BREWDOG OVERWORKS VS SIREN

Collaboration, at its best, is a two-way street – there’s simply no point in phoning it in. Our latest small-batch release from the BrewDog OverWorks has taken the two-way concept to its ultimate endgame, in a collaboration unlike any we have done before. We have joined forces with the awesome Siren Craft Brew on a celebration of collaboration, of the arts of ageing and blending, but also on the biggest concept of all – trust.

OverWorks vs Siren – Up From The South is live in our online shop (and BrewDog bars) right now.

OverWorks vs Siren Up From The South

OverWorks vs Siren Up From The South is available online – you can buy it right here

Whereas most collaborations are done in one or other of the brewery’s home locations, for this one we wanted to push the boundaries (as well as the travel budget). Our masters of alternative fermentation at the BrewDog OverWorks travelled south to the Home Counties to select beer ageing in red wine casks from the Siren barrel store, some as old as four years. Then the Siren guys journeyed up from the south to Ellon to choose from our younger OverWorks casks.

This is the ultimate trust exercise – having surrendered each other’s barrel stores and given the visitors carte blanche to select whatever rocks their world is as big a responsibility as you can get. It is also collaboration at its most fundamental. Once the selection process had been completed, we then blended the results of all barrels into a single rustic sour ale at our Ellon facility, before re-fermenting the beer on local Elgin blackberries and Italian culinary sage.

This plays to the experimental nature of both of our sour and wild breweries, and the final outcome is simply staggering. Up From The South is a 6.6% ABV sour that is a complex blend of tastes, times and dedication to craft. As befitting a blend, there is a balance of juicy, hedgerow-like blackberry jam on the flavour, that mirrors the dark vinous notes from the red wine barrels, merging into a fragrant, floral herbal note from the sage. The beer finishes with a tannic dryness that cleans out the juicy and rustic elements perfectly.

Having taken the best part of a year to organise, it has yielded a beer that neither of us could have produced alone. But that is a reflection of the truest of partnerships.

OverWorks vs Siren Up From The South is available online now, and is also pouring on draft in our UK BrewDog Bars around the country from 6pm tonight (Thursday 25th July). Look out for more beers in this unique series coming soon…