Crosby's Kitchen & CocktailBlue Corn Lager

It seems natural for Iowa-based Confluence to offer a corn-based brew. But while Iowa corn makes great bourbon, it’s not so good for beer. So we use open-pollinated, heritage organic blue corn grown in New Mexico. First we perform a cereal mash by boiling the milled blue corn to expose the starches. The resulting purple porridge is then mashed conventionally with barley malt causing the color to magically disappear and creating a super sweet, almost clear wort. The entire wort is boiled and we add enough Saaz hops for bittering without overwhelming the blue corn flavor. It’s then fermented with German lager yeast and lagered as normal. The resulting beer is refreshing on warm days, yet big for its style and with higher alcohol content than the classic American pilsner.