For the past four years, brewmaster Garrett Oliver has been working on a massive project. It’s the ultimate beer collaboration, but it’s not a beer. Published this September by Oxford University Press, it’s The Oxford Companion to Beer, the most comprehensive book on beer ever published, featuring 160 experts covering more than 1,100 subjects. It’s a momentous thing, so Garrett (Editor-in-Chief), Horst Dornbusch (Associate Editor, writer, scholar, man-about-town) and Thomas Kraus-Weyermann (writer and master maltster) hatched a plan. Together, they brewed our next Brewmaster’s Reserve beer, called The Companion.
Thomas created special new floor malts for The Companion, which is brewed in an old style called “wheat wine”, a wheat-based equivalent to barley wine. The floor malts give this beer a juicy malt character of considerable depth, 55% malted wheat gives it a surprising lightness on the palate, while our house ale yeast lends a gentle fruitiness. The Oxford Companion will impart knowledge, while The Companion imparts conviviality. Maybe you really can have it all?
