By Dan O’Shea
After the heady beer-drinking days of May, when Chicago Craft Beer Week had us forcing an unbelievable variety of brews on our palates and livers, I tried to slow down a bit – you know, drinking only two beers a night instead of four.
I used the small increase in clarity this afforded me to think about some of the ongoing trends in the craft beer world. One of those trends is collaboration brewing, a not entirely new concept by any means, but one that seems to have taken off in new directions in recent months.
Some of the first collaboration beers I remember seeing were three or four years ago, and most often the product of partnership between two or three breweries. San Diego’s Stone Brewing Co. has been an especially prolific collaborator, working with Dogfish Head and many others.
In Chicago, several new craft breweries have done some collaboration brewing with other brewers. For example, Half Acre Beer Co. has worked with Three Floyds Brewing, Pipeworks Brewing Co. and Short’s Brewing Company from Michigan, among others.
Posted on June 27, 2012