Singapore’s first local craft brewery Archipelago Brewery and California’s Anderson Valley Brewing Company will be launching a collaboration beer in Singapore in the coming weeks.
One of the biggest trends in the craft beer world is the idea of a collaboration beer, where a set of brewers from out of town comes visiting and works together with a local brewery to create a special, usually once-off product. Due to the rarity of such beers which is often made with off-beat ingredients, they are generally highly sought-after by beer connoisseurs.
While Archipelago Brewery has collaborated before – a Hickory Smoked IPA in conjunction with American barbeque joint Smokey’s BBQ, a coffee-based schwarzbier together with Third Wave coffee cafe Forty Hands, and even a tea-infused beer made in collaboration with the Gryphon Tea Company – it’s never done so together with another brewery, and certainly not one with the international renown of California-based Anderson Valley Brewing Company.
But when Anderson Valley brewmaster Fal Allen swung into town a while back during Singapore Craft Beer Week, he got together with Archipelago’s head brewer Robert Beck, Archipelago head Malcolm Davies and The Pump Room’s brewer Hayman Tin to brew up something special. The collaboration beer will be a pale ale made with Pacifica and Nelson Sauvin hops that is infused for three days in the bright tank with fruit pulp made from 15 kilograms of fresh California red grapes and 23 kilograms of local passionfruit.
If you’re wondering about the origins of this collaboration, Fal Allen was actually Archipelago’s first head brewer when the brewery opened ten years back. You can consider this a special tenth anniversary collaboration special, if you will.
For those of you beer geeks, the collaborative brewers are aiming for an ABV of 4.6%, with 32 IBU and a colour of 25 EBC. Only a hundred 20-litre kegs will be released on September 15th – watch out for it!
