The week has finally arrived. The beer has been brewed, the bottles have been filled, corked and labeled and we’re ready to go. The Great American Beer Festival is here and we’re finally ready to unleash our next edition of the Wild Dog Series.

Collaborator Doppelbock is released this week!

Of course the beer will be available for tasting at the Flying Dog Brewery GABF booth, but we will also be hosting FREE party where you can get a complimentary sample of this unique beer. Here are the particulars:

WHERE: Blake Street Tavern - 2401 Blake Street, right next door to the Flying Dog Brewery

WHEN: Friday, Oct 12

TIME: 3PM - 5PM

**Space is limited and the bar will be crowded as non-GABF’ers will be getting ready for the Rockies/D-Backs game that night. Must be 21+ to enter.
And don’t forget, bottles will also be on sale in the Flying Dog Brewery Tasting Room.

We also have a bunch of other things going on, so click here for the full rundown on all of Flying Dog’s GABF Week events.

We just finished the label and hang tag design for the Collaborator Doppelbock and we thought everyone might like to get sneak peek. Of course the TTB (government) has to approve the label, but we don’t expect having to make too many changes.

The silver trim on the label will be a metallic silver and “Wild Dog” will be embossed. It should look pretty sharp.

We will also be putting hang-tags on all 5000 of the bottles. The hang-tags give a little information about Flying Dog Brewery as well as the Open Source Beer Project.

Let us know what you think.

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We have decided on a name for the Open Source Beer. Keeping in line with the tradition of Doppelbock names ending in “ATOR” (see the 9th paragraph), the Open Source Beer will be called “Collaborator” as a tribute to all of those that helped us create the recipe.

Collaborator will be the latest edition in the Flying Dog Wild Dog Series. Wild Dogs are limited edition beers that come exclusively in hand filled, corked and labeled 750ml champagne-style bottles. Only 5000 bottles will be available.
Everything is on-track for Collaborator’s October release. The label is close to being finished and the raw materials are on their way to Denver. This beer will be entered into the Great American Beer Festival and will also be available for some limited samplings during the event.

If anyone brews up a batch using the recipe, let us know how it goes!

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As far as malt we have decided to go with Wyerman malt. We incorporate this malt in some of our other beers and we have had medal winning success. As far as verities, we are going to keep things on the simpler side. For the base malt we will be using Munich Type 1 this will constitute 75% of out total grist bill. The remaining 25% will be as follows: 9% Munich Type 2, 2% Cara Munich, and 2% Cara Amber, and 2% Melanoidin.

As discussed earlier we have decided to use American grown hops in our Dopplebock. We have decided on Warrior for our bittering addition and domestic Mt. Hood for our late additions. Our wort boil will be two hours and our Warrior addition will be 30 minutes into the boil, with a flavor addition at 30 and 15 minutes before end of boil. We will omit any aroma additions as we are looking to focus on malt aroma.

As far as our yeast selection we have decided to go with Wyeast 2206 Bavarian Lager, which we found to have performed well in our test fermentations. We experienced a good strong fermentation using this yeast, producing a clean well attenuated lager during our test fermentations.

Although we are not capable of decoction mashing, we are able to steam heat our mash mixer. Using a suggestion by one of our brewers we will mash this brew in at 140F then heat it to our 155F conversion temperature.

Our primary fermentation temperature will be 52F and will be lagered at 34F in our cellar for 8 weeks.

Also based on one of our brewer’s suggestions, we will do something a little different for packaging. We will give our Collaborator Doppelbock a light filtration then bottle condition in our signature Wild Dog Champagne bottles. Bottle conditioning may not be a traditional technique for a lager like this, but everything about this project is about being unique.

To simplify the scaling down of our production recipe, percentages will be given in addition to our 50bbl brew recipe (two mashes to fill kettle) to allow brewers of any size system to adapt their recipe.

Flying Dog Open Source Beer Recipe
50 bbl (mash x 2)

Targets:

OG: 19.5 P
FG: 5.0 – 5.5P
Color: 18 – 22 SRM
Bitterness: 22 – 25 IBU
Conversion Temp: 155 – 156F
Total Conversion Time: 1.5 Hours
Boil Length: 2 Hours
Primary Fermentation Temp: 52F
Lagering Temp: 34F

Grist: LBS %
Weyermann Munich “Type I” 2240 75
Weyermann Munich “Type II 550 19
Weyermann Cara-Munich 55 2
Weyermann Cara-Amber 55 2
Weyermann Melanoidin 55 2
TOTAL: 2955 100%

Hops: (2 hour boil) LBS
Warrior (15.1% alpha) @ 30 minutes into boil 12.5
Mt. Hood (4.2% alpha) @ 90 minutes into boil 8.0
Mt. Hood (4.2% alpha) @ 105 minutes into boil 4.0

Note: Brewers may need to adjust the weight of their bittering addition considering the many factors effecting utilization need to be taken into consideration.

Here is a list of links of some of the suppliers of our ingredients. Some of these links can provide further analytical data they may be helpful to the brewer.

Wyeast

Weyermann

Hopunion

We would like to thank all of the participants and visitors for the Open Source Beer Project. We feel certain that this will be a unique expression of the style and that the results of our collective project will be quite enjoyable.

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From the desk of Matt Brophy, Head Brewer at Flying Dog Brewery…

Idea of an American twist welcomed. Let’s find a well suited American grown bittering hop. Idea of late flavor addition up for consideration. What variety and when exactly added?

Malt selection, good input. Considering a straight infusion mash, the suggestion of using Melanoidin and Cara malts seems appropriate. What ratios?

We will continue to take yeast suggestions, while we do some fermentation using some of the yeasts suggested.

By the way, we are teaming up with Wyeast to host an event during the American Homebrewers Conference:

What: American Homebrewers Conference Reception

Where: Blake Street Tavern (at Flying Dog Brewery)

When: Thurs, June 21 - 4:30pm to 7:30pm

Along with door prizes, appetizers and complimentary samples of our extremely limited edition Barrel-aged Horn Dog Barley Wine, we will have an assortment of speakers from Flying Dog and Wyeast:

Scheduled to present:

Eric Warner - Lead Dog, Flying Dog Brewery: Discussing his background, the importance of Homebrewing and how to get into the beer business

Matt Brophy – Head Brewer, Flying Dog Brewery: Presenting Flying Dog’s Open Source Beer Project

Jon Graber – Wyeast, Marketing and Sales Manager: Presenting Wyeast’s “Very Special Strain” (VSS) promotion

David Logsdon – Wyeast, Founder/Owner – Speaking on the importance of yeast health

Greg Doss – Wyeast, QC Manager/Brewer/Microbiologist – Speaking on the benefits of using the Wyeast Activator package

Thanks to all who have participated so far. Spread the word about the Open Source Beer Project.

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