Not to bring politics into this but if the right and left were brewers let’s just say everyone would get along and have a grand time. Brewers just get along, love the work they do and the product they create. We rally around our communities and the beer we love.
Local collaboration is something we seem to gravitate to from our downtown shared space at Mosaic Locale with Buena Onda Empanadas and Hook & Press Donuts to our Hop Project collaboration with Teechino tea. We figure it is our love of socializing around good food and drink and our curiosity to know more. Sometimes we just need to collaborate because it is fun to geek out over the possibilities of what we can make together. We are driven to try it by sheer curiosity.
People want to come and try new, experimental beers. We think there is always opportunity to learn and improve from collaboration. The experience of working with brewers who do things differently will always broaden horizons. Learning the art of trust and tolerance to make a great collaboration beer. Sometimes toes will get stepped on and a lot of ideas fly around, but we all know there can’t be any territoriality or the end result will suffer. The air of creativity brings an air of excitement. The end result... the beer is new, it’s exciting, and it’s limited. All of those are instant selling points.
We respected the craft and knowledge of the brewLAB. We knew whatever we did together would be worth our time. And, it would be fun! What’s life without fun? Reno King (our main man wrangling the hops) says the aim was for both of us is to brew something different than we normally do. “We didn’t want to just brew another IPA.”
As for the merits of cooperation versus competition, King says, “It is very symbolic of Draughtsmen (and much of the craft-brewing world) to be altruistic and mutually supportive.” More practically, “Collaboration allows us to share costs and help to strengthen and overlap our following in a market to reach new people.”
In this moment of time where things feel divided it was positive and motivating to be able to weave together ideas, creativity and our teams to feed off of good energy to make something extra special. And, we had a lot of good laughs along the way. (At a distance, of course.)
Beaker India Pale Lager - 6.4% ABV, 60 IBUs - brewed in collaboration with our friends at BrewLab in Carpenteria, CA. Experimental hops and lager yeast. Dry, crisp, hop forward. Flavor notes of Papaya. Grapefruit. Cedar. Lavender. Apricot.
