Every other Thursday, Brewed for Thought and BetterBeerBlog are teaming up for a piece called Hopinions. We will alternate who picks the topic and trade emails on the subject, two apiece. This week my topic for this collaborative effort was collaborations.
From Mario at Brewed For Thought:
Recently, we were referred to as one of another blogger’s favorite blogs. As we were mention in the context of the current rage among brewers, I wanted to find out what your thoughts are on collaborations.
Allow me to play devil’s advocate here. I don’t see the big deal. One brewer has always influenced the next since the dawn of society. And what is a collaborative beer anyway? Do the brewers hold the paddle together? Do they hold hands while monitoring the brewing process? As a brewer who will remained unnamed told me, “I hadn’t realized gay marriage was legalized.”
So what is the big deal? Could these beers have been brewed without the direct involvement of the other brewer?
So, pretend for a minute that I actually believe everything I stated above. Convince me that collaborations are all they are cracked up to be.
From Peter at BetterBeerBlog:
I saw that blog post. I was surprised to have been mentioned but I’m glad that we were. Just gotta keep up the quality of the writing now, no pressure or anything.
Do the brewers hold the paddle together? Do they hold hands while monitoring the brewing process?
That was pretty hilarious. It actually had me laughing out loud. I have the same thoughts, actually. Even now, I picture some of my local brewers holding a mash paddle and stirring together while looking deep into each other’s eyes. They finish up the day shooting water at each other while lathering down the mash tun… and each other. All in slow motion.
You ask some pretty tough questions that I don’t have easy answers to. My initial impulse is to say, “Duh, of course collaborations rock!”. That much is easy. You get two, independently brilliant brewers together who start bouncing ideas off each other and then, BAM! An instant classic. To try and explain why that is though, is difficult.
One of my college instructors told me something that resonates with me even today, “Being successful means being uncomfortable”. What he meant by was if one wanted to be successful, one needed to be continually out of their comfort zones. Being out of our comfort zones means we are experiencing new things, we are learning and growing as opposed to being stagnant and comfortable.
There’s very little doubt that brewing is mainly a solitary affair. Advances in brewing technology and science coupled with an increased quality of ingredients has provided an environment where a single brewmaster could do the work of two people. After a while, habits form, tendencies develop and brewmasters get stuck in a rut.
Collaborations allow brewmasters to an opportunity to break free of their daily grinds, habits and tendencies. They allow brewmasters to get out of their comfort zone by bouncing ideas off a peer who may or may not agree with what they have to say. Collaborations allow brewmasters to step out of their comfort zones, especially if they’re brewing at another facility. There’s nothing to get the creative juices flowing than the enthusiasm, vigor and zeal of your fellow brewer.
In it’s simplest form, a collaborative beer is just a beer. At the very least, it is brewed from malted barley, hops, water and brought to life by yeast. In its most complex form, a collaborative beer is liquid comraderie brewed up with pounds of creativity, bucketfuls of experience with touches of “What if we did this?”, “I don’t give a shit what the owner says” and a healthy disregard for convention. After all, who wants to be the duo known for collaborating on a lime-flavored, American light lager?
You ask if these beers could have been brewed “without the direct involvement of the other brewer”? Maybe. Possibly. In all likelihood, probably. Not. My question to you is, why wouldn’t you want brewers to collaborate?
Truth be told though, I know you’re a fan of collaborative beers, possibly for the reasons I’ve listed above but more than likely for different reasons. What are those reasons? Where do you see collaborative beers going? Do you think it’ll end up like hip/hop music where everyone’s on everyone else’s record? For example, Russian River Consecration batch 7, featuring Brian Hunt? Or maybe we can bring back the old East Coast/West Coast rivalry craft beer style? Throw a little dirrty souf in the mix as well, perhaps?
From Mario at Brewed For Thought:
I love the idea of the hip-hop collaboration making it’s way to the beer scene.Surprise guests? Old feuds resolved in the mash? A series of brewers that worked at a famous brewery coming back together for a reunion brew. It could be epic.
Seriously though, I like collaborations for all the reasons you pointed out. One of my favorite collaborative brews is the Schneider and Brooklyn Hopfen Weisse. Tradition meets modern styling and you end up with an imperial German weisse dry-hopped in an American style. Brilliant!
Where do I see it going? Not so sure. I think the Sierra Nevada 30th Anniversary series has serious promise, especially when Fritz and Ken brew together. I’m a big fan of the Left Hand and Terrapin series. So far they’ve each done a play on their signature brew, but have yet to announce the next phase of the plan
One thing that may be considered collaboration but is rooted in Belgian tradition is what is in the works with Triple Rock/Drakes. Their new barrel house will feature nothing but barrel-aged beer with plenty of room to store the barrels. Rodger Davis hopes to collect beer from various breweries and do the conditioning for them, similar to a lambic blenders.
So I’ll throw the question back to you, where is it all going? What would you like to see? Grab the mic and tell ‘em where you from Petey-E.
