The ever-growing number of breweries in San Antonio means one collaborative beer for the 11th San Antonio Beer Week just wasn't enough.
This year, eight mix-and-match brewery teams of 15 breweries got together throughout September to make different beer styles that will be highlighted at the San Antonio Beer Festival and at Beer Week events that follow.
Traditionally, one of the highlights of Beer Week, which runs Saturday, Oct. 21 through Saturday, Oct. 28, is a limited-edition collaborative creation that draws on the expertise of multiple Alamo City craft brewers.
In SABW's early years, Bexar, Comal and Kendall counties together boasted just five craft breweries, which made it possible to gather for a quiet morning of brewing, with each brewery contributing ingredients and know-how.
However, the number of local beer producers has grown steadily since. As a result, there was little for most participating brewers to do in recent years except hang out and drink the host brewery's wares while the collaboration went down.
Daniel Mayfield, brewer at Roadmap Brewing Co. and a member of the SABW board of directors, said this year's multiple collaborations are good for the brewing community because they let brewers work together and learn from each other.
"It's always interesting to see how people do the process differently and talk about what's important to everybody," Mayfield said. "I'm all about the hops, and Flix Brewhouse is all about the fermentation and giving the yeast the best to make good beer."
The San Antonio drinking public also will benefit from cross-brewery efforts in the form of fine ales and lagers in their bellies.
Let's run down the details so enthusiasts can keep their eyes open for the resulting collaborations:
• Flix Brewhouse hosted brewers from Second Pitch Brewing, Roadmap and Community Cultures Yeast Lab for a hazy double IPA with guava and mango.
• Black Lab Brewing hosted Wild Barley Kitchen & Brewery for a rare kvass-style beer made with sourdough bagels made in house at Wild Barley.
• Cactus Land hosted Künstler Brewing in the making of an apricot IPA.
• Alamo Beer Co. teamed up with the new Thirsty Pups brewery, which had a soft opening this month.
• Dos Sirenos brought in brewers from Cactus Land to collaborate on a passionfruit lager.
• Cactus Land's busy beer wizards went to Longtab Brewing to whip up a golden ale done in the British style.
• Second Pitch played host to Freetail Brewing Co. to make an English brown ale.
• Finally, Wild Barley was host to Ranger Creek Brewing + Distilling. That collaboration is especially fitting because Wild Barley's co-owner was brewmaster at Ranger Creek for many years before starting his own venture.
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