To Calculate Infinity

Griffin Hans and Zach Schroeder are two of our brewers here at Creature Comforts. They both joined our Creature family in February 2016. In June 2016 Griffin and Zach collaborated to brew one of our small batch innovation beers, Calculating Infinity, a crushable pale ale made with Pacifica, Wakatu, and Palisade hops. We’re excited to announce we’ll have the beer back in our tasting room on May 25th on draft and available in cans! In honor of Calculating Infinity’s return, we asked Griffin and Zach a few questions about the brew and the inspiration behind it.

Where did the inspiration for this brew come from? 

This was the first time Griffin and I were given the task of creating a beer.  Our tastes in both music and beer overlap a fair bit. – ZS

Why did you choose a pale ale as the style? 

We were asked to come up with a pale ale recipe, but that was the only parameter.  Our interpretation of that reflects our tastes. We both like beer that is balanced and finishes fairly dry. – GH

Why did you choose to name the beer Calculating Infinity? 

This is the title of the debut album by the Dillinger Escape Plan, a band we both enjoy. We saw them in Atlanta on their final tour and had a blast. Their music is fun and light-hearted, but technically proficient. We appreciate these characteristics in both music and beer. – ZS

What was the collaboration process like for you both?

The collaboration process was pretty simple. We knew we wanted to make something fairly low-gravity with enough malt character to prop up the hops. I (Zach) love floral hops and wanted to incorporate some floral elements in this beer. Griffin wanted to incorporate some citrus flavors. So, we each chose a hop variety that we thought would work well in the beer, and then chose one together. Griffin picked Pacifica, I chose Palisade, and we chose Wakatu to tie the hop profile together. I think this creates orange blossom notes. Since we wanted it to finish fairly dry, it’s a bit reminiscent of a floral mimosa. – ZS

I think Zach and I look for a lot of the same things in beers we enjoy, and the important thing was to make a beer that both of us would want to drink. We wanted to make something sessionable and it was spring time when we were going to make it, so we both landed on the idea of making something floral and fruity with a little bit of honey character. We also made it a point to branch out and use some different ingredients than we normally use. That’s kind of where the honey malt and red wheat came from, and all three hops had never been used at CCBC before. We threw a lot of ideas and ingredients back and forth, but we settled on things that had complementary flavor profiles to create a beer that we’d both enjoy. I don’t think the beer is really representative of the music, but that’s a band we both like and grew up listening to, and the beer has a lot of what we look for in a crushable, spring beer so I guess overall it represents us pretty well. I’m just glad that we got the opportunity to make it again. – GH

Grab your 4pk 16oz cans this Friday (5/25) at 3PM and maybe listen to some Dillinger Escape Plan on your way to the brewery!