This is a collaboration we did with Epic Beer of Auckland, New Zealand in 2010.

The beer is a Tamarillo & Pohutakawa Smoked Porter - A collaboration, a Festive brew and the world's first tree tomato beer. A sorta-Porter fermented with New Zealand grown Tamarillos, which were smoked using wood chips from the sacred Pohutakawa tree (also know as the NZ Christmas tree).

Portamarillo was brewed with five types of malt (pale ale, crystal, chocolate, black, and roast barley), New Zealand Southern Cross hops, New Zealand Tamarillo fruits smoked over native Pohutukawa wood.

For more on some aspects of the beer, visit Epic's Portamarillo page.

For the collaboration, Luke Nichols of Epic came to Dogfish in June of 2010 for the intial test batch (we brewed it in our Rehoboth Beach, DE brewpub).

Then, in August of 2010, Sam travelled to New Zealand for the annual Beervana event. While there, Sam and Luke brewed the first commerical batch of Portamarillo together in Auckland.

In November of 2010, Epic Beer released the first commerical batch of Portamarillo to the New Zealand beer market.

Epic Beer is hoping to ship Portamarillo to the US in 2011 (pending approvals, shipping, etc...)!