Craft beer pioneers New Belgium Brewing and botanical brew experts Flying Embers have unveiled their collaborative project, Oh, Hi!.
This partnership marries New Belgium’s sour beer program with Flying Embers’s Kombucha fermentation techniques to create a limited-edition session sour beer that marries California tangerines with Colorado sage.
Inspired by the place Flying Embers calls home — Ojai, CA — Oh, Hi! stems from a shared commitment to sustainable practices and giving back, the companies say.
New Belgium is a certified B-corporation. They recently announced their flagship, Fat Tire Amber Ale, as the first carbon neutral beer in the country.
Flying Embers carbonates their beverages with their own recaptured CO2, and donates a portion of all proceeds to support first responders.
Both companies sought a collaboration in support of wildfire relief, after each of their home states were ravaged by wildfires. Together, they are donating $10,000 to the Embers Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which benefits the Colorado Coalition for the Poudre River Watershed, and the California Fire Foundation.
Oh, Hi! features Flying Embers’s “Original Essence” Kombucha hard tea blended with New Belgium’s wood-aged golden sour beer. It’s finished with Ojai, California pixie tangerines and a touch of Colorado sage.
Light with bright flavors, Oh, Hi! is 6.5% ABV.
“Oh Hi! is the enchanted result of a combined love of all things funky and fermented,” says Lauren Limbach, wood cellar director and blender at New Belgium Brewing. “To create Oh Hi, we combined each of our bases so that both cultures would shine, and added a hint of a signature ingredient from each of our geographical regions. When you close your eyes and take a sip, it’s like having the windows rolled down on a road trip from Ojai to Fort Collins.”
Oh, Hi! is available at select retailers across California and Colorado.
“New Belgium’s sour program is world class and getting to pair their Golden base sour with our Flying Embers Kombucha core base is an opportunity to create something really unique for both craft beer and hard kombucha fans to enjoy,” says Tom Ryan, senior director of National Accounts at Flying Embers. “You always know that you are going to get the highest quality product when you try a New Belgium or Flying Embers product.”
This follows the recent news of New Belgium launching their Fruit Smash hard seltzer line.
