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.