Wednesday night, Mill Street Brewpub on Harbour Drive is hosting its first ever beer release party. It’s for a Dunkelweizen they collaborated on with Port Rexton Brewing, and the party will also have a Mac and Cheese bar.

Tickets are $45. In addition to being the first tasters at the tapping of the new beer, you’ll get (in addition to a pint of the collab beer) a pint of Mill Street’s in-house offerings and a pint of Port Rexton’s new IPA. And access to the Mac and Cheese bar.

The collab beer is a brand new recipe from Dan (Mill Street) and Alicia (Port Rexton), and was borne out of Mill Street staff’s visit to Port Rexton Brewing.

“We are big fans of their beers and they love a lot of our stuff,” says Jordan White. “We went out for a bite to eat at Adelaide and talked about beer ideas that we both had for the new year. It was quickly discovered that both breweries wanted to try their hands at a Dunkelweizen.”

They got together on a holiday “day off” (St. Patrick’s Day) and made it happen. Wednesday is the  big public reveal of their effort. Be there or be without a limited time beer. “The collab went very smooth and we are super proud of the end result so far.”

In a nutshell, a Dunkelweizen is darker twist on the Hefeweizen / wheat beer. (Dunkel means dark in German.) They tend to share the banana and clove notes of a hefe, but offer toastier, more chocolatey notes on account of the darker malts in the recipe. They are “shoulder season” beers, offering something between winter’s big, bold ales and summer’s easy-drinking offerings. They’re often highly carbonated with low bitterness, and malt-not-hops forward in taste.

“We brewed a good bit of this beer,” Jordan said. “So it should be around for the month following at the Bier Markt and Mill Street bar, at our retail bar in growlers, and available for any of our accounts to purchase for their taps.”

The event’s mac and cheese bar is also a collaboration of sorts between Bier Markt’s executive chef Emilie Inder and Five Brother’s Cheese. There will be 3 different types of mac and cheese.

Call 383-7070 to book a spot at the event; it runs 6-9 Wednesday night.