Collaboration beers are nothing new in the craft beer world. They’re a great opportunity to share knowledge, experiment a bit, and maybe have a couple of each other’s beers at quitting time.
What is new? Making a beer/wine hybrid like Fill in the Blanc, now available in Surly’s Beer Hall.
We executed this concept with our friends at Minneapolis’ Fulton Beer (or “the one by Target Field” as your outstate relatives call it). Surly’s Ben Smith and Fulton’s Mikey Salo met at our original Brooklyn Center location and got to work on this unique initiative. Fill in the Blanc was lightly hopped on Nelson Sauvin hops and used Omega thiolized lager yeast to unleash the fruit character of the hops and pils malt. It was then fermented on cherry wood with a sauvignon blanc juice addition during fermentation.
The result, to paraphrase our old tallboys, is beer for a wine glass served from a keg. Fill in the Blanc is a remarkably smooth sipper with powerful notes of white grape, muscat grape, and rose. It is quite unlike anything else you’ll find in our Beer Hall or anyone else’s.
Fill in the Blanc is on draft now and well worth checking out. Thanks again to Mikey and Fulton for going down this road with us. Your place next time?
The particulars:
- ABV: 13.3%
- Hops: Nelson Sauvin
- Malt: Pils
- Yeast: Omega Thiolized Lager
- Pour: Clear Dark Yellow
- Gravity: 16.0
- Bitterness: Low
- Special Guests: Cherry Wood, Sauvignon Blanc Juice
