Three years ago, we called up our friends at Hana Koa and suggested we brew a collaboration beer. We don’t make beer at Village. We sell a ton of it, but we’ve never had any intentions of becoming a brewery. But, we sure love to get into a brewery, work on a recipe and create something beautiful.
As we sat down and chatted with head brewer/owner, Josh Kopp, about what beer we should brew the conversation kept drifting to simplicity. See, we share a deep love and passion for German style lagers with Josh. They are not the easiest or cheapest beers to brew, but there is something magical about the lager process and how a few simple ingredients can be transformed into something amazing.
Hana Koa had been dabbling in brewing some great lagers so we decided to take a stab at making a classic German style Helles. This is a beer meant for drinking…a lot of drinking. There isn’t much in a Helles. Simple malts, a small amount of hops, water and yeast. Done right, a Helles is one of the easiest drinking, most enjoyable beer styles to have. The key is doing it right. That takes precision process, anal attention to detail and a whole lot of patience. All things Josh and the team at Hana Koa have plenty of.
Here we are three years later releasing Vol. 3 and it is the best batch yet. This year’s batch got to spend many, many weeks in a horizontal lagering tank. These are special tanks that lay horizontal instead of the traditional vertical orientation. This allows more surface area on the top and bottom of the tank and gives the suspended yeast more room to toil and means less stress and pressure for those single-cell workhorses.
Happy yeast and a lot of time is what makes this beer so clean and satisfying. No fining agents were used to clear up this beer. Just time and cold temperatures. Brilliantly pale yellow in color with a wonderful fluffy white head of foam. At a mere 5.2% abv, take some time to enjoy this one, because it is way to easy to down it in a few sips.
We hope you enjoy Crush Helles Vol. 3 as much as we do. Cans are now available to purchase in the shop or online and we’ll be pouring on draft until it runs out. Also swing by Hana Koa Brewing to snag cans or draft.
