Our Side: a 4-way firkin

There was a unique event yesterday evening at four beer bars along the the East Coast.

Firkin casks of Our Side —a hoppy saison, brewed collaborately by Maryland based Stillwater Artisinal Ales and Denmark based Mikkeller— were tapped, simultaneously, at 6pm ET, at Rattle and Hum (New York City), Maxs Taphouse (Baltimore, Maryland), Churchkey (Washington, D.C.), and Rustico Ballston (Arlington, Virginia).

From the label of the yet-to-be-released bottles:

Mikkel and Brian are two of the world’s most unconventional brewers. By designing beers at various breweries around the globe, they have found the freedom to experiment and innovate, resulting in unique beers that often blur the lines of definition. After having met at a festival in Bodegraven, NL the two realized that their first creations both were called Stateside. It was then an obvious decision to make the two recipes into a new product, packed full of piney, resinous hops, and backed by the esters of a farmhouse yeast strain.

Information courtesy of Beer in Baltimore.

I was at the Virginia tapping, where Our Side, fresh in my tulip glass, tasted as if I were taking a bite out of a fresh peach, with a refreshingly bitter tang at the end. Delicious.



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Both Stillwater and Mikkeller refer to themselves as 'gypsy' breweries, that is, contract breweries by a more romantic name. Neither own their own brewing equipment, but brew their beers at existing breweries, paying for time and materials.