Tag: collaborations

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Across The World – Ranked – The 1st Six

Earlier this month, I picked up the latest Sierra Nevada Beer Camp variety box and set about trying all 12 and ranking them.

Here is my hot take on the first six beers tasted and my ranked results:
1. The Bruery Raspberry Sundae – Points for really following through on the name. Strong raspberry notes and sweetness that the lactose really softens the edges from.

2. Surly Ginger Lager – Way too much ginger on this but I like that taste so even though the lager ½ of the name is overwhelmed, I enjoyed this.

3. Kiuchi White IPA with Yuzu – Nice IPA. Not earth shattering but the best of the first six easily.

4. Treehouse East Meets West IPA – Not super hazy. A bit juicy. Can’t avoid talk of Treehouse beers but this is only so-so to me.

5. Boneyard West Coast Style DIPA – Another hop bomb that I was looking forward to that just sorta sat there. Like Treehouse, I expected something more.

6. Mikkeller Thai-Style Ice Tea – Whereas the ingredients in The Bruery beer contrasted. This was a muddle. And unlike the Ginger Lager, I am not a fan of Thai Ice Tea so this gets the bottom score.

Overall, I expect the back six beers to be better. There will be (4) foreign to (2) US collaborations. None of these, that includes the raspberry, were great. The IPA’s didn’t have that extra something to elevate them even from each other. My expectations vs what was in the bottle had a large gulf in between them.

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A Collaborative Only Brewery

There are plenty of interesting nuggets when reading about new nano brewery Horus Aged Ales. First and foremost is in the names from Kyle Harrop’s Oceanside brewery will be barrel-aged. Also the Southwestern logo.

What struck me though was the width and breadth of Harrop’s collaborations. Here is the list of past and future collaborators:

Courtyard Brewery of New Orleans
Homage Brewing of Pomona
Abnormal Beer Company of Rancho Bernardo
Alvarado Street Brewery of Monterey
El Segundo Brewing of (obviously) El Segundo)
Wren House Brewing of Phoenix
J. Wakefield Brewing of Miami
Great Notion Brewing of Portland
The Answer Brewpub of Richmond
White Fence Brewing of Vista
And finally… Rip Current Brewing of San Marcos

That will be quite the event if they can get all of those under one roof.

This long list led me to think about the possibility of a brewery just doing collaborations. Would that be feasible? Would you even need a brewery of your own? Would you package or have a tap room? What location would be prime for travel to and fro?

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America to the World

apologies for my penmanship

Sierra Nevada’s popular Beer Camp is poised to go worldwide this year with a variety 12-pack: Beer Camp Across the World.
Sierra Nevada keeps upping the ante on this program and this looks like the logical next step. They have European collaborations in their history with their Oktoberfest beer so why not go international.

The “supergroup” beers heavily leaned on the geographic places that the breweries hailed from and they plan to do that again as Bill Manley from Sierra Nevada, explains “With the international folks, we asked them to think about something unique to them, what’s unique to their sense of place, so we’ll be able to, theoretically, taste two senses of place.”

The initial R&D test batches were brewed in November of last year and the whole packs will be on shelves in June of this year. Here are the beers that you will see (italicized are my picks for most excited to try) starting with the international side.…
Dunkel Weisse with Ayinger Brewery
Hoppy Belgian-Style Golden Ale Brewed w/ Lemon Peels with Duvel
Atlantic Vintage Ale with Fuller’s Brewery
Campout Porter with Garage Project
White IPA w/ Yuzu with Kiuchi Brewery
Thai-Style Iced Tea with Mikkeller

Now onto the American beers you will find in the box….
Dry-Hopped Barleywine Style Ale with Avery Brewing Co.
West Coast Style DIPA with Boneyard Beer
Dry-Hopped Berliner Weisse with Saint Arnold Brewing Co.
Ginger Lager with Surly Brewing Co.
Raspberry Sundae with The Bruery
East Meets West IPA with Tree House Brewing Co.

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Beer Camp is a Coming

You will see the Sierra Nevada name popping up at your favorite beer watering holes as their Beer Camp packs (and kegs) start arriving.

One such event is at Select Beer….
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This will be a chance to get a 50% taste of some breweries that normally don’t sell here. Plus there is the SoCal beer collaboration to celebrate too.

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Back to Beer Camp for 2016

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Beer Camp Across America, the wide-ranging collaboration series from Sierra Nevada will return in 2016 with a jaw-dropping “30 (!) collaboration partners for a new mixed 12-pack…”

Then in the summer of 2016 those beers and more will be sent on a 6 city tour of beer festivals.

What is most exciting is that both Beachwood Brewing and Smog City are on the initial list (see below). Maybe they will both end up in the final 12-pack!
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Review – Double Latte fron Ninkasi Brewing & Sierra Nevada

I will be reviewing ALL 13 of the special Sierra Nevada Beer Camp collaborations this month.  I had my non-drinking wife randomly select the order and the third beer is from Ninkasi Brewing, Double Latte.

“Double Latte combines two of the greatest things in life: good coffee and great beer. Oregon’s Ninkasi Brewing knows their way around a good cup of joe. Featuring cold-press coffee from the legendary Stumptown Coffee Roasters and a dose of milk sugar, this coffee milk stout is a rich and roasty treat.”

When scanning the list of beers, this was the one that made me nervous.  See L.A. has a premier example of a coffee milk stout.  It is Naughty Sauce from Noble Ale Works.  Even with Stumptown Coffee, how could this beer compare.

Time to find out.

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This Double Latte of a beer pours with a big, foamy espresso colored head to it.  That foam recedes fairly quickly leaving a ring around the glass and plenty of lacing.  The aroma is straight up coffee though milder than I expected.  The taste is a blend of coffee and a chocolate chip sweetness.  There is a sense of cream taste from the lactose but it isn’t pervasive.  It is almost a milk chocolate covered coffee bean flavor.  The coffee is certainly bitter.  There is also a bit of carbonated zing in the middle of each sip as well.  All of the flavors that I taste are fantastic but I don’t know if they blend into one beer that rivals the Naughty Sauce.  That is a tough goal and one that the Double Latte valiantly fights but doesn’t quite win.

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