(Brooklyn, NY) – Garrett Oliver of The Brooklyn Brewery revealed last week on Beer Sessions Radio that he made a recent trip to Brazil for a beer collaboration.

Oliver brewed a saison with Cervejaria Wäls. To make the beer, they first went into the fields and cut 700 kilos of sugar cane. They transferred it to the brewery where they crushed it straight into the kettle. The sugar cane makes up 15% of the sugars in the beer. Oliver originally got the idea while visiting St. Somewhere Brewery in Florida.

The beer will be called Saison Caipira (translates roughly to ‘country bumpkin’) and a limited amount will be imported only for special events.

Other notes from Oliver:

– the brewery received eight new 200-barrel fermenters and hired four new brewers in the past week

– the brewery is now in 17 countries and every member of the brewing team will be doing an overseas project in the next year

– he shares his disdain for the phrase, ‘Black IPA,’ saying ‘black is not pale’ and is pleased to see others abandoning it and adopting ‘black ale’ / interesting discussion on nomenclature in beer names

– there’s also some discussion on homebrewing on the episode