From Peter at BetterBeerBlog:
M-Rizzle,
As if it were right on cue, I received an email today from the good folks at San Francisco Beer Week (SFBW10) announcing work has begun on their collaborative Imperial Common. While it sounds like this beer will be an “imperialized” version of a California Common (on a side note, what’s with all the “imperializing” of beer? Why not “sessionize” it as well?), I’ll let the Guild talk about the beer in their own words:
A lager fermented at SF’s ambient temperature, it’s going to be a beautiful, copper-colored, 10% abv beer aged in St. George Spirits whiskey barrels. A little juniper might sneak into the barrels, too.
Maybe we can start referring to the SF Brewers Guild as the Wu-Tang clan of craft beer?
If I were to take an educated guess, I’d wager this will be the year for collaborative beer. With a little prodding from yours truly, I plan on seeing a collaborative beer from one of my local brewers in the near future. Hell, I’m going to working on a collaborative beer in the near future. The point is, collaborations are just too much fun, too interesting and too energizing of an event to not want to participate in.
I think you’ll start to see the larger craft brewers start to do collaborative beers that involve greater distances. Take for example the collaborative beer between Stone and Maui Brewing Company. Stone is no stranger to the game as I still have a bottle of their collaborative beer featuring Mikkeller, Alesmith and themselves. I expect to see collaborative beers between more brewpubs as well.
I also expect collaborations to extend beyond brewers/breweries. Monk’s Blood from 21st Amendment could be the beginning of a trend where craft beer breaks through and joins forces with the culinary world. While I am a bit hazy on its origins, I believe Monk’s Blood is a collaboration between 21st Amendment’s brew crew and homebrew chef Sean Paxton. Can anyone say, “Russian River featuring Thomas Keller”? Anyone? Wait, someone already beat me to it.
What I would really love to see is a collaboration beerfest. To clarify, I’m not talking about all the participating breweries in a beerfest to collaborate on a single beer. I’m thinking about each brewery taking a singular theme or idea and brewing their interpretation of it. We used to do something similar in design school. As the old saying goes, ask 10 designers the same question and get 10 different answers.
Come to think of it, that’s a bad-ass idea. Beer-a-palooza? Crap, that name’s already taken.Who’s in?
Collabs are just blossoming. Sky’s the limit. These beers will continue to get more and more exciting. I mean, first it was just to settle a dispute (“Collaboration, Not Litigation.”) Then once they started taking off, Stone upped it a bit more by saying it’s between 3 brewers, not merely 2. Then with Monk’s Blood and Stone’s Aloha Porter, they took what are essentially pro-am beers and bottled (or canned) them to boost them up to collaboration level. And don’t forget that every Mikkeller beer is sort of a collab since he’s a roving brewer and collaborates at brick-mortar-and-stainless breweries all over. And Collaborative Evil? 10 brewers. C’mon. Perhaps that’s pushing it to “too many cooks spoil the broth” territory, but I don’t think so.
Not to mention, this is a great way to introduce one brewery to a diehard fanbase of another brewery (not that people hadn’t already heard of SN and DFH, but you know what I mean.) I see it all the time. At beer fests and tasting events, one new kid on the block will ask an elderstatemen if he or she is interested in brewing together. Overall, I’d hate to see anyone ever knock this new trend in the beer world. It’s not like Auggie Busch IV and Petey Coors will ever do Blue Bud Blend (Blue Moon & Budweiser). It’s not like GM and Toyota will ever unveil a collaborative automobile.
These are fun. So far they’ve all been tasty. And it epitomizes the camaraderie preached within the culture. But yeah, holding mash paddles together is pretty comical.
I hadn’t mentioned it before, but at the KLCC Festival in Oregon there used to be collaborative Pro-Am beers available for tasting. These were always fun, but they were also always massive beers that tended to get lost in the debauchery of the event. These were good times at the KLCC festivals, when the $1 used record sale was accompanied by a $10 entrance fee and $.50 samples.
Collaborations seems somewhat of a natural progression of the craft beer industry, a result of its tight-knit and egalitarian culture, not to mention that it’s a growing industry so “competitors” can afford to be chummy as the overall pie they are “fighting” for grows.
It doesn’t seem like a lot of wineries release special collaborations, although plenty of them trade grapes and people move around in that industry and study each other’s techniques. Wine is a more stratified industry, and also a more mature one.
I think that’s why InBev and MillerCoors will never shack up. They’re fighting a a shrinking customer base and dealing with tighter margins. (Such a collaboration might very well violate anti-trust laws, too.) As long as the craft beer industry continues to grow and enjoy higher profit margins, and people will spend the extra bucks these collaboration brews command, it’s probably in breweries best interests to continue to produce them. And we can just enjoy them.
I am just now starting to get onto the collaborative bandwagon. In fact, speaking of SF Beer Week, I collaborated with Jack’s Brewing Co on a number of beers to have on tap especially for our homebrew event on the 13th. I have to say though, the best thing about collaborations is being able to bounce ideas off of other brewers. Anyone can bounce a ball against a wall, but it’s more fun to rally a tennis ball back and forth across a clay court.