As part of our mission to highlight our contract brewing partners, today we’re featuring a guest blog showcasing a recent collaboration brew with City Brew Tours and Down the Road Beer Company, written by Malcolm Purinton, City Brew Tour Boston Guide and Beer Historian.
What a fun morning! We, the guides and crew of City Brew Tours Boston, joined Donovan Bailey of Down the Road Beer Company and everyone at Dorchester Brewing today to put together our first collaboration beer ever! Down the Road is one of Dorchester’s partner breweries and is brewing several of its great brews on site. In addition, Dorchester Brewing is one of our newest City Brew Tour partners and it was a pleasure to be able to have us all in one place collaborating!
Today was a rather dark and rainy day here in Boston, which made it a perfect time to be inside brewing on Dorchester’s 5-barrel pilot system! Cody, Dorchester Brewing’s assistant brewer, led the way and showed us step-by-step how they do things at DBC. He started by pouring specialty grains into the mill using the recipe that Donovan created with the Boston Brew Tour guides. Even though it was 8am, we enjoyed some delightful breakfast beer including DBco’s tart Resolution Berliner and Jamaican rum-barrel-aged Bikini Bottom. We hope ours comes out even half as good!
What were we brewing do you ask? Well, a perfect beer for a frigid Boston winter: a hot chocolate flavored porter that we’re calling Wicked Wintah! We came up with the recipe and ingredients through collaboration with DBco and Down the Road by combining the flavors of Down the Road’s London-style porter with a touch of vanilla, a bit of lactose, and some cocoa nibs. It will be a delicious and cozy way to enjoy whatever this wintah turns out to be like. Here’s hoping for more snow and less rain!
While the misty winter rain fell outside, Cody got our wort up to a nice boil and Matt, Dorchester Brewing Co-founder/CEO, led us on a personal tour of the brewery – including the huge freezer in the back! During the tour Matt told us all about the history behind DBco and how they work closely with their many brewing partners. Seeing how shiny and new everything was made us all very excited to show off DBco’s operation to our future tour guests!
With today’s brewing complete and the Wicked Wintah beginning its primary fermentation, we cannot wait to taste it! The team and I are so grateful for the opportunity to brew with the folks at DTR and DBco!
In just a few weeks, we’re going to share this Wicked Wintah porter at a release party hosted by DBco. With some sweet original artwork by Down the Road’s remarkable label artist, this brew will be packaged and available in crowlers and on draught in select locations come late January. The release party is scheduled for Friday, January 27th at Dorchester Brewing Company from 5pm-11pm. Is there a theme you ask? Yes, we felt a Wicked Wintah 80’s ski party would be RAD! If your wardrobe lacks 80s’ winter gear, just dress ’80s!
We’ll be giving away City Brew Tours swag as well as a special getaway package that includes Ski Tickets with City Brew Tours tickets.
The folks at the M&M Rib Truck will be there all night! We’ll have snacks to enjoy on-hand as well as a special treat provided by City Brew Tours for the first 20 guests who purchase a pint of Wicked Wintah!
Come after work, come for a night out, whatever you prefer! Either way, we can’t wait to see you there!
