A long-awaited craft beer collaboration savours the nostalgia of those last slurps of cereal milk in the bottom of the bowl on a Saturday morning.
A boatload of a popular colourful, loopy cereal went into the Saturday Morning Cartoons – Frutlupz Hazy IPA by Whistle Buoy and Phillips. Both Victoria breweries are known for their small-batch, experimental beers with quality ingredients – this foray into sweet weekend childhood memories is no different.
“It’s a beer packed full of nostalgia and made for the kid in all of us but not for kids,” said Whistle Buoy co-owner Isaiah Archer even as the beer was canned ahead of hitting shelves Friday (March 28).
Not uncommon in the a highly intertwined community of craft beer in Greater Victoria, he and business partner and head brewer Matt West-Patrick both previously worked with Phillips.
“We’re good friends with a lot of folks that work there and always wanted to make a beer together and it never lined up until recently,” Archer said.
That connection makes working together not uncommon, but it eluded Whistle Buoy and Phillips until the most recent bleak week between Christmas and New Year’s. That’s when the conversation started in earnest.
“Usually when you’re collaborating on a beer it’s a chance to experiment and do something out of the ordinary,” Archer said. This meeting of the minds proved no different. Once one brewer said he’d tried – unsuccessfully – to do cereal milk beer as a home brew, the brains were off and running.
Froot Loops seemed an achievable, and favourable, flavour profile. So they set off to buy a bunch and craft a recipe. Of course, the cereal beer wouldn’t be complete without the sugary breakfast item itself, more than a dozen jumbo boxes of the stuff went into the beer itself. They added it to the mash and even dip-hopped with it. Then dry-hopped with krush, motueka, and citra for a bold citrusy, fruity flavour and aroma.
“I think it’s something a lot of people can related to,” Archer said.
The fondly named Saturday Morning Cartoons hits shelves Friday (March 28) at Whistle Buoy in Market Square, Phillips’ tasting room at 2000 Government St., and local liquor stores.
