Boulevard, Creature Comforts & AZ Wilderness Team Up For Collaboration No. 7 – Oak Aged Lager (Aug 2017)

From Boulevard:

Collaboration No. 7 – Oak Aged Lager will be brewed with our friends at Arizona Wilderness Brewing Company from Gilbert, Arizona and Creature Comforts Brewing Company in Athens, Georgia. As with previous collaboration projects, the goal is to work with brewers for whom we have mutual respect and learn new techniques while celebrating the strengths of the chosen breweries.

Our friendship with Arizona Wilderness can be traced back to the second year of Boulevardia’s Taps & Tastes Experience. Given the complex nature of hosting breweries that don’t currently distribute to the state of Missouri, they were unable to pour their beer during the fest, but still attended as our guests to enjoy the weekend. The Arizona Wilderness boys (a way in which they often refer to themselves) became particularly smitten with Steven Pauwels (and who came blame them, really?) during the weekend and it’s safe to say the feeling was mutual. The following year, they were able to pour beer during the festival and impressed attendees (and brewery folks) with their inspired beers that pushed brewing boundaries while celebrating ingredients indigenous to Arizona.

We first met the Creature Comforts crew during a game of bocce ball played in Paso Robles during the Firestone Walker Invitational Beer Festival. Just the right amount of beer (and rosé) had been consumed that we decided to have a friendly wager on the match, our breweries. Fortunately for us, Team Boulevard was victorious and we didn’t have to turn the keys to our brewery over to our new friends from Georgia. In a moment of pure generosity later in the evening, Steven gave them their brewery back. Having become insta-friends, we spent a lot of time chatting, swimming, eating and of course drinking beers with the Creature Comforts folks during the weekend. Known for brewing an impressive range of styles with great technical accuracy, Creature Comforts is best known for their incredibly balanced yet juicy IPA, Tropicalia.

While final recipe formulation is ongoing, our intent is to brew a 6% ABV lager featuring a malt bill composed of pale malt, Sonoran White Wheat, Missouri wheat, honey malt and corn grits. The wort will be hopped with Nelson Sauvin, Lemondrop and Hallertau Blanc hops while additions of Riesling juice and peach puree will accent the sweet fruitiness suggested by the chosen hops. Aged briefly on virgin oak during fermentation, the collaboration beer will receive peach puree and lemon zest just before packaging. Finishing the beer with champagne yeast in bottle conditioning will produce a slightly effervescent golden lager that showcases regional ingredients from each brewery’s home state.