In August Richmond’s Stone Brewing and DC’s Soul Mega visited Port City to make an IPA, with a few twists. The beer–Cosmic Coast IPA– is now available at Port City, with cans to follow, and the breweries are taking the beer release on the road, with an upcoming party at ChurchKey on Friday, September 13th.
“We met the Stone Brewing RVA team at their first ever beer festival back in February,” Port City Sales Director Will Bruder tells us.” They expressed wanting to get their brewers out more and begin to cultivate relationships with other local VA breweries. We connected their brewing team with Adam Reza, our Director of Brewing Operations.” Reza is friends with Elliott Johnson of Soul Mega, setting up the tripartite collaboration. “First, we nailed down the style, of course. That was an easy one since we were all collaborating with Stone – we knew it had to be an IPA,” adds Bruder.
The breweries sketched out a recipe via email, “inspired by Matthew Poselwait [center left in the above photo], Stone Brewing RVA’s head brewer, and a Thai basil lemonade shandy that he had been obsessed with recently,” says Bruder. The brewers thought of ways to get a fresh, herbal, lemony component into the beer. “We ended up hopping the beer with Citra, Lemon Drop, and Amarillo, then in the whirlpool we finished it with lemon peel and Thai basil.”
Those last two adjunct ingredients should make for an interesting beer. Thai basil often imparts notes of fennel and anise, a compliment to citrus flavors from the hops and lemon peel.
Port City is more well-known for lagers, and worry not: their Rauch Marzen will be available Friday, September 13, with a dry-hopped Kolsch-style ale from their Brewers’ Cut series following on September 20. Port City’s Wunderfest, their annual celebration of Teutonic lagers, is on the 21st.
But if you’d rather talk about IPAs, that’s cool. Learn about space and exoplanets while drinking discounted Star Sailor on Thursday, September 12th.
Of note: workers at Stone in Richmond are attempting to unionize, which is worth following.
Official description of the beer below:
Cosmic Coast IPA, 7% alcohol by volume
Port City Brewing Company, Stone Brewing, and Soul Mega would like to welcome you to our Cosmic Coast. Imagine yourself on a serene beach or shoreline under a sky filled with stars, planets, and galaxies, where the boundary between the Earth and the universe feels almost non-existent. Cosmic Coast IPA is a West Coast IPA initially hopped with Amarillo, Citra, Lemon Drop hops and finished with lemon peel and Thai basil in the whirlpool. Our goal was to blend the familiar with the fantastical. Close your eyes, take a sip, and enjoy the Cosmic Coast with us.
Addition Cosmic Coast parties include:
