When Good Fortune Co. restaurant co-founder Sarah Cai was invited to help create a collaboration beer with Flyway Brewing Memphis, she saw an opportunity to honor her mother’s Southeast Asian heritage.
That inspiration helped shape Mekong Sticky Rice Lager, brewed with sticky rice and jasmine rice and named for the Mekong River, which flows through much of Southeast Asia.
The crisp, 5%-ABV lager debuted in April and is available exclusively on draft at Good Fortune, 361 S. Main St., and Flyway Memphis, 598 Monroe Ave.
Designed to complement the food
When proposing the collaboration with Good Fortune, Flyway Memphis head brewer Kaleb Tanner said a rice lager seemed like the obvious choice.
“They do a lot of big, loud dumplings and spicy ramen, and I wanted to make something to pair with that — be interesting, but still let their food be the star of the show,” Tanner said.
Cai, who had been a longtime fan of Wiseacre Brewing Co.’s Irusu Rice Lager, embraced the idea of a rice lager because of how well the beer style’s clean profile would pair with their food.
“We wanted to create something that you could drink multiple beers and not feel like the flavor was overwhelming,” Cai said.
She added: “I think it came out pretty stellar.”
Inspired by Southeast Asian rice traditions
For Cai, the project became an opportunity to highlight a side of her family’s heritage that isn’t always reflected in Good Fortune’s menu.
Cai suggested incorporating sticky rice into the recipe, a staple ingredient found throughout Southeast Asia. Cai’s mother is from Indonesia in Southeast Asia, while her father is from China.
“A lot of Good Fortune stuff is kind of Chinese-based, and so I wanted something that honored her heritage as well,” she said.
That influence extended beyond the recipe to the beer’s name and label artwork.
The beer’s name, Mekong, references the longest river in Southeast Asia that courses through countries with rich culinary cultures built on rice. Mekong also translates to “mother of waters”
Meanwhile, the label artwork depicts the Indonesian goddess of rice, another reference to Cai’s Indonesian roots.
“I really loved that, how it tied in with my mom’s heritage,” she said.
Inside the recipe
Tanner brewed a seven-barrel batch of Mekong using 55 pounds each of dry jasmine rice and sticky rice, with rice accounting for roughly 30% of the grain bill.
The addition of sticky rice, Tanner said, gave the beer a nice body to it, since rice lagers can sometimes be a little thin.
Mekong Sticky Rice Lager has quickly become the most popular beer on Good Fortune’s beer list.
“As soon as we added it to the menu, it automatically was outselling all our other beers,” said Cai, who is hopeful the Mekong collab with Flyway will continue moving forward.
“We would love to keep it on tap,” she said, “as long as Kaleb is willing to continue making it for us.”