Ashland, VA — Local craft alcohol producers, Buskey Cider and Center of the Universe Brewing Company, will release their gluten reduced beer collaboration on April 27th at COTU’s Origin Beer Lab.
Will Correll, the owner of Buskey Cider, and Harrison Baronian, the brewer at COTU, attended Hampden Sydney College and have been cooking up a collaboration to release to the public. Since cider is gluten free, the two teams decided that a gluten reduced beer was the perfect collaboration to create for their customers.
The brewing took place at Origin Beer Lab on April 3rd. Two types of millet were used for the grain bill, pale malt millet and vienna millet, both of which are gluten free. Then two yeast strains were included to make the beverage. First, a dried form of COTU’s house strain, followed by Buskey’s house wine strain a few days later to ensure that both yeast strains got the chance to contribute to the fermentation process. Buskey’s house apple juice made of a blend of Virginia grown apples was added to the beer in the fermenters.
Even though that all the ingredients of this collaboration are gluten free, this beer was produced in the same equipment where beers that contain gluten are brewed. Since the environment isn’t gluten free, we can’t label it as a completely gluten free product.
Center of the Universe Brewing Company opened in Ashland, Virginia in November 2012 and opened their Origin Beer Lab in order to create new beers while still driving their current distribution through COTU. Buskey Cider opened in April 2016 and is located in the popular craft alcohol neighborhood of Scott’s Addition in Richmond, Virginia.
The collaboration beer will be released on Thursday, April 27th at the Origin Beer Lab in Ashland, Virginia.