An experimental beer laced with "some extra growl" has hit the shelves, as a Wellington brewery gears up to tackle the international stage.

Black Dog Brew Co has teamed up with long-standing coffee maker Havana Coffee Works to create a new beer called Brewtus Stout.

The beer is part of a limited edition range, which will only be available for three months at a time. The beer first went on sale on June 7.

Black Dog "top dog" Adrian Klemp said the company was founded to produce "interesting and intrepid brews that challenged the status quo".

"Some will work, some won't, but if we don't try, we'll never know. That is the beauty of our experimental brews."

Havana Coffee Works founder Geoff Marsland said the limited edition Brewtus Stout was "far from the runt of the litter".

"It is a rich and silky stout, dry-hopped with a hefty bag of crushed coffee beans straight from Bolivia and a good dose of Cascade hops to add some extra growl."

Black Dog Brew Co was founded in 2011, and was initially set up by beer giant DB Brewery.

Three craft brewers started by brewing once a month, and as demand grew it became once a fortnight. Now, it is once a week. 

Black Dog Brew Co employs seven staff, including brewers and bar staff.

Klemp said during the past six years, the main challenge for the company had been upscaling small, boutique batches from 600 litres to 7000L or 50,000L.

"As you can imagine, it's generally difficult to recreate the same recipe from a small batch of beer that we do here at the Blair St brewery and then upscale it to 20,000L.

"But it's not as simple as multiplying a recipe and getting the same result out of a different kit. It takes a lot of hard work, monitoring, and testing with brewery managers from other sites," he said.

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