Trip to Miami to Brew with Prision Pals Brewing
One thing that I’ve really missed over the past couple of years is brewing collaboration brews. We did a lot of collaboration beers when I was with Stone Brewing, many of which are included in my all-time favorite brewing memories, and while at New Realm have been able to brew with some of my favorite people in the business-Shaun O’Sullivan at 21st Amendment, Matt Cole from Fat Heads, Chris, Cole and Nick from Rhinegeist, James Massey at Two Tides, and Nick and Brian from Cherry Street and Piedmont Brewing. Collaborations are educational, create excitement, demonstrate the unique camaraderie in the craft beer business, and most of all, are fun!
I really enjoy the opportunities to get to know and brew with like minded brewers, and I only have a few things I look for when deciding to brew a collaboration beer:
- They make great beer
- I know and like the brewers — not an absolute requirement but certainly makes things easier
- They need to be cool (subjective, I know, but most brewers are cool)
- They approach the business ethically and responsibly
This past week I had the opportunity to travel to Miami and brew with Juan Pipkin and Diego Setti at Prision Pals Brewing. This brew was set up by my friend and brewing legend Pete Slosberg, creator of Pete’s Wicked Ale back in the 1980s. For several years, Pete and his wife Amy have been doing a lot of international travel, most notably to South America, where he often judges in beer competitions and hangs out with some really great craft brewers and homebrewers. In fact, Pete had me signed up to judge twice in the Buenos Aires area, and I had to bow out both times, once due to a last minute work conflict, and the second time due to Covid.
Pete got to know Diego and Juan in Argentina, and they recently came to Miami to open up Prision Pals Brewery. Pete reached out to me last summer about traveling to Miami to brew with them, and we finally found a good time to actually make it happen last week. Pete told me they were great guys and made great beer, so I was in.
I enjoyed putting together the beer recipe with Diego. It was apparent very quickly that he is a skilled brewer with some serious Excel skills, which he used to create his recipe calculation spreadsheet. Juan and Diego asked if we could brew a Hazy IPA, so that’s what we did. We talked about yeast strain and grains over email before I got there but we saved the hop recipe til I got there. We ended up using a combination of Idaho 7, Azacca and Galaxy in the beer, which I think will be wonderful.
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