Lowland Lager
Collab w/ Hope for Life
The East African lowland honey bee (Apis mellifera scutellata) is a subspecies of honey bee native to southern and eastern Africa. It is well adapted to the hot African climate, and produces much more honey in its native habitat than its imported European competitors. However this bee is most famous in the US as one of the subspecies that was cross-bred to produce the Africanized “killer” bees.
Like it’s namesake, Lowland Lager is a hybrid style with a bit of a sting. We combined elements of various African brewing traditions that evolved to suit their local climates and growing conditions.
If you travel to Africa—like most parts of the world—the most common beers you will find are macro-brewed lagers. However, dig a little deeper and you will uncover beers with roots in traditional brewing practices. Many of these use corn or sorghum which is native to Africa and grows well in the warm climate. One such tradition, whose name translates to “opaque beer,” is fermented with the corn and sorghum still in the wort. The solid bits are then strained out, and the beer is served cloudy.
We take inspiration from these traditions to craft our own take on an African lager. Our grist uses a healthy dose of both corn and sorghum, though we lautered and boiled normally to comply with food modern quality control standards. We then added South Africa-grown hops in the whirlpool. Southern Star and Southern Passion are both bred to yield healthy crops in the shorter daylight hours of South Africa’s latitude. We fermented it with our lager yeast, and served the beer unfiltered and slightly hazy.
We brewed Lowland Lager with our friends from Hope for Life, a non-profit that empowers youth to escape homelessness and reunify with families in Rwanda. Through a trauma-informed and individualized continuum of care, those they serve receive education, nutrition, health care, job training, counselling, and shelter. Hope for Life currently serves 106 youth and their families in Kigali, Rwanda.
Join us for the release party on Sunday, April 28th! You can learn about their work, and a dollar from every pint of Lowland Lager sold will go to Hope for Life.