This week on Beer Sessions Radio™, host Jimmy Carbone welcomes a diverse group of brewers from near (Dave Lopez—owner—and Chris Sheehan—brewmaster—of Gun Hill Brewing Co. in the Bronx) and far (Richard Burhouse of Magic Rock and Colin Strong of Buxton Brewery both from the U.K.). Adding color (pun intended, and read on) is Evil Twin Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø and B.R. Rolya of Shelton Brothers Imports. Among other topics, the brewers are discussion the Rainbow Project, a collaboration event that takes place each year involving British and European brewers who take their inspiration from the colors of the rainbow (ROY G BIV, for those who remember the mnemonic).
B.R. describes the very technical process of how the brewers are matched with each other and their color: Ryan Witter-Merithew of Siren Craft Brew in the U.K. literally draws names from hats and then picks a color at random. The only bar in the U.S. that will have all seven beers on at the same time is Good Beer Seal bar Tørst. The match-ups are as follows:
Magic Rock + Evil Twin (Denmark) – Red
Beavertown + Naparbier (Spain) – Orange
Buxton + Omnipollo (Sweden) – Yellow
Hawkshead + Lervig (Norway) – Green
Partizan + Mikeller (Denmark) – Blue
Wild Beer Co + Toccalmatto (Italy) – Indigo
Siren + De Molen (The Netherlands) – Violet
As B.R. notes, some of the beers are directly related to color (Richard talks about how he and Jeppe chose to make a Flanders Red Ale, for example), whereas others are more obscure. The results, however the brewers came to their beers, are delicious!
Plus Dave and Chris are discussing their recent gold medal victory at the Great American Beer Festival (Chris is a repeat winner, having previous won both gold and bronze medals with Chelsea Brewing), and how much harder it is to get beers into the world’s largest beer competition.
The brewers discuss the challenges of barrel aging beers and how the U.K. market is changing in terms of a new wave of craft breweries coming online. So, pour yourself a pint, and listen in to this week’s episode here.