Collaborations between breweries aren’t exactly new, but their results have become a much more common sight in Peaks and Pints’ cooler lately. Collaborations can give brewers a chance to exchange ideas with others and mix their individual house styles. The best collaborations often result in something unique that neither brewery would normally make on its own. Typically, whoever owns the collaboration brewing system and sells the beer sets the rules. Also, when professional brewers collaborate with other professional brewers, the conversations lean toward technical details. When professional brewers collaborate with civilians, the brewing room chatter tends to be more about big ideas and work up something possible. Today’s Peaks & Pints beer flight centers on collaborations — professional and civilian participants — and we have titled it Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Collaborations.
Peaks and Pints Beer Flight: Collaborations
Urban Family Family Planning
5.5% ABV
A collaboration with Planned Parenthood and The Latona Pub in Seattle, this Urban Family Brewing pink hued sour ale is fermented on prickly pear and a touch of vanilla for an incredible, soft tropical flavor all its own.
Aslan Forestalgia
4.8% ABV
Forestalgia is an individual’s yearning for an idealized future, and this crisp American Lager embodies that desire brewed by more than 100 breweries and beer industry businesses at Aslan Brewing. This collaboration through the Washington Wild’s Washington Brewshed® Alliance is committed to protecting Washington state’s forests and rivers for future generations. It is essential that we protect these resources for the future of our people, the planet, and great beer. Forestalgia offers flavors of rose, lemon, and honey pair with a sweet, crackery malt profile leading to a refreshing, bright lager. The hops used in this brew are also Salmon-Safe.
Kulshan Ferry Hop
5.5% ABV
San Juan Brewing took a ferry from Friday Harbor to brew a cold pale ale at Kulshan Brewing’s K2 facility in Bellingham. It’s a classic American pale, but with the crisp clean malt notes that are the signature of cold IPA, which means it was fermented with lager yeast.
Ilk Alter Your Expectations
6% ABV
In celebration of its second anniversary, the Grit & Grain Podcast traveled to Olympia to brew a celebratory collaboration hazy IPA at Ilk Beer. Alter Your Expectations is a light and crushable hazy IPA brewed with nearly all Pilsner malt and multiple doses of El Dorado hops at multiple stages. The result is a clean, composed, and juicy beer with a big pineapple-y explosion of aroma and flavor.
Double Mountain Velvet Wallpaper IPA
6.3% ABV
Double Mountain Brewery & Cidery in Hood River, Oregon, added a classy velvet wallpaper pattern to its taproom. Then, Van Henion Brewing chose the same wallpaper, albeit in a different color, when it opened its doors in Bend, Oregon, two years ago. Recently the two breweries met up in Hood River to brew a collaboration beer, the aptly named Velvet Wallpaper IPA. The two breweries added their favorite hops to this West Coast IPA using modern hopping techniques to highlight citrus aromas, with pine and evergreen providing a well-balanced complement.
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