Memphis’ Soul & Spirits Brewery is celebrating its fifth anniversary with several special beer releases, including three collaborations with out-of-town breweries.
Soul & Spirits also will debut Uptown pHunk, its new mixed-fermentation beer brand.
The brewery’s anniversary party is set for Saturday, Oct. 17, from 1 to 9 p.m. in the taproom at 845 N. Main.
The three collaborations include beers made with Living Waters Brewing from Nashville; Social Project Brewing Co. from Bentonville, Ark.; and Drekker Brewing Co. from Fargo, North Dakota.
For the Drekker collaboration, dubbed 99 Pounds, Drekker lead brewer Logan McLean traveled from Fargo to Memphis in September to spend a day brewing with Soul & Spirits co-founder and master brewer Ryan Allen.
It was the second time in a matter of weeks the two had brewed together — only this time they switched breweries.
Collaborating from Fargo to Memphis
Allen and McLean first met a couple of years ago at a beer festival in Wichita, Kansas, through a mutual friend in the brewing industry. When Drekker expanded distribution into Tennessee this year and its beers began appearing in Memphis over the summer, Allen reached out.
“I wanted to help Drekker in the market,” Allen said. “I’d like to see my buddies do well and take off. So using a local brand kind of attached to it helps them out, and it helps us out.”
Known for its Hazy IPAs and heavily fruited beers, Drekker now distributes in more than 30 states and about 20 countries, according to McLean.
Allen traveled to Fargo in September to brew The End of Everything, Eventually, a Hazy IPA created for Drekkerfest, Drekker’s 12th anniversary celebration.
Drekker marked the occasion with 12 collaborations — six IPAs and six fruited beers — with breweries from the United States and abroad. McLean said the Soul & Spirits beer was among the IPAs that received a strong response.
Brewing 99 Pounds
The Memphis collaboration builds on some of what Allen and McLean did together in Fargo.
Allen described 99 Pounds as essentially a bigger version of their Drekkerfest Hazy IPA, although the brewers changed ingredients and experimented with some different techniques for the Memphis-made IPA.
In developing the recipe, the two tossed ideas back and forth about what they wanted from the beer.
“I was throwing out ideas for things, and he was throwing out ideas for things,” McLean said, “and it was just like, ‘Yep, that sounds great. Yep, that sounds great. Yeah, let’s do that.'”
For Allen, that experimentation is one of the benefits of collaborating with another brewery.
It gives him an opportunity to work with new hop and malt products or brewing techniques, such as mash hopping, that aren’t necessarily part of Soul & Spirits’ normal process — and potentially find something worth incorporating into future beers.
With this collab, the result is 99 Pounds, an 8%-ABV Double Dry-Hopped Hazy Double IPA hopped with Eggers Special X, Citra, Cryo Idaho 7, El Dorado, and Salvo Plus. The malt bill includes ultra-pale malt, chit, wheat and flaked oats.
Soul & Spirits’ 5th anniversary releases
99 Pounds is part of a larger lineup of special releases for Soul & Spirits’ fifth anniversary, including two other collabs:
- Big 5 Barrel-Aged Stout, 10.1% ABV, the collaboration with Social Project, blends two barrel-aged stouts aged on Kyya cacao nibs, Marcona almonds and Ugandan vanilla beans.
- Conrad 3 Double IPA, 7.8% ABV, a West Coast-style IPA brewed with Living Waters, features Krush, Simcoe, Columbus and Nectaron hops.
Soul & Spirits also will release White Gold, the first beer from its new Uptown pHunk mixed-fermentation brand. Brewed with a house Lactobacillus culture, thiolized lager yeast and Brettanomyces claussenii, the beer features New Zealand Riwaka hops and notes of ripe pineapple, kiwi, gooseberry, guava and passion fruit. The 6%-ABV ale was aged for six months in Sauvignon Blanc wine barrels before being bottle-conditioned.
In addition, new versions of Green Onions IPA, brewed with Eggers Special and Nelson Sauvin hops, and Sauce Fruited Sour will be released.
The brewery also plans to bring back several beers from its cellar, including Knock on Wood, Grist Ain’t Groceries and The Weight.
Food will be available from Smoke & Toast and The Stroopwafel Cart during the celebration.