When Colorado-based brewery Oskar Blues asked around for a Cincinnati brewer to collaborate on a special brew, one name continued to surface: Scott LaFollette of Blank Slate Brewing Company. So Ohio native Jason Buehler, a brewer with Oskar Blues, asked LaFollette to head to Colorado to craft the soon-to-be-released Cincy 3-Way Porter with him.
“I flew out there on a Monday afternoon, we brewed it Tuesday morning and I was back in town on Wednesday morning,” LaFollette says.
Weighing in at 7 percent alcohol by volume, the Cincy 3-Way Porter is rich, with an intense malt character that has just a dash of subtle spice flavoring. To brew the beer, the team used a new process in which the brewers spiced and smoked the malted barley (a main ingredient in beer production) instead of adding the spices directly to the beer. They covered the barley with cumin, coriander, allspice and cinnamon, and then slow-smoked it in a smoker at the original Oskar Blues Grill & Brew in Lyons, Colo. (The facility was the birthplace of the first canned craft beer back in 2002.)
“This is not meant to be a Cincinnati chili-tasting beer,” LaFollette says. “It’s meant to be more of a complement to Cincinnati chili.”
However, one can of Cincinnati chili was ceremoniously added to the brew.
This collaboration pairs one of the largest craft brewers in the nation with one of the area’s most highly regarded yet smallest breweries. In 2012, an expansion project at Oskar Blues increased their capacity to 100,000 barrels. That same year they added a second location in Brevard, N.C., with a capacity of 50,000 barrels to keep up with growing demand. Comparatively, Cincinnati’s Blank Slate, which is currently a draft-only operation (that may change in 2015, however), made a total of 635 barrels in 2014.
But LaFollette, a certified cicerone who refers to himself as the “proprietor, janitor and yeast farmer” at Blank Slate, is no stranger to unique beers. His portfolio includes Shroominous, a brown ale brewed with shiitake mushrooms, and Turn For The Wurst, an Oktoberfest beer infused with fennel seed, sage, caraway seed and black pepper. His latest release, a collaboration with local pastry maker The BonBonerie, is a very rare Opera Cream Stout.
Cincy 3-Way Porter, brewed in early January, debuts at Cincy Winter Beerfest at the Duke Energy Convention Center on Feb. 13 and 14. It can be found at the Oskar Blues booth. The beer will also be available on draft in bars and restaurants in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, as well as in both Oskar Blues taprooms in Colorado and North Carolina. However, due to licensing reasons, it will not be available in the newly opened Blank Slate taproom in the East End.
Chris Stevens is a craft beer enthusiast and runs the local beer blog Queen City Fresh. For more information on BLANK SLATE BREWING COMPANY, visit blankslatebeer.com.
This article appears in Feb 11-17, 2015.