Pond Hopping
Our collaboration efforts with Thornbridge Brewery of Bakewell, UK began with a visit to their brewery by Doug in 2008. He was intrigued by what he had heard about UK Craft Breweries beginning to brew unique styles, and using hops other than the traditional English varieties. Thornbridge was and is clearly going in this direction.
This visit was followed by a collaboration brew by Doug and the Thornbridge brewers in the summer of 2010 at their brewery. The beer was a take on the Odell Red recipe, brewed with all English malts, and using English hop varieties with the most intense flavor and aromatic qualities. The result, Colorado Red, was quite popular and was awarded the bronze medal at the 2010 Peterborough UK beer festival in the strong ale category.
The reciprocal collaboration brew took place at Odell Brewing on February 24th. Caolan Vaughan, the head brewer and production manager at Thornbridge traveled to Fort Collins to brew a Double Extra Pale Ale with us. The beer is packaged in a cork and cage 750 ml bottle, and will be made available in both the United Kingdom, and the Odell distribution area in
the United States.
Ponder Hopper – Thornbridge Bridge Brewing Collaboration Beer from Odell Brewing on Vimeo.
Shenanigans baby – yeah!
Trial and error = #EpicWIN
We like to have fun experimenting on our Pilot Brewing playground… Like, a lot. So much so that we consider play one of our secret ingredients. Enter Shenanigans, a beer that was never meant to be. We were working on a Woodcut project, and a few barrels weren’t exactly what we were looking for. They were still awfully yummy, so we inoculated them with a little bit of this and a little bit of that. It was about that time when things went deliciously wrong. Pineapple juice married with spicy phenols emerge first from the glass. Followed by the full malt body of a 9.1% crimson ale, and rounding out the tail end the oak tannins battle for supremacy with the tart finish provided by just a dash of lactobacillus. Try a bottle for yourself and savor the complexity and subtle nuances of our brewery shenanigans. (Join us Saturday, March 24th for the Tap Room Release Party!)
– A Quality Guy
Emersum Oyster Stout (our collaboration with Jax Fish House)
If there is one thing we love more than craft beer, it’s crafting a beer with new friends. Last month, we paired up with the fine folks of Jax Fish House to create a special brew in honor of their new Emersum Oysters and Oyster Month (March). Naturally, we decided to make an oyster stout. Jax provided their proprietary mollusks for the beer, and everyone had a blast brewing. The beer is a classic dark stout brewed with generous amounts of roast. We added shucked oysters to the mash in the lauter tun and let them soak with all of the delicious sugars of the wort for a bit. Once we got the wort from the mash/oyster mixture, we boiled our wort for about 90 minutes. We then added unshucked oysters to the kettle and boiled them to extract as much as possible. Once that was complete, the wort went to a fermenting vessel for conditioning. Check out this great video of our brew day!
We’ll help kick off Oyster Month and the new brew with a celebration in the Tap Room on Thursday, March 1st. Guests can enjoy samples of the beer as well as complimentary Emersum oysters (while supplies last). Jax will also be selling some additional tasty dishes. Emersum Oyster Stout will be limitedly available on draft at the brewery and all three Jax locations (Fort Collins, Boulder, Denver).
