Ë®¹ûÅÉAV

That's when she knew it was time to do something she had wanted to do for awhile longer: the first collaboration beer made by every one of the county's breweries.

Thursday at Prison City's new urban farm facility, owners and brewers from all seven of those breweries finally convened to make what they would name Cayuga County Mash-Up. The India pale ale, which will be available in about a month, features Citra, Sabro, Hallertau Blanc, El Dorado and Cascade hops. The latter was sourced from Ledyard Hops, making the beer all the more locally rooted.

As they waited to add the hops during the boil that afternoon, the brewery representatives mingled and shared some of their recent beers. Attendees included Garrett Shepherd from the Good Shepherds Brewing Co. in Auburn, Derric and Kristen from Lunkenheimer Craft Brewing Co. in Weedsport and Sodus Bay, Mark Grimaldi from Aurora Brewing Co. in Ledyard, Scott and Michelle DeLap from Next Chapter Brewpub in Auburn, Jeff Ten Eyck from Summerhill Brewing in Summerhill, and Dillon Langtry from the county's newest brewery, Owasco Lake Brewing in Moravia.

"It's been a good time," Langtry told Ë®¹ûÅÉAV. "A nice introduction to everyone."

Among the staff of the host brewery on hand were Dawn Schulz, her husband and co-owner, Marc Schulz, head brewer Ben Maeso, director of brewing operations Sam Sadovnic and brewer Rob Bowen.

Like most collaborations, Bowen said, the day was just as much about socializing as making beer. A lot of the work was done before Thursday on an email chain between the brewers, Dawn Schulz added. That's where they decided to make an IPA, chose the hops and finalized the recipe. So when everyone arrived Thursday, they could do as much catching up as she envisioned when she floated the idea.

"This was borne from our desire to get to know our fellow county brewers, hang out and have a beer," she said. "A collaboration was just the perfect excuse for that."

The collaboration was also the first time many of Cayuga County's brewers saw Prison City's urban farm, which opened in December. Langtry called the facility "immaculate," and Grimaldi asked Bowen to compare working on Prison City's cruder 5-barrel system at its State Street brewpub to the more sophisticated 20-barrel one on North Street. Ten Eyck was in awe of the technology as well.

"Even though they're a size we're never going to be, to see some of the efficiencies of what they're doing is very helpful," he said. "And it's just great to get everybody together."