Do you have any ideas for local, collaborative homebrew project beers??

[bigbeergeek]

I want to make a collaborative beer with two local homebrewers. Anyone have any ideas how to divide up the costs, materials, responsibilities, creativity etc? Just curious if anyone has any out of the box thoughts on such a simple topic, or any experience with creative/collaborative homebrewing.

Thanks gang!

BBG

 

[Rhumbline]

No direct experience with a brewclub, but you might agree to have each person host a brew day on a rotating basis.

Split the costs evenly, host provides the bbq grill and attendees bring the brats etc. When the brewing is done, everyone cleans the place up, the fermenting is done at the host's place and next month it's someone else's turn. All take part in racking and bottling, kegging, etc.

As far as figuring out what to brew, the host makes the final call on the recipe.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

A barrel project is always fun, but you might need more people. My club does it about once a year, we pick a base style (we've done RIS, barleywine, and Belgian Golden Strong). Each brewer brews and ferments their portion, then we bulk age them in the barrel. When ready, we all rack to kegs.

Something another brewer and I did was two collab beers. We both brew 10-gal at a time, so we made the recipes together, brewed one day at my house and one day at his house, each fermented separately, and each got a keg of each beer. It worked out well because he doesn't have lagering capability, so I brewed that one of the two.

 

[Dustinj]

My club just did a barrel of scotch ale. We all did about 10 gallons each. It's fermenting now then well age it for a month or so. Most did it in two people batches. So if two of you do it just split it and so on so forth. Gets pretty cheap that way. My 5 gallons was $20.

 

[Cyclman]

If there's three of you, do a huge beer where each of you will need 17 lbs of base malt, and save everyone money. Use different specialty malts, or use the same recipe and ferment or finish the beers differently- yeast, wood, fruit, bourbon, lots of options to change a beer up with the same grain recipe. Then, each gives 2/3 of their beer to the other two. Now you have the results of 3 beers from the work of one.

 

[bigbeergeek]

Interesting ideas! I love the idea of huge specialty beers or barrel projects, but I was thinking more along the lines of brewing a single batch of something more seasonally appropriate (100+ here in Visalia today). Keep the ideas coming if you've got 'em!