When Worlds Collide

February 9, 2011, by Crafty Pint

When Worlds Collide

It never rains, but it pours. Yesterday, we had a story about Australia’s first two collaborative brews in Epicure – both to be tapped at GABS on Saturday. And today, we can reveal that the country’s first international collaboration is taking place in Melbourne next week.

Following in the footsteps of the Two Hills Maibock and the joint effort from Lobethal Bierhaus and the BrewBoys, comes word of a forthcoming beer from Mountain Goat and the UK’s top-rated brewery Thornbridge. It’s a coming together that promises to be as explosive as the opening of Rocky IV – especially as they’re going to create a Black IPA designed to be the Southern Hemisphere sibling to Thornbridge’s Raven.

“We have a connection with Caolan [Vaughan], who’s a mate of one of the old brewers here and worked at Little Creatures before going to Thornbridge,” says Mountain Goat founder Dave Bonighton. “We got chatting about a collaboration as they’d done one with Epic and we’d been wanting to do something ourselves. He’s flying into Melbourne next week so this has pretty much fallen into our lap.”

The pair will head into the brewhouse next Friday, where they’ll use Australian Galaxy hops and Motueka from New Zealand to create a seriously meaty 70 IBU monster registering somewhere over 6% ABV. There will be some chocolate and roast malt in there to ensure it’s seriously black and the aim is to put most if it into Rare Breed longnecks later in the year.

“We want a little bit of roastiness in there as it will need structure because of the high alcohol and bitterness,” says Dave. “But we’re looking for plenty of dark caramels, a bit of chocolate flavours and a lot of hops.”

All being well, Dave hopes to head to the UK later in the year to do a reciprocal brew at Thornbridge. Which is just fine by us, as long as he brings some back with him.

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