Staying in the realm of Christmas cans we get Jubilant with Avery Brewing.
“Our winter strong ale has a gorgeous mahogany hue, a hint of hazelnuts, and a finish reminiscent of mocha and toffee. No spices, just a perfect blend of five specialty malts.”
Open Mike
I have blogged before about cans that don’t just open a hole in the top of the can but take the whole thing off turning the can into a glass, automatically. When I did, there were none in the L.A. area to buy or test. Now there might be because Mike Hess Brewing has introduced its Open Mike™ beer can.
From their press release, “Open Mike six-packs will be available as early as November 1st wherever Mike Hess beers are sold, including Southern California and the greater Phoenix, Arizona, markets. The first brand to feature the new packaging and Open Mike™ ends will be Habitus®, Double IPA, World Beer Cup gold award-winner in the Rye Beer category.”
I can’t wait to see how this works and report back.
New Labels are Good for You
This image is one of the iconic graphics from the pre-Mad Men age of advertising…..
…and now it is part of a new set of collectible cans from Guinness that celebrate those retro cool designs of the past.
And it won’t have the IPA in it that the craft beer folk seem to loathe for reasons un-related to taste.
Canned Cocktails
Cocktail afficionados, purists and artisans may blanch at the idea of canned drinks, I think it just might work for Ballast Point. I have concerns about how “fresh” they may be even though the press release calls them “shelf stable” which I find a bit disconcerting.
But at a $15.00 four-pack price point, they are super affordable considering how high end the spirits are and being a G&T fan, but not really the best G&T blender makes them even more desirable.
I will skip the Bloody Mary since I can’t stomach tomato juice but the two Rum varietals with cola or ginger look tasty too.
Review – Totally Radler from H.U.B.
Totally Radler, as can be seen from the label on the can, is a 50/50 mix of Hopworks Urban Brewery’s Organic HUB Lager and organic lemon soda. And it clocks in at around 2.6% ABV. I had a Traveler Shandy the previous day to prepare myself. Previous soda (lemonade) beer concoctions had come off as too sweet or too heavily weighted to the soda side and I wanted to see how another example tasted.
That beer was fine. Though it was a little too candied peel strong for me which fought against the sweetness. Totally Radler on the other hand was so much less sugary that at first I was taken aback. It had the same lemon peel / lemon verbena bite to it but then it veered directly into unsweetened lemonade territory. I would call it close to Key Lime pie as well. To me the underlying lager is pretty much masked by that lemon hit.
Totally Radler tastes like an Italian soda. Tart fruit and carbonated bubbles. I liked it but to me it really isn’t beer. It is soda with it’s beer hidden from view
Barrel to Can
If you had told me when I started this blog back in 2009 that a brewery would put rye in a beer, I might have raised an eyebrow. Then putting that rye ale into Rye Whiskey barrels from Leopold Brothers would have made me lean forward. That said barrels are described in a press release as Maryland-style would have made me snicker a bit. Then if you said that the finished beer would be put into cans, well, I would have asked what form of time travel transport you used.
And even today an Upslope Brewing Manhattan Style Rye Ale made to mimic the famous cocktail is an outlier for craft beer. But I sure wish I could get a couple of the 19+oz cans. $10 is a steal for one.
Review – Ride On IPA from Golden Road
Another IPA from the blue building at Golden Road is in cans now, Ride On IPA at 6.4% ABV is supposed to have notes of melon and pine and be perfect for skateboarding. Will I find that, or something else?
Ride On pours a light yellow with a rocky head of foam. The aroma hits me as honeydew melon and spice. So, yeah. The description matches my tastebuds. Additionally there is a hit of grapefruit juice that is almost rubbing alcohol-esque. But that rises and fades pretty quickly. This IPA seems a little more viscous than biting on the tongue. Which is not what I was expecting at all. It is certainly an IPA that is less like most of the market for sure. I would label it as a change of pace IPA.
Book Review – Canned! by Russ Phillips
Canned! Artwork of the Modern American Beer Can really illustrates what a good label and branding can do for a craft beer.
Just go to page 153 to see it. There you will find the first iteration of Dale’s Pale Ale from Oskar Blues. Barely recognizable from what is on shelves today except for the color scheme of blue and red.
That is the strength and weakness of this book. Canning is still young enough to not have a ton of design changes. But those changes that are there chart the growth of craft beer.
Comparing one brewery and their design to another is cool but too many designs are too jokey or too cluttered or the biggest cardinal sin to me, don’t highlight the brewery name enough.
My personal favorites from the book are below:
I almost wish that this was a glossy magazine that appeared quarterly rather than a one-time book. By the time this book was in my hands, more cans and different label designs have been out in the world.
Featured Review – Ultra Gnar Gnar from Base Camp
We turn to Base Camp for beer # 2 in the featured reviews for May. As opposed to many recent hop beers from Session IPA to Imperial have been a lighter shade but Ultra Gnar Gnar pours a near red color with tints of orange to it. Plus for a beer of only 6.7% abv, it has some nice Rorschach lacing on the glass.
The smell is close to apple tree. There is a cider-y undercurrent to this IPA along with a perceptible orange spice tea note. Getting some tannin notes in the flavor along with dried orange peel as well. The bitterness is fairly strong without being oppressive. As it warms up, I get more iced tea on the tongue as well as some grain to toast malt.
It certainly has multiple flavors going on but I wish it had a bit more orange juice to it to balance out the bitterness.
Cans through Time
I don’t normally post graphics. Though there was a time that I would get them e-mailed to me at least once a week. But this timeline of canned beer that I saw on CraftCans has some history behind it. Actual history. Worth checking out…
