Thursday June 28th 2018 will see craft beer lovers and maths fanatics rejoice as Key Lime Tau, a very rare beer, is released.
In its fourth year, Key Lime Tau is a collaboration between Cumbria’s Hawkshead Brewery and Crooked Stave Artisan Beer Project in Denver, Colorado, USA. The limited edition beer is a kettle-soured, lactose-infused golden ale, brewed with fresh lime zest and lemon grass, which gives the beer a biscuity taste and a strong lime flavour – just like a key lime pie.
As much thought has gone into the naming of the beer as it has into the taste. A play on the mathematical symbol Pi, Key Lime Tau is so called because of the doubling up – it’s a collaboration between the two brewers and has been brewed on both sides of the Atlantic. Mathematically Tau equates to 2 x Pi (3.142), what mathematicians deem the real circle constant, which is also the strength of the beer – 6.28% – and the price per bottle, £6.28.
On International Tau Day, June 28th, just 4,800 bottles will be available to buy from select craft beer retailers in the UK*. Hawkshead Beer Hall will be the only place in the world to have its Key Lime Tau on cask and will be celebrating over the weekend with live music and an American-inspired food offering.
Hawkshead Brewery and Crooked Stave have brewed Key Lime Tau together, in the UK and the US, as well as brewing it independently. The two recipes vary slightly due to the yeast and the souring. Crooked Stave’s version of Key Lime Tau will also be available to taste at Hawkshead Brewery on Tau Day, so hardened beer aficionados can see if they can taste the difference in the brews.
Head Brewer at Hawkshead, Matt Clarke, cultivates the Brewery’s own yeast, which can’t be replicated anywhere else and makes any Hawkshead brew impossible to copy. Matt sours the beer using a kettle souring technique.
Crooked Stave’s Head Brewer Chad Yakobsen is one of the world’s experts in brewing with Brettanomyces and uses non-spore-forming yeast. Chad uses his wild fermented yeast strain to create the sourness too. So Key Lime Tau is a unique collaboration, which retains the personality of its two breweries.
Key Lime Tau was first brewed in collaboration with Crooked Stave in 2015 for the International Rainbow Project, a bringing together of independent craft brewers to nurture innovation and share best practice.
International Tau Day itself is a global institution, with the Key Lime Tau brew being just one of the many ways, including limited edition art, branded clothing and discussions and events, that fans will be embracing to celebrate this mathematical symbol.
Set a reminder to buy online when Key Lime Tau stock is released on June 28th, or pop along to one of the following to pick up a bottle:
Hawkshead Brewery Beer Hall, Staveley – only place to have the cask version
Tweedies Bar, Grasmere
Petersgate Tap, Stockport
Port Street Beer House, MCR
Café Beermoth, MCR
North Bar, Leeds
Warhammer, Leeds
Raynville Superstore, Leeds
Black Heart, Camden
Jolly Butchers, London
Beer & Burger, Willesden
Great Northern Railway, LDN
Birghton Beer Dispensery
Fuggles, Tunbridge Wells
Fuggles, Tonbridge
Merchant House, Southsea
Ghost Whale, London
Hop Locker, London
Star & Garter, London
Stormbird, London
Beer Shop, London
Tap East, London
Dead Crafty Beer Co, Liverpool
Friends of Ham, Ilkley
The Cellar Bar, Chester
Pursuit of Hoppiness, Exeter
Paper Duck, Birmingham
The Grove, Huddersfield
Wakefield Festival of Beer
Smithfield, Manchester
The Crafty Beeress 