Round Corner Brewing have today launched a brand-new collaboration beer brewed with Braybrooke Beer Co called LE Dream, a 5.0% Kölsch.

With both breweries based a mere 26 miles apart, they have formed a strong friendship over the past 12 months through the love of brewing, beer and where they’re based, within the LE postcode of Leicestershire.

After brewing their first beer together, a smoked lager, back in February 2023 at the home of Braybrooke in Market Harborough, it was time for a return leg at Round Corner Brewing’s home in Melton Mowbray.

At the beginning of July, Braybrooke joined the Round Corner Brewing team to create the perfect beer to brew together, a Kölsch. With Braybrooke’s love for delicious lagers and Round Corner Brewing’s award-winning ales, this hybrid beer is fermented like an ale and matured like a lager.

This delicate ale is straw golden in colour and has been cold matured; reminiscent of a lager but with Kölsch yeast providing esters that give a gentle fruitiness and aromas of wine gums. Hallertau Mittlefruh and Blanc are blended to add subtle floral and chardonnay like aromatics.

Named after the beginning of the postcode which both breweries boast – LE – both breweries are proud of the area of the country they hail from while brewing a Kölsch together, it’s the LE Dream.

Round Corner Brewing’s Co-Founder and Director, Colin Paige said: “We’ve been searching for the right opportunity to brew a Kölsch for some time here at Round Corner Brewing and this return leg collaboration with our friends at Braybrooke seemed like the perfect opportunity. We had great fun on the brew day with Alexis and Ben at Braybrooke, who brewed this beer with our brewer Tim.

“This beer is an often misunderstood style. Kölschs are ales, but cold fermented, however not any ale yeast will do. Specific Kölsch or altbier yeasts give the right fruity esters and Chardonnay-like wine characters. We’ve used a German Kölsch yeast to produce a clean and sessionable beer that has delivered rhubarb and black wine gum flavours, the character I look for in all Kölschs.

“We’ve fermented this beer at a cool 14c which allows the yeast esters to come through but not overwhelm the beer. LE Dream is soft and gentle, and made for drinking.”

Braybrooke Beer Co’s Head Brewer, Alexis Inglis-Arkell said: “At Braybrooke we’ve always been considering our brewery, and breweries in general, as a common ground for sharing ideas with other like-minded people and creating a solid community around craft beers. This is exactly what we’ve been doing with our good friends and neighbours at Round Corner Brewing in their fantastic headquarters in Melton Mowbray.

“With this second collaboration we have had the chance to explore an ancient German beer style from Cologne – Kölsch -, which can be seen as a hybrid of ale and lager; if you ask us, this is a good and refreshing compromise between our two ways of brewing. LE Dream is just how we intend a beer collab: a creative way to get the best out of both sides.”