The best place to enjoy a good ole’ freshly brewed beer in the Boro’ is Eagle Creek Brewing Company, located in downtown. Locals and tourists alike often visit to tour the brewery and enjoy the live band performances on Friday and Saturday nights.
The brewery itself is state of the art with top of the line, giant, fermenters and an assembly line to quickly package the beer to distribution locations throughout the entire state of Georgia.
Head Brewer, Dustin Wilson, oversees the production and distribution of the beer at Eagle Creek Brewing Company. About six months ago Wilson won an award for his coffee beer at the Great American Beer Festival.
“I’ve been in this business for a long time, as time goes on, you figure out what works and what doesn’t work. I have really learned how to decide what tastes good and what doesn’t,” Wilson said.
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While working at Eagle Creek Brewing Company, the owner of Cake Bakery and Cool Beanz Espresso Bar found out that Wilson knew how to make coffee beer. He thought it would be a great idea to collaborate on a special Imperial IPA to celebrate the first year anniversary of his business. Soon after, they met to discuss different styles of beer.
“David Hoyle, the owner at Cake Bakery and Cool Beanz, was a fan of the coffee beer, so we decided to make a black IPA because it’s a coffee but at the same time you would still get a chocolate and roast flavor from it, which is very similar to the same flavor compounds of coffee,” Wilson said.
To achieve the acquired taste they wanted, they met together to test several different coffee beans collected by the owner of the bakery.
“He ground them up and made a couple of coffee samples. We tried them until we figured out which ones meshed well with the beer we were going to make. And this is actually a cold infused coffee, meaning it’s not roasted or dried out. This is a cold pressed coffee. Nothing hot,” Wilson said.
Wilson is hoping that this special brew will create a buzz throughout the Statesboro area, as well as introduce people to a much different taste than just the average beer or coffee.
“To be in this industry, it really comes down to having a good palette and knowing what your tasting and knowing where the origin of the taste is coming from,” Wilson said.
For right now, the release of the Imperial IPA is a one-time exclusive. Wilson says he is going to see how well it is received at the tasting and based upon the reception there could possibly be a larger distribution of the Imperial IPA.
“Eventually we would like to have large-scale distribution. But for right now, this is a one-time thing. With David being a business owner, it is going to take a lot of his time and a lot of his coffee to really push this to another level,” Wilson said.
The tasting will be held at Eagle Creek Brewery on April 10 at 6 p.m. 
For those who are unable to make it to the tasting, Eagle Creek Brewing Company offers tours and hosts live bands for performances every Friday and Saturday from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The cost is $10 for a souvenir pint glass along with 6 tickets for 6 beers.