft breweries decide to get together on a single beer. It could be a simple affair arising from one brewer brewing at another brewhouse. Two brewers each make a batch from the same recipe. The "Pro-Am" beers, where a homebrew contest winner has his recipe scaled up to production size, like Sam Adams Longshot competition, could be considered collaborative. So could various "ReplicAle," where members of a state's craft brewing organization each produce a beer based on a similar recipe. Both the Illinois and Indiana craft brewers have been big on this.

An article listing all of the collaboration beers out there would take hours to read. Instead, I've selected some better known collaborations that have been available in the Chicago area.

Russian River, a major Collaborator.

The first such beer to make a big splash on store shelves was Collaboration, Not Litigation!. Adam Avery of Avery Brewing (Boulder, CO) and Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River (Santa Rosa, CA) both had a Belgian Ale called "Salvation." Rather than fight it out in court over who can keep the name, they met at Russian River in 2004 and, over a few beers, decided they should blend the two brews together for a special release. Mrs. Natalie Cilurzo suggested the name "Collaboration, not Litigation Ale!" After much discussion, Cilurzo brewed his Salvation recipe at Avery, with the resulting blend debuting early in 2007. There have been three yearly editions of this brew, each one at just under 9% abv and sold in 22 oz. bottles for your stupefaction.

Garrett Oliver (l) and Hans-Peter Drexler (c) brewing Schneider &
Brooklyner Hopfen-Weisse in Kelheim, Germany, May 2007.
(Photo from www.schneider-weisse.de)

Schneider & Brooklyner Hopfen-Weisse and Brooklyner-Schneider Hopfen-Weisse: This is a collaboration that produced two separate and confusingly-named beers. First, in May 2007, Brooklyn Brewery Brewmaster Garrett Oliver went to the Schneider Weisse brewery (which specializes in German wheat, or weizen, beers) and brewed Schneider & Brooklyner, a strong German wheat beer with plenty of German Hallertauer hops. This was sold in America in half-liter import bottles. Then that July, Schneider brewmaster Hans-Peter Drexler brought his yeast to Brooklyn to make the Brooklyner-Schneider, dry-hopped with citrussy American hops. This is now available in a corked 750 ml bottle as part of Brooklyn's "Brewmaster's Reserve" series. I have managed to enjoy the German version brewed by Oliver, and found its advanced malt and IPA-level hop profile almost wipes out the usual banana and clove notes of a German weiss (39 out of 50). Because these are both around 8.5% abv, they are considered Weizen Bocks, or extra-malty wheat beers. These beers would have been my first choice for this White House meeting (and the Brooklyners think so, too), not the least because Oliver, besides writing eloquently on beer and food pairings and looking for ways to brew as "green" as possible, is the industry's foremost African-American brewer.

Three Floyds Mikkeller Oatgoop — listed as a barley wine, but with the addition of plenty of oatmeal— is a collaboration between the Madmen of Munster and Mikkeller, a currently hot craft brewer in Denmark. You might still score a 22 oz. "bomber" at your local store if you can swallow the $16 price. I will eventually open my bottle and offer you a review as my public service. The Floyds have also just released Popskull, a joint issue with Dogfish Head. That could be scary. Mikkeller has done several collaborations with brewers around the world.

Flying Dog Ales' Wild Dog Collaborator Dobbelbock label

Flying Dog Wild Dog Collaborator Doppelbock. The Open Source movement has already given us Firefox, Red Hat Linux and OpenOffice so you can run a Microsoft-free PC. An artist's collective in Demark produced the first Open Source beer in 2001. So Flying Dog Ales of Frederickson, MD (formerly of Denver) formed the Open Source Beer Project to collaborate with several homebrewers and beer fans on a recipe. Truly a beer brewed by a committee. Available in stores this week, but around $25 per bottle.

Collaborative Evil

Collaborative Evil was a Belgian Dark Ale started by Todd Ashman, orginal brewmaster at Flossmoor Station. From his current base at FiftyFifty Brewing in Truckee, CA, Todd enlisted Matt Van Wyk, then-current Flossmoor brewmaster, and Zac Triemert of Lucky Bucket Brewing in La Vista, NE, to make a Belgian ale from the same basic recipe, but with each brewer adding his own honey and spices. The results were intended to compete at the 2008 Great American Beer Festival, but only two of the beers were ready in time. The Flossmoor version was available on tap, and in 22 oz. bottles sealed in red wax. The 2009 version is already in the tanks, with six more brewers, including Flossmoor's current Brewmaster, Bryan Shimkos; while Van Wyk participates from his new position at Oakshire Brewing of Eugene, OR, and more brewers from California to Oklahoma. Fellow Chicago Craft beer Examiner Marty Nachel has more details.

Reunion - A Beer for Hope is an annual series of beers, a different style each time, sold as a fundraiser for the Institute for Myeloma & Bone Cancer Research. Its genesis was with Virginia McLean, a Myeloma patient who had done all the 5K's and other fundraising activities. She contacted her old boss, Pete Slosberg, who agreed to get some of their old gang from Pete's Wicked back together to make a fundraiser beer. The first beer, an Imperial Brown ale, was brewed at Bison Brewing in Berkeley, CA in 2007. The 2008 beer was an organic Red Rye, with bottles making it to the Chicago markets. The 2009 Reunion, a double Wheat Ale, is a collaboration between Bison, Elysian Brewing in Seattle, Terrapin in Georga, and Port Brewing/Lost Abbey in California. Presently, the beer is scheduled to be sold on draft only.

Talk things out over a beer? It's a time-honored tradition. When the guys who make beer sit down to talk things over, great beer can result.

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