Brewing Collaboration Beers: Convergent Worlds

One of the very best parts of opening a brewery is letting your imagination run wild. Early in the conceptual stages of Silver Branch Christian and I were discussing our fond memories of international travel and how cool it would be make collaboration beers with other brewers near and far. Brewing and drinking beers influenced by different regions of the world provides a momentary window into the beautifully large and diverse world we live in. As more time went by and more wild ideas kept coming up we realized the best way to have fun with this would be to explore brewing concepts with friends of ours. Brewing collaboration beers is an important way for us to share our experiences and learn from the experiences of other brewers as well. We get no better opportunity to dream big and have fun when we make beer with our friends.

Convergent Worlds Vol. 1

For our first collaboration beer we worked with guys from Manor Hill to brew a NEIPA, a style that we had drank plenty of but had never actually brewed ourselves. We knew these guys crushed it with this style because I used to be a frequent buyer of their beer when I was the General Manager at Republic. I often jumped at the opportunity to scoop up some of their limited release beers. Christian and I were in the car driving to an important meeting in Rockville when I read aloud the recipe Kurt devised for our collaboration beer. We were amazed and perplexed because we had never even seen a beer recipe like this. More than 30% flaked grains? Literally no boil hops? What followed was one hell of a beer release and a lot of great times drinking beer with brewers we consider good friends of ours. Below is the hop schedule we used for this beer:

Hop Schedule

1.00 lbs. Citra @ 12.90% AA (0 minutes)

2.00 lbs. Motueka @ 8.50% AA (-10 minutes)

3.00 lbs. Citra @ 12.90% AA (-20 minutes)

4.00 lbs. Motueka @ 8.50% AA (-30 minutes)

DRY HOPPING AT 8P

11.00 lbs. Palisade @ 7.40% AA (Dry Hop)

5.50 lbs. Motueka @ 8.50% AA (Dry Hop)

5.50 lbs. Citra @ 12.90% AA (Dry Hop)

Convergent Worlds Vol. 2

Our second collaboration beer was a dynamized Berliner Weisse we did with Right Proper. Nathan conceived this amazing idea to borrow a page out of the bio-dynamic wine playbook and treat our brewing water with a combination of roots and herbs to promote antibacterial properties and give a very subtle amaro-like undertone to the finished beer. I distinctly remember on brewday Nathan opened the manway to his HLT and I was blasted in the face with a huge aroma very similar to a favorite amaro of mine, Amaro Lucano. Some of the unique ingredients we dynamized our water with included chamomile, nettles, dandelion root, valerian root, and juniper berries.

Convergent Worlds Vol. 3

I have always been a huge fan of The Brewer’s Art, undeniably an institution within the local beer scene at this point. They are most well-known for the Belgian styles but their Founder, Volker, has a rich German heritage and within the last couple of years they have been producing some of the best lagers in the entire DMV. Together we came up with a rich and malty beer that could only be described as a Vienna Bock because it is well within the context of being a German or Austrian style but there is no BJCP precedent for what we made. What we ended up with was a deceptively smooth, malt-forward 6.8% bock with a touch of caramel and toffee delight. The lager-head in me greatly appreciated this higher gravity yet highly drinkable beer and we released it at Quarry House Tavern because if you’re going to drink high alcohol beer there is likely no better place to do so.

Convergent Worlds Vol. 4

We’re officially releasing our fourth installment in the Convergent Worlds Series this Friday at 3pm with True Respite. We desperately wanted to produce a Belgian influenced beer but like always we wanted to add a layer of complexity and conduct some method exploration as we’ve done with all our other collaboration beers. This time we partnered up with True Respite to produce a Belgian Pale Ale that we “dry-oaked” with toasted oak staves in a similar fashion to how someone might dry-hop a NEIPA. The idea generated from Brad Smith’s Homebrewing podcast where he discussed biotransformation with Randy Mosher. We wanted to see if this concept would hold merit not only with early dry-hopping but also early dry-oaking. Join us this Friday and determine the results for yourself!

Two Worlds Converge by Brewing Collaboration Beers

In a lot of ways our own business partnership is really two worlds converging into one concept. Shared interests with varied backgrounds and a diverse set of skills is part of what we embrace and what we thrive on. We carried this concept over to our collaboration series, Convergent Worlds. Brewing beers with our friends around the industry gives us a fantastic opportunity to learn from them and hone our own skill as brewers. The guys over at Oliver Brewing Co. gave us the name for the series, so even the name itself is a collaboration. Do you want to be among the first to try new collaboration beer releases at Silver Branch Brewing Company? Join our Founder’s Club and always be the first to try our new beer releases.