We started getting some previews of what is slated to be the first of a series of collaboration beers between MadTree Brewing and their “live-in pizzeria” Catch-A-Fire Pizza when this tweet of a tray of malt being placed in Catch-A-Fire’s wood fired oven.

Well… wait no longer, CIncinnati!   Word came today via twitter that the collaboration, being called Roots, Rauch, Reggae is going to be on tap starting this wednesday.

The beer is a Rauchbier and comes in at 5.6& ABV with 17.2 IBUs (A Rachbier for anyone unfamiliar with the style is a historically German style, typically a Marzen-Style Amber lager with beechwood-smoked malt.)

But, to learn a little more about the beer, we’ll go straight to the description from the Catch-a-Fire team themselves:

We brainstormed quite a few different ideas for our first beer collaboration with MadTree.  We settled on the Rauchbier style for a number of reasons.  A lot of old German style beers are seeing a ressurgance with the likes of Gose and such, and it was also part of our thought process to touch on the German brewing heritage of our fair city.  Going with this straightforward, simplistic style of beer allowed us to get a better understanding for the brewing process in general.

The Rauch style has a heavy dose of smoked malts, so it seemed that it would complement some of the smokey flavors we work with using our wood-fired oven.  So what better way to tie our first collaboration together than by smoking some of the malts for our brew in our wood-fired oven!  Throughout Catch-A-Fire’s menu, you might notice an affinity for one of our favorite artists, Robert Nesta Marley.  We continued this tribute by naming the beer after one of his great songs, Roots, Rock, Reggae.  Madtree’s brewing “roots”, “Rauch”-style beer and “reggae” for a nice, smooth easy drinking kind of beer, Catch-A-Fire Style!  It just makes sense!

The brainstorming process was a lot of fun, but being part of the entire brewing process was educational!  We concocted a nice balance of MadTree’s hop-forward style along with a slightly smokey, malt profile for a session-able beer that should be light, yet complex.

 

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