Beer collaborations are being seen more and more in the Craft Beer world these days. A collab is straightforward: two or more breweries work together to create a new brew – an ode to the craft beer ethos of working together and enjoying the current thriving beer scene instead of squabbling over market share.
Though the idea behind these “collabs” generally started just between breweries it is now expanding to include other people in the industry such as; bloggers, instagramers and youtubers. Yes my spellcheck is confused with those words but you get my drift as they too are real people ;)
As I had a conversation, just yesterday, with an owner of a wonderful brewery he really made sense of what collabs are all about...
When he first discovered the Craft Beer scene it was in the USA and full of love, sharing and everyone having a good time by working with different breweries and having some no-regards-for-boundaries fun in the process. With the industry booming and continuing to grow as it is here in Ontario "Who knows what the future holds so we might as well have as much fun as we can now." That really stuck in my head after he said that and is such a great point.
Surely it can't grow at this torrid pace forever but let's enjoy the ride, the copious amounts of great beer, a few drain pours, the people we meet and the great friends we create along the way as that is priceless.
I've had the enjoyment of partaking in a few collabs in the past, as you may know, but last night was special. I went out to celebrate a beer release from a few of the good friends I have met along this journey so far. Both the BAOS Podcast & Sawdust City Brewery folks met up at The New Bar Hop in Toronto to launch their collab.
Appropriately named "Get It In Ya!" they brewed an 8.5% Imperial IPA!! Brewed using only Australian hops (half of Baos team is Aussie) they created this hoppy, juicy, chalky monster that is loaded with tropical and floral flavours and has haze for days!!
My review: Fantastic and hard hitting. For 8.5% it oddly went down quick and left enough resting in my mouth that I ordered another so I could get a souvenir can of course ;)
You can pre-order the beer online in the Sawdust store here: http://bit.ly/BaosCollab
So after a great night of old friends and new I raise a glass to Scott & Craig of Baos Podcast for following their passions, staying true to themselves and having a ton of fun along the way. I appreciate you guys!
Tiffany
Photo Credit to Illnote Studios (illnotestudios.com)