Carney Kilian, brewer at Broadhead Brewing Co. and Iain McOustra, brewer at Amsterdam Brewery.

To get a better idea of what the brewers have been collaborating on

we interviewed the Ottawa breweries involved in The Brewery Market //

Capital Mashup. Check back during the week of June 30 – July 6 for a

preview of what's going down July 7 in Parkdale Park.

Our second interview is with Josh Larocque, head brewer at Broadhead Brewing Company in Ottawa. For the Capital Mashup he and brewer Carney Kilian were teamed with Iain McOustra of Amsteram Brewery. Broadhead brews six regular beers and the occasional seasonal out of their DIY brewery in an industrial park off Hunt Club. This past October they moved to a larger spot in the same warehouse and increased production. Now there won't as many fights over the last growler of Wild Card Ale.

Ottawa Beer Events: Can you tell us about the collaboration beer?

Josh Larocque: The Amsterdam/Broadhead

collaboration was a lemon-lime wheat beer (light on the wheat,) fermented with

a clean yeast. The lemon flavour is from fresh lemon zest (bought from

the old Maple Leaf Gardens, which is now a Loblaws!) and peeled while waiting

for the wort to come up to a boil. The lime flavour is from ample

additions of Sorachi Ace hops late in the boil.

Collaborations are as

unique as the breweries themselves. Perhaps even more so, given that it

typically falls on only a couple individuals at the brewery to pull it off.

In this case, the Amsterdam head brewer Iain McOustra and I emailed back

and forth on a few ideas before settling on a style. In true microbrew

fashion (we always seem to leave things till the last minute) we were still

planning the final grain bill as I jumped into my car and headed down to

Toronto. When we (Carney Kilian [Broadhead brewer] and I) arrived at the

Amsterdam brewery, Iain had already prepared the grains based on his equipment,

but left the wheat additions variable and it was a gametime decision as to what

ratio we wanted. We quickly decided, fired up the mash then got on to

important things like sampling beer directly out of the fermenters (even if it

was 11AM!)

How did you like brewing in their facility?

Brewing in the

Amsterdam facility was a great experience. Their operation is much larger

than Broadhead, about 5 times the brewhouse output, and they brew much more

frequently than us. The collaboration brew took place on their pilot

system, which at the scale of the brewery around us, made it feel like we were

homebrewing again! It made for a fun and relaxing brew with some great

guys.

Were there any challenges? Did anything throw you for a loop?

There weren't really

any challenges, everything went pretty smoothly. Just the typical little

things, like the propane tanks on the brewhouse were swapped, so trying to

light the mash burner when it was really the boil burner that had gas!

What other beers will you have available at the Capital Mashup?

At the Captial Mashup

we will have a couple of our other regular brews. Varieties will depend

on our current stock at the time.

The Ottawa Brewery Market // Capital Mashup will be held on July 7,

2013 at Parkdale Park (12pm – 8pm). Admission is free with food/drink

tickets being sold at the door. It's family/pet-friendly and will go on

rain or shine – prepare yourself for the Ottawa weather.