Crème de la kids

You may have heard about all the collaboration beers coming from local breweries for next month’s Spokane Craft Beer Week.

Now Orlison and River City are getting a head start with their own joint creation, a cream ale dubbed Crème de la Crème (4.2 percent alcohol by volume, 15 International Bitterness Units).

There’s just one catch: They only made one keg, and it’s only available for one day – on Saturday at the Great Spokane Art Party.

The breweries’ joint distributor booked them for the event, a fundraiser for the Blue Prints for Learning early education program. Along with their regular offerings, they decided it would be fun to come up with a special beer for the occasion.

Light, crisp, clean cream ales are a cross between an ale, like River City usually brews, and a lager, Orlison’s standard fare.

There are different ways to make them. In this case, the beer was fermented with both ale and lager yeasts at warmer ale temperatures, then cold-conditioned like a lager.

“You still get a little bit of that (fruity) ale character up front, then it finishes nice and clean like a lager,” says Mark Borland, Orlison’s production manager and assistant brewer.