When you hear about two breweries working together to brew a collaboration beer, you’d expect the brewers of brewery A to go over to brewery B and then together they create one beer. That’s how 99.9% of collaboration beers go about. However, Pipeworks and Marz had something different in mind.

Inspired by the Black & Tan, typically a lager floated over a stout, the two breweries have collaborated on what they are calling a “tiki” take on the Black & Tan. Individually each brewery brewed their own beer. While they discussed beforehand the flavor profile each of them would capture, there was no collaboration during the actual brewing process.

The result? Marz brewed a dry-hopped black Berliner Weiss with pineapple, while Pipeworks brewed a white stout brewed with coconut that was aged on oak. Each beer was packaged individually, and each on its own is fantastic, but when the two are combined, it creates an incredible flavor profile that you couldn’t get out of just one beer. The tartness of the Berliner Weiss is complemented so well by the creaminess and fullness of the stout. This beer is out there and the concept really works.

 

 The Stout

This is the base layer for the drink – meaning you’ll pour Pipeworks’ white stout into the glass first. When you first see the beer poured you’ll think it’s a pale ale or IPA. It doesn’t look like you’re traditional stout which you’d expect to be a much darker color.

You’ll get a little coconut on the smell, but when you take your first sip you get lots of coconut but not in an overpowering way. It’s a full, rich beer – as someone I was drinking with said “this is what a stout should taste like.”

It would be very easy to just drink this beer on its own, and as we were sampling it we almost forgot that we still had to pour more to float it with the Berliner. The stout comes in with an ABV of 10% but you wouldn’t notice that just by drinking it. It’s not overly boozy or hot.

The Berliner

Marz’s contribution to the drink is the dry-hopped black Berliner Weiss with pineapple that is floated over the white stout. At 4.5% ABV it’s definitely the lighter complement to the stout that Pipeworks produced. It pours dark but is tart and actually very light when you take a drink.

The pineapple is very pronounced throughout the smell and the taste and gives the beer a great tropical flavor profile. Marz does a lot of work with Berliner Weiss’ so it makes sense that they tackled this portion of the beer. Like the stout, this is easily a beer you could drink by itself and think it was great on its own.

The Float

The way I’d recommend drinking these beers is to start off by sampling each one separately. You’ll get to understand each individual flavor profile, so when they are combined you can pick out the notes you get and how each beer contributed.

After you do your sample then it’s time for the fun part – floating. I’ll admit we didn’t use a spoon to help float and that’s probably why ours combined a little bit more than expected, but it didn’t effect the flavor.

You’ll pour the stout in first and then carefully float the Berliner over it. Wait a few seconds, take your picture and post it to social media (you know you will) and then enjoy. The color as you might expect is a mix of black and gold and as the two beers mix together it combines into a light/dark mix.

When combined you get a ton of flavors going on at once. Starting off you’ll get the tartness from the Berliner along with the pineapple, but then the creaminess from the coconut stout cuts that tartness and balances everything out all together.

Don’t expect the beer to taste exactly like a piña colada. It’s not that creamy and not dominated by coconut. In fact both flavors are mixed together so nicely that you get a great balance of the two. You won’t think it’s a pineapple beer and you won’t think it’s all coconut. It’s a flavor profile I’ve never experienced before so when you combine the two you’ll have to see for yourself just how the two work together. 

While the Marz beer hit distribution a bit earlier, both beers are now out and available for purchase. Though you can buy them individually, it really doesn’t make sense to do so. Hopefully stores will keep them next to each other so it makes it easier to understand how the collaboration works.

Marz and Pipeworks did something very different here when they decided to work together. I love the creativity they put into these collaboration beers and they nailed them. These beers are perfect for a few friends to get together, open them both up and essentially enjoy three different beers.

Mike Zoller is the Midwest Editor for PorchDrinking.com. Follow him on Instagram: @CHICAGOBEER and PorchDrinking Chicago’s Twitter feed for the latest Chicago craft beer news: @PORCHDRINKCHI.

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